07 Feb 2021

Members of Parliament on Friday debated a motion tabled by Kgalagadi South MP, Mr Sam Brooks.

It called on the house to request government to extend communal areas into wildlife management areas (WMAs).

The motion requested that these extensions of land should be used to create land for youth and small-scale farmers to expand the agricultural sector.

The Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services, Mr Kefentse Mzwinila, said while there was need to supplement communal grazing land, it was also important to recognise other important forms of land use.

He said WMAs were created as part of a national land use planning exercise, which commenced with the Tribal Grazing Land Policy of the 1970s, and the promulgation of the Wildlife and Conservation Policy of 1986.

Mr Mzwinila said his ministry revised the national land use map in March 2009 with the proposal to convert parts of the WMAs to communal areas since that was one of the popular views expressed by communities during extensive consultations.

However, he said during the time of the review, the ministry responsible for natural resource management had indicated that the encroachment of communal grazing areas into WMAs would cause loss of vital animal migratory corridors and access to important pans, undermining the viability of the wildlife population.

Rather, the suggestion had been for communities to be supported to take advantage of the tourism potential of WMAs in their periphery.

Mr Mzwinila said concessions and compromises would have to be made on a case-by-case basis, and the proposed expansion would not be tenable in all areas across the country, given the environmental and ecological dynamics and conflicting land use needs.

Vice President, Mr Slumber Tsogwane said consideration should be given to not only WMAs, but also state land; areas that during the colonial era were known as crown land, which he said could be converted to tribal land.

Mr Tsogwane, who is also the Boteti West MP, said Boteti Sub-district was located close to both the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) and the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, which had led to a scarcity of agricultural land in the area.

He also said national parks should also be well managed to promote tourism and to avoid human-wildlife conflict. Mr Tsogwane said some abandoned state owned land such as static Artificial Insemination (AI) camps could be freed to create farming land particularly for the youth.

But, Mr Tsogwane cautioned that such extension of agricultural land encroaching into WMAs could not be practical everywhere across the country.

Lentsweletau-Mmopane legislator, Ms Nnaniki Makwinja pointed out that the villages in the periphery of Gaborone struggled with the shortage of land particularly after agricultural land was taken to expand residential land.

Messrs Dumelang Saleshando, Friction Leuwe, Paulson Majaga, Oabile Ragoeng and Ms Ms Talitha Monnakgotla also took turns to voice their support of the motion.

Jwaneng-Mabutsane MP, Mr Mephato Reatile and Selebi Phikwe East representative, Mr Kgoberego Nkawana, were the only ones who opposed the motion.

Mr Reatile said the creation of large-scale commercial farms produced an artificial shortage of communal land and commercial farmers were likely to continue benefiting from the agricultural land extensions, to the exclusion of the poor.

Mr Nkawana pointed out that the country’s land tenure demarcations had been done after careful consideration to protect both wildlife and the farming community.

Mr Nkawana said adopting the motion could exacerbate incidences of human-wildlife conflict. Since the human population was continuously growing, Mr Nkawana said the appetite for taking over other forms of land use for agricultural purposes would grow to the disadvantage of other economically important activities such as tourism.

He said instead, there was a need to modernize the country’s farming to ensure better use of existing agricultural land. ends