13 May 2019

Tsodilo residents have been advised to protect the Tsodilo Hills from veld fires which are common during winter.

Tsodilo is a UNESCO world heritage site located in north-western Botswana. 

It gained its world heritage listing in 2001 because of its unique religious and spiritual significance to the local people as well as its unique record of human settlement over many ages. It also has over 4 500 rock paintings.

Okavango District commissioner, Mr Thabang Waloka appealed to the community recently during an interaction session with public servants, saying it was important for residents to guard their treasure against bush fires and ensure they managed them well.

Failure to protect the site, he said, would result in fire destroying the beauty of the hill and impacting negatively on tourism. He appreciated that their village was prone to bush fires, but requested them to avoid unnecessary burnings.

Meanwhile, Tsodilo Development Trust manager, Ms Nxisae Kiema has decried the lack of business, stating that the trust was unable to make better profits despite having the most beautiful heritage site.

The trust, she said, relied more on entrance fees to the site and camping activities. She said  the little they accumulated was channeled to employees’ wages and bills.

She said this year the money was coming at a snails pace as compared to last year, and that they had been forced to stop some of the employees’ services.

When she took over as the manager, she explained that they had P7 000 in their account, and that they could not pay employees’ wages or renew some contracts because they had an outstanding balance of P13 700 for payments.

Ms Kiema revealed that they stopped the services of a cleaner, receptionist and a borehole pumper. 

She noted that some community members volunteered to assist the board and they recruited tirelo setshaba officers.

The trust has also stopped the selling of hand-made crafts because they were not making profits as expected. The trust manager stated that the craft centre had turned into a white elephant and that community members were selling in isolation.

Ms Kiema said it was worrisome as they did not want to work as a team as some felt it was far from tourists, and that some members of the community had relocated to the museum to sell to tourists in transit to the hill.

In addition, she stated that they were pinning their hopes on the upcoming Tsodilo Challenge Walk scheduled for September.

The initiative is a brainchild of UNDP through its sustainable land management project (SLM), and the main objective of the challenge is to grow tourism and ensure communities gained meaningfully and their livelihoods improved.

The village trust has made an agreement with Jwaneng Desert Bush Walk to collaborate in the organisation of the event.

After the race, the trust hosted a cultural festival night which attracted groups from all villages affiliated to the trust to showcase their unique cultural activities.

Ms Kiema said last year they managed to generate over P45 000 from the challenge, and believed that this year they would make a killing as they were expecting more people to take part.

She said they had already started preparations for the challenge, and believed this year everything would be improved and done perfectly. ENDS