22 Jun 2023

Drought and desertification are the two major environmental challenges for Botswana that leads to land degradation. Forestry and Range Resources 

Speaking in Francistown on Monday at a one-day stakeholders’ consultative workshop to develop a land restoration strategy for Botswana, Specialist at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Mr Lesika Basalumi said in addition to the two foremost factors, were soil erosion, deforestation and veld fires.

Mr Basalumi explained that land degradation was putting a major strain on Botswana’s arable lands and pastures, which were critical for food security. 

He advised that land degradation impacted on food production, livelihoods, and the production and provision of other ecosystem, goods and services.

He said since the Kalahari Desert covered a significant surface area of Botswana, land degradation in the northern part of the country, where most of the country’s farming was practiced, could pose a threat to national food security. 

Mr Basalumi indicated that it was against this background that in aiming for land degradation neutrality, it had been proposed to stem the loss of land resources globally.

“The overall objective of this project is to address land degradation in a holistic and realistic manner by establishing baseline information upon which appropriate interventions can be prioritised and implemented,” he explained.

He told the participants  that one of the outputs under the project was to develop a land restoration strategy and that the process required the engagement of various stakeholders to identify landscape restoration opportunities and assessment of key success factors for the development and implementation of restoration activities. ENDS