Introduction
As Africa’s oldest multiparty democracy, the Republic of Botswana in southern Africa has long been viewed as a country with a superb human rights record (Samatar, Reference Samatar1999). However, in the past four decades, the actions of the Botswana Government involving the country’s Indigenous minorities has called into question this reputation (Barume, Reference Barume2014; Ndahinda, Reference Ndahinda2011; Nyati-Ramahobo, Reference Nyati-Ramahobo2009; Saugestad, Reference Saugestad2001). Botswana has a complex history when it comes to the recognition of Indigenous Peoples, San and Bakgalagadi, and their rights to their ancestral territories.
At the time of Botswana’s independence on September 30, 1966, there was only one place in the country where San (Bushmen) and Bakgalagadi had constitutionally recognized land rights: the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). In 1997 and 2002, however, the residents of the Central Kalahari were involuntarily relocated to areas outside of the CKGR by the Botswana Government. Some of the former residents were only able to return to the Central Kalahari after a two-and-a-half-year-long legal battle in the country’s High Court, the longest and most expensive litigation case in the nation’s history (Ng’ong’ola, Reference Ng’ong’ola2007; Sapignoli, Reference Sapignoli2017; Zips-Mairitsch, Reference Zips-Mairitsch2013). Some analysts have seen the situation in Botswana as an example of the “judicialization of African politics” (Brett, Reference Brett2018; Sapignoli, Reference Sapignoli2018).
As a landlocked country, Botswana is 581,730 square kilometers in size, roughly the size of Kenya. It is culturally diverse, supporting some thirty-six different ethnic groups. Botswana endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in September 2007. However, the country raised objections to an earlier draft of the Declaration at a meeting in late 2006 of the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and at a meeting of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union in January 2007 (see African Group of States, 2006; African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, 2007). The concerns raised by Botswana, Namibia, and the other African states included the following: (1) the definition of Indigenous Peoples, (2) the issue of self-determination, (3) the issue of land ownership and the exploitation of resources, (4) the establishment of distinct political and economic institutions, and (5) the issue of national and territorial integrity (African Group of States, 2006; Barume, Reference Barume, Charters and Stavenhagen2009). These concerns became a major topic of discussion in Botswana, and after endorsing the UNDRIP, efforts were made by various non-government organizations (NGOs) and the United Nations to distribute copies of the UNDRIP to people in both urban and rural communities. While Botswana endorsed the UNDRIP in September 2007, it has not been ratified in the Botswana Parliament. However, the UNDRIP has been used by San advocacy groups at the community level to familiarize them with human rights principles, including land rights.
While Botswana does not recognize its 60,000-plus San peoples as “Indigenous,” holding instead that all citizens of the country are Indigenous, it does have a Remote Area Development Program with the target population being all those people living in remote parts of the country, which includes San peoples (Republic of Botswana, 2009). It also has an “Affirmative Action Framework” aimed at assisting people in what are known as “remote area communities,” of which there are seventy-three at present (Ludick, Reference Ludick2018; Republic of Botswana, 2014) (see Figure 10.1). The problem for San in these settlements, however, is that people there do not have officially recognized land tenure rights. The remote area settlements are open to anyone who wants to come and live there.
Remote area communities in Botswana
Figure 10.1 Long description
The map of Botswana marks remote area settlements like Tsodilo, Xae Xae, Dobe, Qwangwa, and Grootlaagte in the northwest. Regions like Chobe national park, and Nxai Pan national park are in the northeast, the Central Kalahari game reserve is in central Botswana with the Khutse game reserve just south of it, and the Kgalagadi Gemsbok transfrontier park is in the southwest. The central Kalahari game reserve is the region with constitutionally recognised land rights, and is larger compared to the other reserves. The neighboring countries, like Namibia to the west, Angola, Zambia to the north, Zimbabwe to the east, and South Africa to the south, are also indicated.
Historically, San have faced dispossession as a result of several processes: (1) pre-colonial incursions of other groups, most of them agropastoralists over the past 2,000 years, who incorporated San into their social and economic systems, and denied them land rights; (2) the granting of land by the colonial administration to people of European backgrounds in the form of freehold ranches and farms; (3) the introduction of land reform programs in the post-colonial period (1966–present); and (4) the taking of land for mines, roads, trek routes, and protected areas.
This chapter considers two questions: (1) What are the mechanisms for recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ land rights in Botswana? (2) How have these mechanisms and rights performed in practice? The balance of this chapter examines the ways in which the Government of Botswana has dealt with the land rights of San peoples, and then assesses the strategies employed by San and their supporters to get their land rights recognized.
A Brief History of San Dispossession
San and their ancestors resided in the Kalahari Desert region of Botswana for thousands of years. San moved about the landscape from one resource patch to another, depending on resource type and density, numbers of people in each group, and season (Barnard, Reference Barnard1992; Silberbauer, Reference Silberbauer1981; Tanaka, Reference Tanaka1980). Virtually all San groups claimed rights to their territories, or areas they recognized as belonging to them, and had de facto rights of long-term occupancy and use (Barnard, Reference Barnard1992; Silberbauer, Reference Silberbauer1981; Tanaka, Reference Tanaka2014). San territorial units are known as a nong (Naro), gu (G/ui), g!u (G//ana), n//olli (!Xõó), and a n!ore (ǂX’ao-||’aen).
San were pressed into service as herders and field hands when agropastoralists moved into the Kalahari some 2,000 years ago. They had to seek permission from traditional authorities of other groups if they wanted land for residential, agricultural, or other purposes (Hitchcock, Reference Hitchcock1980; Schapera, Reference Schapera1938, Reference Schapera1943). As Schapera (Reference Schapera1953, p. 37) pointed out:
In the Western tribes, there was formerly also a class of “serfs” (malata) consisting mainly of Sarwa and Kgalagadi but also (in the north) of Pedi and Koba. These people, found in the country occupied by the Tswana, were parceled out in local groups among the chiefs and other leading tribesmen. They and their families were permanently attached to the families of their masters, to whom they paid special tribute and whom they served in various menial capacities; such property as they acquired was at their master’s disposal.
Over time, the servile status of San and Bakgalagadi was transformed, with stipulations by Tswana chiefs and by the Bechuanaland Protectorate authorities who declared slavery illegal in the 1930s (Datta & Murray, Reference Datta, Murray, Holm and Molutsi1989; Schapera, Reference Schapera1970).
The Colonial Period
The British sought to influence the positions of the Tswana vis-à-vis San in five ways. First, the British Protectorate and British government officials made proclamations in public meetings in 1926 and 1936 that slavery was illegal (Miers & Crowder, Reference Miers, Crowder, Miers and Roberts1988). Second, in the early 1930s, the British Government called for an investigation into Tswana slavery (Tagart, Reference Tagart1933). Third, individuals who mistreated San were investigated and tried in local courts. Fourth, reports were sent to the British High Commissioner in Cape Town regarding persistent beatings, torture and murder, and enslavement of San in Bechuanaland. Fifth, individual Bechuanaland Protectorate officials sought to assist San communities, setting aside land for San in such places as Letlhakane in the Ngwato District, and Olifonts Kloof in Ghanzi District. It should be noted, however, that these resettlement sites did not last very long (Silberbauer, Reference Silberbauer1981).
The London Missionary Society and individual clergymen and clergywomen also sought to improve the lives of San under the Tswana during the British Protectorate (see the London Missionary Society, 1935). There were also individual anthropologists who sought to get better treatment for San through their reports, two examples being Schapera (Reference Schapera1939) and Silberbauer (Reference Silberbauer1965). Chiefs themselves also sought to get better treatment of San through proclamations, visits to officials in England, and efforts to resolve disputes between individual San and those who had employed them (Schapera, Reference Schapera1970). Despite all these efforts, San felt that they were worse off at the end of the British colonial period than they were at the beginning (Gulbrandsen, Reference Gulbrandsen2012).
The Constitutional Republic
At Independence on September 30, 1966, Botswana’s new constitution addressed the land and resource rights of the country’s citizens (Republic of Botswana, 1966). The introduction of a Tribal Land Act (1968), which took effect in 1970, removed power for land away from the chiefs and gave it to district land boards (Republic of Botswana, 1968). The introduction of a land reform program, the Tribal Grazing Land Policy (TGLP) in 1975, guaranteed that every Motswana (citizen) had the right to enough land to meet their needs (Republic of Botswana, 1975).
Today, Botswana is made up of three kinds of land: freehold (private), state land, and communal (tribal land). The rough breakdown is 5.7 percent freehold, 17.4 percent state land (including parks and reserves and national monuments), and 29.8 percent (or 173,432 km2) communal (see Table 10.1). The tenure in tribal (communal) areas became alienable over time after the introduction of the Tribal Land Act, which went into effect in 1970. This alienability makes the Botswana case distinct from many other jurisdictions around the world (see the chapters from Australia and Canada for example).
Table 10.1 Long description
The table gives land zoning data for Botswana in 4 columns namely, the type of land, land zoning category, amount of land, and the percentage share of the country from left to right in order. The land distribution in the country totals to 581,720 square kilometers. Tribal land is the largest. The row-wise details for 4 types of land, namely, freehold land, state land, and tribal land are as follows.
For freehold farms under freehold land, the corresponding values are 32,970 square kilometers, and 5.7%.
For parks and reserves under State land, the corresponding values are 101,535 square kilometers, and 17.4%.
For other State lands, the corresponding values are 32,455 square kilometers, and 5.6%.
For communal tribal land, the corresponding values are 173,432 square kilometers, and 29.8%.
For commercial tribal land, the corresponding values are 51,094 square kilometers, and 8.8%.
For wildlife management areas under the tribal land, the corresponding values are 129,450 square kilometers, and 22.2%.
For leasehold ranches under the tribal land, the corresponding values are 3,351 square kilometers, and 0.6%.
For Remote area Dweller settlements under the tribal land, the corresponding values are 3,523 square kilometers, and 0.6%.
For other tribal land, the corresponding values are 53,910 square kilometers, and 9.3%.
The total land area is 581,720 square kilometers totalling to 100% share of the country.
Data obtained from the Ministry of Lands and Housing, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Government of Botswana. The category “other” includes land in towns and land set aside for government purposes, such as trek routes and quarantine camps for livestock.
The majority of San peoples reside in communal areas. The land use planning process introduced by the TGLP resulted in District Councils and Land Boards dividing tribal land up into subcategories, including commercial leasehold ranching zones, reserve areas (set aside for the future), and communal lands (Table 10.1). As it worked out, the commercial leasehold ranching zones became the primary focus of the District Councils and Land Boards, and what was then the Ministry of Local Government and Lands (Peters, Reference Peters1994; Hitchcock & Sapignoli, Reference Hitchcock, Sapignoli, Fleming and Manning2019; Wily, Reference Wily1979, Reference Wily1981). Subsequent land use zoning efforts resulted in the setting aside of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), multiple-use zones in which wildlife-related land uses were supposed to receive priority (Republic of Botswana, 1986). Over time, the land boards allocated water points for domestic animals not only in the communal and leasehold areas, but also in the WMAs, which shifted land use toward livestock production (Adams et al., Reference Adams, Kalabamu and White2003; Cullis & Watson, Reference Cullis and Watson2005; Keeping et al., Reference Keeping, Kashe, Langwane, Sebati, Molese, Gielen, Keitsile-Barungwi, Xhukwe and Nate2019). In addition, community members in the settlements in WMAs engaged in small-scale livestock production and initiated gardening and tourism projects, which transformed local landscapes (Cadger & Keep, Reference Cadger and Keep2013; Hitchcock, Reference Hitchcock2021).
A Community-Based Natural Resource Program was introduced in 1990 (Republic of Botswana, 1990), which gave communities rights over wildlife if they formed community trusts – management bodies that had a constitution, land use plan, and formal structure (Rihoy & Maguranyanga, Reference Rihoy, Maguranyanga and Nelson2010). The communities had the option of leasing out rights to wildlife to private companies or keeping the wildlife quota for themselves and engaging in subsistence and tourism. By 2014, there were over 180 community trusts in the ten districts of the country. It is important to note that the community trusts had rights over wildlife but no rights to wild plant resources, grazing, or water in these areas. They also did not have de jure land rights or sub-surface rights.
Community trusts had management councils that were similar to traditional San community leadership systems. The difference is that officers in community trusts were elected by community members, while San leaders usually arose from within local bands based on their personal qualities, knowledge of San customs, even-handedness in dealing with others, and awareness of the natural resources and important places in their areas.
A countrywide hunting ban declared by the Botswana Government (Republic of Botswana, 2014) led to a shift from community management to private company management in the community trust areas. Many of the communities that had community trusts in 2014 found that wildlife rights and benefits from tourism were done away with. In community trusts in the North West District, for example, tourism benefits flowed to private safari tourism companies (Joseph Mbaiwa, personal communication, 2019; Mbaiwa, Reference Mbaiwa2017, Reference Mbaiwa2018). The rights to tourism and to hunting became a key focal point of debate in the lead-up to the 2019 elections. With the election of Mokgweetsi Masisi, moves were made toward opening up hunting, particularly to foreign safari hunters. No guarantees were provided by the new government for subsistence hunting rights for citizens dependent on wild fauna and flora.
The introduction of a new national land policy in Botswana in 2015 (Republic of Botswana, 2015) led to a trend toward privatization of tribal lands and a land rush into communal and wildlife management areas (Isaacs & Manatsha, Reference Isaacs and Manatsha2016). The only places that did not experience this land rush were protected areas such as the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and Chobe National Park, and lands that were already in the hands of people with leasehold rights. The Central Kalahari Game Reserve was the only area set aside purposely for San in 1961, in this case to protect the modus vivendi of the people residing there, and at the same time conserve flora and fauna (Silberbauer, Reference Silberbauer2012).
Efforts to Secure Land Rights for San
Many of the efforts to secure land rights for San consisted of setting up settlements in which San could reside and pursue their livelihoods, particularly in the 1930s, such as the case of Olifants Kloof, in what is now the Ghanzi District, and one in the Letlhakane area of the Ngwato (Central) District (Silberbauer, Reference Silberbauer1981). Faith-based institutions established mission stations aimed at assisting San, as seen, for example, at D’Kar in Ghanzi District in 1973 and Ka/Gae in Ghanzi District in 1975–76. There are only two places where San own their own land in Botswana (i.e., they have de jure [legal] tenure rights). These are D’Kar, a 3,000-hectare community in central Ghanzi District, north of Ghanzi Township, which belongs to a church (originally, the Gereformeerde Church, the Dutch Reformed Church in Namibia); and the Dqae Qare Game Farm in Ghanzi District, a 7,500-hectare freehold farm that is now owned by a Naro San community trust, the D’Kar Trust (Bollig et al., Reference Bollig, Hitchcock, Nduku and Reynders2000).
An important effort to promote San land rights was led by Elizabeth Alden Wily, who persuaded the government to establish a Bushmen Development Program (BDP) in the Ministry of Local Government and Lands in Gaborone in 1973 (see Wily, Reference Wily1979). This program initially supported San, but subsequently expanded to cover all people in remote areas living outside of government-recognized settlements (Gulbrandsen et al., Reference Gulbrandsen, Karlsen and Lexow1986). In the 1970s and 1980s, communal service centers were established in commercial ranching areas, and people from the ranches were moved into them. In those service centers, the residents were provided with water, social infrastructure (schools, health posts), community centers, and meeting places (dikgotla) where community members could meet with government officials and village headmen and headwomen (Hitchcock, Reference Hitchcock1988).
San Land Rights in Ghanzi District
One of the strategies employed by the BDP was to establish a set of resettlement sites for San living in the Ghanzi Farms, or in the town of Ghanzi, and who for all intents and purposes were landless (Wily, Reference Wily1982). The original plan was to establish four resettlement localities in Ghanzi District: East Hanahai, West Hanahai, Rooibrak, and Groot Laagte (see Figure 10.2 for a map of Ghanzi District). East and West Hanahai were made up primarily of Naro San and some G/ui and G//ana. Groot Laagte in the northern part of the district contained primarily Ju/’hoan-speaking ǂX’ao-||’aen. Rooibrak, which did not become a resettlement site because it lacked sufficient water to sustain the population, and would have supported Naro, as well as some G/ui and G//ana.
Map of Ghanzi District and CKGR
Figure 10.2 Long description
In the map, the Central Kalahari game reserve lies to the east of Ghanzi district. The map marks farms, towns, rivers, roads, and former paths between towns in Ghanzi. The farms include Ghanzi farms in the north, the Xanagas farms in the west, and the Noojane farms in the southwest. The central Kalahari game reserve is shown to the right of the Ghanzi region, which is comparatively larger. Ghanzi, Kuke, Xanagas, Mamuno, and Dongdong are some towns located in the farms. Rivers flow through the Okwa and Buitsavango valleys in the central region. The former paths include one between towns D'kar and Xade in northern Ghanzi and the Kalahari game reserve, respectively, and another between Dongdong and Charles Hill in western Ghanzi.
The implementation of the Ghanzi settlement schemes did not go as smoothly as hoped. As soon as the resettlement sites were designated, people from other groups began to move into them with their livestock. A second problem related to the size of the area to be allocated. While San and their supporters believed that the settlement areas should be large enough to accommodate foraging, residence, arable agriculture, and livestock raising, along with sufficient room for growth of human and livestock populations, the Ghanzi District Council decided to allocate blocks of land 20 by 20 kilometers in size (400 square kilometers) for the settlements (Hitchcock, Reference Hitchcock1988; Wily, Reference Wily1979, Reference Wily1982). These areas turned out to be too small to sustain people through hunting and gathering. In many of the settlements, much of the wildlife and wild plant resources were exploited heavily both by residents of the settlements and outsiders. Agriculture and livestock keeping expanded as wild resources declined, which affected livelihoods in the settlements.
Ghanzi District, it turns out, is an important district to examine for a variety of reasons. First, it is a large district, 117,910 square kilometers, and it lies in the western Kalahari Desert region of Botswana, an area with a high-water table that attracted livestock keepers and settlers (Russell & Russell, Reference Russel and Russell1979). Second, it is the district with the highest percentage of San. Third, Ghanzi contains the most diverse types of land, from freehold farms to leasehold ranches, and from communal land to WMAs (see Table 10.2, see Ghanzi District Development Plan 2009). There are also some subcategories of land, including areas set aside as leasehold (long-term leases for commercial land) and land designated for specialized purposes (e.g., land for trek routes and veterinary camps).
Table 10.2 Long description
The table depicts land zoning categories. It consists of three columns, land category in the first column with subsequent values for area and percentage of district.
For communal area, mixed farming, grazing, and arable area, the corresponding values are 17,619 square kilometers, and 14.94%.
For communal area, remote area dwellers settlements, the corresponding values are 2,415 square kilometers, and 2.05%.
For communal area, Ghanzi township, the corresponding values are 133 square kilometers, and 0.11%.
For communal area, miscellaneous land, the corresponding values are 973 square kilometers, and 0.83%.
For freehold and leasehold land, Ghanzi freehold block, the corresponding values are 10,480 square kilometers, and 8.88%.
For freehold and leasehold land, Xanagas freehold block, the corresponding values are 1,374 square kilometers, and 1.14%.
For freehold and leasehold Llnd, Ncojane leasehold farms, the corresponding values are 1,664 square kilometers, and 1.41%.
For freehold and leasehold land, state land extension farms, the corresponding values are 3,784 square kilometers, and 3.2%.
For freehold and leasehold land, Kuke state land leasehold farms, the corresponding values are 430 square kilometers, and 0.36%.
For freehold and leasehold land, A I camp, veterinary services, the corresponding values are 15 square kilometers, and 0.001%.
For commercial areas on tribal land, Makunda F D A ranches, the corresponding values are 444 square kilometers, and 0.37%.
For commercial areas on tribal land S E Ghanzi S D A ranches, the corresponding values are 924 square kilometers, and 0.78%.
For wildlife management areas, Groot Laagte W M A, the corresponding values are 3,908 square kilometers, and 3.31%.
For wildlife management areas, Mallo-a-Phuduhudu W M A, the corresponding values are 8,816 square kilometers, and 7.47%.
For wildlife management areas, Okwa W M A, the corresponding values are 13,618 square kilometers, and 11.55%.
For conservation area, central Kalahari game reserve, the corresponding values are 52,313 square kilometers, and 44.36%.
For total, the corresponding values are 117,910 square kilometers, and 100%.
Note: Data obtained from the Ghanzi District Council. The abbreviations used here are as follows: WMA stands for Wildlife Management Area, FDA for First Development Area, SDA for Second Development Area (both TGLP commercial ranch areas), and RAD for Remote Area Dweller.
A sizable proportion of the Ghanzi district consists of a single protected area, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The Central Kalahari is considered state land, and it is overseen by both the Ghanzi District Council and the central government which determines policy in the area. When the game reserve was first declared, European farmers in the Ghanzi Farms opposed the idea, because they feared the reserve would serve as a locale for people to escape farm work and potentially serve as a base for people engaged in livestock theft (personal communication, 1978; Silberbauer, Reference Silberbauer1981). At the time of its declaration, there were 3,000 to 5,000 people who had some form of rights in the CKGR. In the 1980s, however, the Government of Botswana established a commission of inquiry into the status of the CKGR, in part as a response to concerns expressed by ecologists and others that the wildlife and habitats in the reserve were being affected by the presence of large numbers of people who had moved to one of the communities in the reserve, !Xade (Government of Botswana, 1985). The government rejected many of the conclusions of the Central Kalahari Commission, recommending instead that reserve residents be relocated to other places. Several reasons were given for this decision: first, the government wanted to promote wildlife conservation in the reserve; second, the government felt that wildlife-related tourism was an important way to have the state benefit from the resources in the reserve; and third, it was argued that people inside the reserve were no longer living as hunter-gatherers, but instead were keeping livestock and engaging in other “non-traditional” activities inconsistent with wildlife conservation (Ministry of Commerce and Industry, 1986).
The Botswana Government began encouraging people to resettle outside of the reserve by utilizing a number of techniques, some of them coercive. Arrest rates for illegal hunting increased substantially, and people suspected of poaching were sometimes beaten and tortured (Mogwe, Reference Mogwe1992). Food and water deliveries under the government’s Remote Area Development Program slowed, and for some communities in the reserve stopped altogether. In some cases, individuals’ livestock were confiscated. Eventually, two major relocations of reserve residents occurred, one in May–June 1997, where some 1,760 residents were moved from !Xade in the reserve to New Xade outside the western boundaries of the CKGR.
A second set of relocations took place in January–February 2002, when some 2,000 people were loaded on trucks and moved out of the reserve to three resettlement sites: New Xade, Kaudwane in Kweneng District, and Xere in Central District (Sapignoli, Reference Sapignoli2017, Reference Sapignoli2018; Zips-Mairitsch, Reference Zips-Mairitsch2013). At first San and Bakgalagadi in the reserve attempted to negotiate, but these negotiations did not change the government’s mind about the relocations. Then people from the reserve engaged in demonstrations against the government’s decisions. San formed their own non-government organizations aimed at promoting their rights. People from the central Kalahari and support organizations, notably the First People of the Kalahari which had been founded in 1993, engaged in lobbying efforts at the international level to highlight this injustice, traveling to New York, Geneva, and London, among other places. When these efforts failed, the people of the CKGR opted to go to court, filing a legal claim against the government (High Court of Botswana, Affidavit, 2002). While at first the High Court rejected the legal case on the basis of technicalities, eventually the Central Kalahari case was heard in the High Court over the period from July 2004 to December 2006 (see Sapignoli, Reference Sapignoli2018 for a detailed description of this legal case). A third small-scale removal of people from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve occurred in 2005 (Sapignoli, Reference Sapignoli2018).
In December 2006, three High Court judges ruled largely for the applicants, arguing that they (1) had the right to return to the Central Kalahari, and (2) had the right to hunt for subsistence in the reserve (High Court of Botswana, Affidavit, 2006). The day after the judgment was issued, however, the Attorney General of Botswana stated the government was under no obligation to offer services in the reserve, including food and water provision (Molokomme, Reference Molokomme2006). The people of the Central Kalahari went back to court in 2009, seeking a right to water in the Court of Appeal, the country’s highest court. The people of the Central Kalahari won this case, setting an international precedent for Indigenous and other peoples’ right to water (Court of Appeal, Botswana, 2011; Morinville & Rodina, Reference Morinville and Rodina2013; Sapignoli, Reference Sapignoli2018).
From our field work in January 2022, we documented some 350 people in five communities inside the CKGR, earning their livelihoods through gathering wild plant foods, delivering government food, growing crops in small gardens, and maintaining small-livestock (goats and sheep) and poultry production. People in the reserve are still not allowed to hunt, which is unlikely to change despite a promise by the Botswana Government in May 2019. It is important to note here that Botswana is the only country in Africa to have had a nation-wide subsistence hunting law, which lasted from 1979 to 2004. The regulations were specified in the Unified Hunting Regulations of 1979 (Hitchcock et al., Reference Hitchcock and Sapignoli2012; Republic of Botswana, 1979). It should be pointed out, however, that dozens of people were arrested by wildlife officers and police despite their possession of subsistence hunting licenses in the period from 1970 to 2004, calling into question the effectiveness of the licensing system. One of the complaints about this hunting system in late 2021 related to communities’ dissatisfaction with how private safari companies were getting allocations of animals to hunt, but communities were not allowed to benefit from the hunting license allocation.
The Ghanzi District Council and the Residents of Ranyane
The Ghanzi District Council also used heavy-handed tactics against San residents of villages in the communal areas of the district. This can be seen, for example, in the case of Ranyane, a small village consisting of several hundred Naro San, and a few Ngologa Bakgalagadi in the southern part of Ghanzi District. The Ghanzi Council argued in 2010 that the people of Ranyane had to move to another village, Bere, because Ranyane was located in a “wildlife corridor.” Over the next two years the Ghanzi Council engaged in intimidation and harassment of Ranyane residents in an effort to get them to relocate (Gaotlhobogwe, Reference Gaotlhobogwe2012). Eventually, the Council shut down the borehole in Ranyane, leaving residents without water for themselves or their animals. The Council did this despite Botswana government policies, including the National Settlement Policy of 1998 (Republic of Botswana, 1998) which guarantees villages of over 500 people the right to water, and the National Water Policy of 2012 that guarantees all Botswana the right to water (Republic of Botswana, 2012).
In response, the people of Ranyane took the Council to court in 2013 (High Court of Botswana, 2013). The Ranyane people failed in their effort to get the High Court to support them remaining at Ranyane; about half of the population was moved in 2013 to Bere, another Ghanzi remote area settlement. The rest of the people remained at Ranyane and earned a living through foraging and working for livestock owners in the vicinity of the village. In 2018, the remaining residents of Ranyane sought government recognition of their community as an official gazetted settlement (see Baaitse, Reference Baaitse2018; Mokwape, Reference Mokwape2018), but as yet neither the Ghanzi District Council nor the Botswana Government has responded to this request.
The effort to establish three Remote Area Dweller (RAD) ranches in Ghanzi District was also largely unsuccessful. The three farms, designated NK 173 (near West Hanahai), NK 164 (near Chobokwane), and NK 145 (near Groot Laagte) were allocated officially to the Ghanzi District Council on behalf of San in February 1990. The Ghanzi District Council had approached a consortium of NGOs, including the Kuru Family of Organizations and Permaculture, to assist in the development of the farms. The Norwegian development agency (NORAD) pledged P360,000 (then about US$180,000) for water and fencing on the farms (NORAD office, personal communication, 1991). As it turned out, however, the government took over these ranches, a process that also occurred in Ghanzi District in the new millennium.
Barriers and Opportunities for San Land Rights
The government is the biggest obstacle for San land rights in Botswana. The government has steadfastly refused to negotiate San land rights. It has not honored requests by San organizations, the Commissioner for Indigenous and Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, and various international Indigenous rights NGOs to change its land rights policies.
In the 1990s, and the first decade and a half of the twenty-first century, a number of communities in Ghanzi District formed community trusts under the government’s Community-Based Natural Resource Management Program (Republic of Botswana, 1990). San communities were able to get rights to resources through these trusts. This strategy worked until 2014, when the Government of Botswana imposed a hunting ban. Since that ban, the trusts have largely lost control of their areas to private safari companies. Table 10.3 presents data on these community trusts, which engaged in a variety of projects ranging from tourism to wild animal sales and to craft production. It is currently unclear what the status and rights of the community trusts are.
Table 10.3 Long description
The table lists data for the community conservation trusts in Botswana in 4 columns, namely, their founding dates, controlled hunting area with support organization, number of villages involved with their population sizes, and project activities from left to right in order. Trusts manage wildlife areas up to 13,618 square kilometers, and serve villages of 200 to 1,800 people. The row-wise details are as follows.
For Aushuxalu conservation trust founded in 2006, the corresponding data are Okwa W M A covering 13618 square kilometers, one village Bere with 800 people, and activities including community tourism, crafts, tracking activities, and bush products.
For Huiku community-based conservation trust founded in 1999, the corresponding data are Groot Laagte W M A covering 3908 square kilometers, two villages, Groot Laagte and Qabo with 1013 people, and activities including community tourism, lodge operation, crafts, and bush products.
For D’Kar Kuru trust founded in 1999, the corresponding data are the Dgae Qare freehold farm covering 7500 hectares, one village D’ Kar with 943 people, and activities including community tourism, crafts, and lodge operation at Dgae Qare.
For Kgoesakani management trust founded in 2000, the corresponding data are G H 10 area covering 1248 square kilometers, managed by the Government of Botswana, and activities including community tourism and crafts related to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
For Xwiskurusa community trust founded in 1996, the corresponding data are G H 10 area covering 1248 square kilometers, three villages, East Hanahai, West Hanahai and Ka or Gae with 1247 people, and activities including community tourism, crafts, and bush products.
For Chobokwane community trust founded in 1999, the corresponding data are G H 11 Matho-a-Phuduhudu W M A covering 8816 square kilometers, one village, Chobokwane with 489 people, and activities including community campsites, crafts, and bush products.
For Komku development trust founded in 1999, the corresponding data are G H 11 area covering 8816 square kilometers, one village, Buitsavango with 200 people, and activities including community campsites, crafts, and dances.
Note: Data obtained from the Ghanzi District Council, the Kuru Family of Organizations, and the IUCN (World Conservation Union) CBNRM Support Program (www.cbnrm.bw and www.iucnbot.bw).
Another way that San who were dispossessed of their lands sought to get at least some land and resource rights was to form alliances with mining companies, some of whom, such as DeBeers Botswana and Gem Diamonds, argued on behalf of San with the government. It is estimated that at least 300 San were dispossessed by the establishment of the DeBeers Orapa diamond mine in 1967. In the case of the diamond mines around Letlhakane in Central District, another 500–1,000 San were dispossessed (Keikabile Mogodu, personal communication, August 2022). Compensation in the form of alternative land or cash was not provided to those people who were required to leave their residential, arable, and grazing lands (Botswana Khwedom Council, personal communication, 2022).
More recently, mining corporations have exercised a certain degree of social responsibility. San communities and individuals required to leave their areas because of mining operations in Ghanzi and North-West Districts have received some cash in exchange for the loss of their land rights. In the case of the new copper-silver mines in northern Ghanzi and southern Ngamiland (North-West District), San were consulted ahead of time and had the opportunity to argue for fair and just compensation for their losses. The problem, however, is that many of the promises of cash and alternative land have yet to be honored by the new mines and their owners.
Conclusion
In 2023, it was uncertain whether the community trusts in the communal areas and Wildlife Management Areas in Botswana still had the right to make their own decisions, and whether people there had resource and land tenure rights. The lack of clarity on the land issue in communal areas is the most crucial problem facing Indigenous and minority communities in Botswana. As Wily (Reference Wily2018) pointed out, Botswana’s protections for the tenure rights of people in communal areas are weak, and as a result “the law is to blame” (Wily, Reference Wily2011). San and other minority communities in Botswana’s communal areas continue to be vulnerable to expropriation, a process seen, for example, among San communities not only in Ghanzi District, but also in Central, Chobe, Kgalagadi, Kgatleng, Kweneng, and North-West Districts. The land tenure status of gazetted remote area settlements is unclear as well. Majority San communities have thus far been unable to obtain de jure land and water rights in the tribal land areas of Botswana.
Another strategy that San employed in an effort to get their land rights recognized was to take part in the political process (for comparison, see the chapter by Baird on Cambodia and Thailand in this book). In 1989, several San from Ghanzi District ran for Parliament (Hitchcock & Holm, Reference Hitchcock and Holm1993). In 1994, only one San was elected to Parliament, Kgosi (Chief) Rebecca Banika, a Shua (//Gorokhwe) San from Chobe District. At the council level, however, a sizable number of San in Ghanzi have run successfully for positions in the Ghanzi District Council. In 2019, there were six San on the Ghanzi Council, one of whom, Hunter Sixpence, was the Ghanzi Council chairperson. Another San, Jumanda Gakelebone, a G//ana from Mothomelo in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, was the district councillor for New Xade. Mr. Gakelebone was re-elected to the Ghanzi District Council during the recent October 23, 2019, elections in Botswana. He now plans to run for the chairmanship of the Ghanzi District Council. One of the issues he will be pushing for is clarification of the rights of the people of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
One of his strategies (and that of other San activists) has been to form alliances with international organizations such as the Forest Peoples Programme, Minority Rights Group International, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, Land is Life, and in the past, Survival International. Some of these organizations have provided funding for the activities of San organizations, and others have provided resources to allow international travel. This strategy has been partially successful, but the drop-off in funds to cover the costs of legal cases continues to be a major challenge.
As it stands now, water and social services such as education and health are provided in most of the seventy-three recognized remote area settlements in Botswana. However, water provisions were stopped in those places where the government wanted people to relocate, such as Ranyane in western Ghanzi District and in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. As discussed, these decisions were successfully challenged in the High Court. But as yet the government and district councils have failed to implement these High Court judgments.
A critical analysis of the land rights of San and Bakgalagadi in Botswana reveals that they generally lack clearly defined land tenure rights. While the government pays lip service to “land rights for all” in its constitution and land policy papers, it is apparent that the district land boards and the government ministries responsible for land, such as the Ministry of Lands and Housing, and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, have deliberately chosen not to allocate land to Indigenous communities, nor have they ruled on behalf of those communities that have filed appeals with the government. The new Botswana land policy (Republic of Botswana, 2015) has mainly served to allow individuals with means (i.e., those who are wealthy) to take over land occupied by poorer people, including those who define themselves and who are recognized internationally as “Indigenous Peoples.”
San, for their part, continue to seek recognition of their land rights through organizing themselves, seeking funding to support negotiations, lobbying government and, in some cases, taking the government to court, with a certain degree of success. One way that San can ensure that they have their rights to land defined more clearly is to have them spelled out in a future “white paper” on Botswana land policy. It would also be useful to have the rights of Indigenous Peoples included in a new version of the Botswana Constitution.
In many ways, Botswana provides an all-too-common example of the problems of land rights for Indigenous Peoples in Africa and elsewhere across the world, as reflected across this book. Part of the reason for this situation is the weak protections of communal land rights. San in Botswana have faced challenges when it comes to political recognition and acceptance by the government of the concept of Indigeneity as a basis for rights. Interestingly, Botswana government officials regularly attend the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) where they meet with representatives of San organizations. However, Botswana government officials have been reluctant to meet face-to-face with representatives of San communities in Botswana itself. Thus, it remains to be seen what progress local and international efforts will bring when it comes to ensuring greater security of land tenure for the country’s Indigenous Peoples.
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