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Community-based Natural Resources Management
in Botswana
 An
attempt to find new solutions for the failure of top-down approaches
to conservation, CBNRM rests on the recognition that local communities
must have direct control over the utilisation and benefits of natural
resources - wildlife, veld products - in order to value them in a
sustainable manner. CBNRM is both a conservation and rural development
strategy, involving community mobilisation and organisation, institutional
development, comprehensive training, enterprise development, and monitoring
of the natural resource base.
The implementation of CBNRM in Botswana effectively started in 1989.
The Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust (CECT) was the first community
based organisation to embark on CBNRM in 1993. Twelve years later
we note that remarkable progress has been made but that considerable
challenges still lay ahead of us.
 The
CBNRM Support Programme, which was started as a joint initiative by
SNV-Netherlands Development Organisation and IUCN - The World Conservation
Union in 1999, entered its second phase in January 2004 and is planned
up to the end of December 2006. The current programme activities are
coordinated by IUCN Botswana and funded by WWF.
The aim of the project is: To create an enabling environment for sustainable
support to Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) activities,
undertaken by rural communities in Botswana, while maximising information
sharing between similar initiatives in the southern African region.
 The
direct beneficiaries of the project are CBOs, NGOs, private sector,
research institutes and Government Departments, which implementation,
advisory and facilitation capacity will be strengthened to provide
better services to rural communities involved in CBNRM, the indirect
beneficiaries.
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