Makgadikgadi
A Human-Wildlife Landscape
Human-wildlife conflict is derived from a clash in actions and values of individual human and non-human species. In the Makgadikgadi region of Botswana, these interactions are shaped by centuries of cattle-rearing practices which have transformed both the social and environmental characteristics of the region. Understanding these social-ecological intricacies has significant implications for conflict mitigation strategies.
Most people have likely watched a wildlife documentary at some point in their lives. Although they are visually stunning, what’s often lacking in these pieces is recognition of the human communities that share the land with these wildlife. And it begs the question, what does it really mean to live alongside multi-ton elephants or even prides of lions? What we find is that the dynamics driving humans-wildlife interactions are complex. Through this multi-media platform we are excited to share maps, short films, and photos documenting our work in the Makgadikgadi region of Botswana exploring these very questions.
In order to understand the Makgadikgadi landscape, one must have an in-depth understanding of cattle, people, and wildlife. Using a mixed methodological approach of semi-structured in-depth interviews, GPS tracking on cattle, and camera traps, we take you through the practices of these three groups to understand the system.
Setting the Scene
Africa is known as an iconic continent full of some of the most charismatic mega-fauna on the planet. Over recent decades, human-wildlife conflicts have become more frequent and severe as a result of human population growth, extension of transport routes and expansion of agricultural and industrial activities.
The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Area
As suitable habitat for wildlife continually shrinks, conservation efforts are concentrating their efforts on preserving connectivity and metapopulations. The establishment of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Area (KAZA)—the second-largest conservation area spanning Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—supports this recognition to help local wildlife populations move through human-dominated spaces to other protected areas. Efforts have already been made to identify important linkages and corridors across the region.
Botswana and Veterinary Fences
However in Botswana, veterinary fences, which were first established in the 1930s to separate wildlife from cattle to protect against Foot and Mouth and other diseases, have already confined wildlife to much smaller areas than their historic ranges.
Makgadikgadi Region
Human-wildlife interactions and conflict often arise when wildlife must navigate through human-dominated areas to immigrate or migrate to other protected areas.
In the Makgadikgadi region, the fences cut off large migrations routes from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) to Lake Xau (pronounced Ta-ow) and the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park (MPNP). This led to the death of hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and other migratory species. However, even when barriers such as veterinary fences and rivers are permeable, their presence still has a positive effect on people's attitudes toward wildlife and thus people hope for more fences to be built.
Even with veterinary fences restricting some of their movement, this region of Botswana is home to one of the last known migratory patterns of the plains zebra. In November and December, zebra move into the eastern side of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park as flooding builds in the Pans. When the water begins to dry in March, they migrate to the western side of the park to sustain themselves with water in the Boteti River before returning to the Okavango Delta. Lions in Makgadikgadi feed on zebra during their time in the park, however, many are forced to venture outside the park and feed on livestock when the zebra move out of the area.
Nuance of the landscape
The Boteti region, also called CT8, is possibly the origin site of modern humans. As long ago as the early Holocene, the nutrient-rich grasses in the dried ancestral Lake Makgadikgadi made it an ideal place for both humans and wildlife to inhabit. When domesticated animals arrived in Botswana around 2,200 years ago, these grasses were seasonally important for cattle.
Today, the landscape between Central Kalahari Game Reserve (to the South-West) and Makgadikgadi Pans National Park (to the North-East) contains seven villages with 1400 cattleposts—individual outposts where livestock are tended by herders—raising an estimated 6800 head of cattle.
Because of grazing, ploughing, and water requirements, cattleposts are spread across the region rather than solely concentrated adjacent to villages. The Tribal Grazing Lands Policy of 1975 divided the region into three separate zones, Commercial (where the private farms are), Tribal, and Unused, in order to relieve grazing pressure from large, commercial ranching. The Boteti River, which runs along the western side of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, is an important water source in the region.
This Tribal Grazing policy established private farms and farm syndicates on the western side of region with rights to drill wells, to allow for communal tribal grazing, given their 20km distance from a village or the river (considered the "Commercial" grazing zones). In accordance with Botswana land rights, cattleposts can be erected anywhere and do not need the permission of the Land Board or other governmental bodies. However, cattleposts cannot drill a well without a certificate, and the rights to drill are only given if the designated location is at least 5km away from another well point.
As a result, many cattleposts are found within walking distance of the Boteti River. But a 30-year hiatus in river flow, due to low rainfall, caused residents to hand-dig wells in the riverbed and use portable pumps to draw water up from the water table.
The Makgadikgadi region is an important home for wildlife because of its unique habitat structure. Along with the salt pans, which were created when the ancestral Makgadikgadi lake dried up, the vegetation in the area consists of a combination of acacia, mixed mopane, salt-tolerant grasses, and terminalia.
Seasonal Differences
The severity of the arid climate’s impact on humans, livestock, and wildlife is cyclical and persistent; resulting in significant shifts in vegetation density and water availability.
Use the tools to the right to view the difference of vegetation (shown by NDVI—Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) between December - April (the wet season) and May - November (the dry season).
There is high forage availability during the wet season, yet this disappears throughout the dry season.
The river only flows seasonally, but humans and elephants have modified the riverbed to dig waterholes when it is dry, and both people and wildlife use each other’s water points to access water.
Note the change in vegetation in the video at 0:26.
Cattleposts
Two broad cattle production systems exist in Botswana: traditional cattleposts with no individual land tenure, where cattle graze communally, and ranches with privatized land. Cattle rearing in Botswana is not just important economically, but also plays a significant cultural role shaped by precolonial and colonial power structures. Cattle represent a stash of savings accessed prudently, which creates effective, culturally accepted restrictions in use. Since precolonial times, owning cattle has been seen as a status symbol and is used for ceremonial and community gatherings, including bridewealth, loans, funerals, skins for traditional dance attire, and ritual slaughters. Botswana today primarily consists of “Batswana,” those who affiliate with the Tswana tribe and relies heavily on agricultural practices. Unlike other African pastoralist groups, pre-colonial Batswana were sedentary agro pastoralists.
Cattle and domesticated animals have a long history in the region, with archaeological evidence indicating that domesticated animals arrived around 2,200 years ago. Today, over 80% of Botswana’s population participates in agriculture, including livestock and crop production. Cattle ownership, however, is disproportionately allocated, with roughly 10% of the population owns about 60% of the national herd. Because of the arid nature of the country, the main agricultural activity is cattle farming.
The Makgadikgadi region is an important home for wildlife because of its unique habitat structure. Along with the salt pans, which were created when the ancestral Makgadikgadi lake dried up, the vegetation in the area consists of a combination of acacia, mixed mopane, salt-tolerant grasses, and terminalia. One of the two zebra migrations in Botswana extends from the Okavango Delta to Makgadikgadi National Park to access the grasslands and pans.
Depredation
The three main causes for loss of cattle in Makgadikgadi are disease, depredation, and theft. Cattle depredation at a given farm, regardless of size, is more often an isolated event than a constant threat. Between 2007-2019, cattle holders within the region reported an 18.54% chance on average that they would lose at least one cow per year.
Warning: the next video shows a cow being skinned.
When a cow is killed by a predator, everyone on the cattlepost must stop what they are doing to assist. In this video, the herders had found this cow killed by wild dogs earlier in the day and have just come back to the carcass to skin and quarter it, hang the meat in the trees and come collect the meat tomorrow with a donkey cart. The cow is still the property of its owner; they will need the skin to apply for compensation from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) and they will want the meat for themselves or their herders. It is, however, expected that whoever does the skinning and quartering may have some of the meat as payment. One of the herders has already gathered firewood and has a pot to cook the meat.
There are spatial nuances to depredation events. Understanding these drivers could help develop more explicit mitigation strategies to prevent human-wildlife conflict.
Working with owners and herders in the area, we identified over 170 depredation events across the landscape.
We found that depredation varies by species across the landscape. Thus, there is a wide range of depredation rates per cattlepost that is experienced across the landscape.
We also interviewed community members and asked to participate in a mapping exercise to identify areas they believed were "high conflict". In total, we interviewed 60 people, providing us with insight of perceived depredation across the landscape.
We found the known depredation sites were similar to the perceptions of depredation on the landscape. Slide the toggle to the left to see the perceptions of depredation, and slide it to the right to see known depredation sites.
Specifically, our results revealed that the most important drivers of depredation risk were proximity to cattle posts, roads, and protected wildlife areas. We find that community member’s perceptions closely align with three contiguous areas of known risk - directly adjacent to the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and directly along a major cutline road in the center of the study area.
Cattle
There are consequences to cattle not returning to their kraal or traveling far distances. When cattle are lost or remain outside of the kraal for long periods, they are more prone to mortality through depredation, drought, disease, and theft.
To understand cattle movements and the frequency of their travel, Sixteen cattle were collared using GPS collars between January - July 2022. Trackers relayed hourly GPS locations, 24 hours a day.
The mean home range where cattle spent 95% of their time for the wet and dry seasons was 35km 2 and 34km 2 but ranged from 9 - 134km 2 (wet - move toggle fully to the right) and 6 - 284km 2 (dry - move toggle fully to the left). Cattle were not consistent in having larger home ranges in the wet or the dry season and instead varied across the landscape based on the type of water (sweet, aka non-saline, salty, from the river, or from the community of Xere).
Cattle with access to sweet water had the smallest home ranges (95% kernel density), those with river access had larger home ranges, and farms that had salty water had the largest average home ranges. The average distance walked each day for the wet and early dry seasons was 2.96km and 3.62km, respectively, but cattle could walk up to 27 km in a day, in either season.
Privatization and fencing will change the daily and seasonal cattle movement and foraging practices. The maximum size of an individual private ranch is 6x6km. Thus, as fencing becomes more commonplace for those with means, any cattle with a home range larger than 36km 2 may be restricted and potentially lose grazing quality. Cattle have been known to knock down fences and may resort to breaking out if they require more forage.
People
Farming practices in the region are inherently social; they require cooperation and the formation of strong social groups. It is rare for anyone to manage a farm alone, and those who do still require help from nearby farms to assist when it is time to brand, vaccinate, sell, or kill a cow. Depending on their relationship, a farm will also request assistance from another farm when predators kill livestock, their borehole breaks down, or someone needs a ride into town.
Herders that work on the more prominent private ranches often must rely on the ranch owner for transportation and access to basic necessities. Most ranches are far from the closest town and herders require a lift from the owner at the month’s end to purchase supplies.
Workers on both ranches and on cattleposts will call themselves herders but based on the job descriptions they provide they may be better described as farm hands or farm workers. Chores can include kraal upkeep, goat, sheep, and chicken rearing, milking, assisting with breeding, firewood collection, cooking, general maintenance, and assisting nearby farms. Familial herders practicing subsistence farming are not paid, as it is expected that family members support their family’s livelihoods. Herders in Botswana, unlike areas in East Africa where the position of a herder is revered, areundervalued and paid minimum wage (~USD100 per month).
How people move on the landscape impacts attitudes towards wildlife predation, conflict, and mitigation strategies. Those that drive vehicles do not encounter wildlife as frequently, nor do encounters inherently become a potentially dangerous situation. Instead, their attitudes are often shaped by how wildlife affect their accumulation of wealth. Individuals who travel on the landscape via foot or on animal-back have more negative interactions with wildlife and thus often hold more fear and animosity for their livelihoods. Some individuals are afraid to travel at all because of wild animals. An extreme is exemplified by K. Thebe, a woman who lives in the Tsoi cattlepost area, who refuses to leave the confines of her enclosure unless her son is with her. When she is left alone at the cattlepost she spends her time making tswii, potato-like pounded tubers from water lilies.
The fencing and privatization of land has impacted how people learn about depredation in the area. There is limited cell service in the area, so the most reliable way to communicate with anyone is to visit their farm. Even though herders are supposed to remain on their ranch unless they are looking for cattle, they will often visit one another to make social calls and share if they have recently seen wildlife. Owners and herders will take specific action to protect their livestock based on wildlife presence in the area. If a herder has been informed that there are lions, he will take certain mitigation strategies to protect the herd: they may release the cows later in the day, kraal the cows earlier in the day, or build fires around the kraals at night. Thus, visitation to and from the farm is important for depredation mitigation.
How often people visit and where they visit is variable. When asked which cattleposts they visited, herders reported an average of 3.8 other locations, ranging from 0 – 11. There is also a separation of visitation on farms on private or communal land and that of subsistence farmers. People visit fenced farms significantly less than farmed fences (visitations to fenced farm: 1.09; visitations to unfenced farm 4.03).
Lack of visitation to farmed fences may lead to a potential loss of knowledge about what is happening in the area. This has important implications because people change their mitigation strategy based on if they know predators are in the area of not. Part of this lack of communication comes from who is hired on private farms. Those who were new to the area, or were migrant workers, visited others less frequently.
Wildlife
Using two camera trap surveys conducted within the community lands of the region between June 2021-August 2022, we can better understand spatial and temporal nuances of wildlife space use.
Livestock are highly present across the landscape, with the largest numbers of cattle found close to the village of Rakops.
Higher densities of livestock were found closer to cattleposts, but that didn't mean that there were not other wildlife species as well.
On average, however, the most popular herbivores, besides elephants, were found rather away from the towns.
High numbers of livestock did not always result in a decrease in wildlife. Sometimes wildlife were just active at different types of the day to avoid one another.
Predators ranged across the landscape, with brown hyena being the most prevalent. Different from reports of depredation, we reported no lions on our camera traps. Many of the predators were found close to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve fenceline.
The lack of maintenance of the National Park fences, and the low human density near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve makes the divide between the community lands and the protected area quite blurry.
People were most afraid to encounter elephants. Often, elephants are also indirectly the cause of livestock depredation. When a borehole or other water source is compromised by elephants, cattle are driven to other locations to find water. Herders stated that when they are forced to push cattle into unfamiliar areas far away from their cattlepost, they are more susceptible to depredation.
Identifying areas with high amounts of elephants may assist with human-wildlife coexistence.
Elephants like to frequent certain areas over and over again, developing well-traveled "elephant trails". Other species are also known to use these wide paths, but must always give way to the ecosystem engineers that maintain them. Sometimes, elephants will begin using a road or human path so frequently, that farmers will abandon it, either taking a longer route or building a completely new one, in order to avoid the elephants.
Mobility across the landscape also varied. Vehicles are highly common and only driven by ranch owners, thus many herders remained on their cattlepost or traveled by animal or on foot.
Interactive Map
There are many nuances and interactions which shape the region. Using the map below, click on an individual tab to learn more about this landscape shared by people, wildlife, and cattle.
Keeping The Lights On
Farmers use a number of different mitigation techniques to protect their property and livestock from wildlife. The most common conflict mitigation strategies among herders are livestock guardian dogs, generating loud noises, bright lights, and fires. Solar lights have proven to be one of the most successful reported deterrents of the available options but are costly.
Proximity to a boundary
Wildlife do not recognize the boundaries of the National Parks. The lack of maintenance of the National Park fences, and the low human density near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve makes the divide between the community lands and the protected area quite blurry. Using a timelapse video, we can see the movement of wildlife just outside the boundary of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in concert with vehicles and human movement.
The Establishment of Ranches
The shift from communal grazing to one of private farms originated from the Tribal Grazing Lands Policy of 1975 (TGLP), a World Bank-sponsored program established to help “boost” the cattle industry and address the problem of land degradation in Botswana. The TGLP was established to convert communally grazed land into three separate zones: Commercial, Tribal and Unused, in order to relieve grazing pressure from large, commercial ranching. The government built fenced-in properties, complete with boreholes, across the sandveld of the Kalahari and sold them at a subsidized price. The TGLP only heightened socio-economic inequalities, and both the tribal lands and local, small-scale ranchers suffered.
Modes of Transportation
Herders are constantly visiting one another, either to track wandering cows, collect water, or to make a social call. Herders are often seen on the roads or trails moving between one cattlepost to the other. The most common mode of transportation is by horseback or donkey, though a number of people do walk, both day and night. Vehicles are most often reserved for the cattlepost owners, and many of them only frequent their post at the end of each month.
Where the Cattle Roam
The privatization and fencing of properties prevents cattle from visiting other cattleposts and prevents access to fresh water boreholes without permission from the owner. The CT8 region was historically an ancestral lake meaning that many existing underground aquifers are salty, and boreholes draw highly saline water. This makes certain cattleposts with "sweet water" (non-salty water) important visiting centers for cattle and often the first place to check for missing cattle. If a herder is unable to get permission to water the cattle at another farm, then the herd might have to be driven farther away, or to a poor-quality borehole, to access water. The farther away cattle have to be driven to find water, the more likely it is that they will get lost.
Elephant Highway
Elephants like to frequent certain areas over and over again, developing well-traveled "elephant trails". Other species are also known to use these wide paths, but must always give way to the ecosystem engineers that maintain them. Sometimes, elephants will begin using a road or human path so frequently, that farmers will abandon it, either taking a longer route or building a completely new one, in order to avoid the elephants.
Cattle Status
The region’s practices around cattle rearing are shaped by subsistence farmers and more wealthy ranchers in conjunction with the role cattle play in Botswana’s culture, identity, and economic security. Owning cattle is as a mark of status from precolonial Batswana culture. Cattle are slaughtered for ceremonial and community gatherings, they are used in bridewealth, loans, and funerals, and their hides are used in traditional dance attire. Importantly, a man with livestock demonstrates that he can provide for his family. Subsistence cattle owners’ interests do not always align with regional or global markets—or even with their neighbors. Livestock are seen as an investment rather than a consumable commodity, a farmer sells cattle only for a specific purpose (e.g., to cover funeral costs or school fees), not for profit.
Privatization of a Farm
Beginning in the 1930s, the government began to place thousands of kilometers of fencing across the country to protect against Foot and Mouth and other diseases, a practice that has continued to this day. These fences were designed to separate wildlife from cattle—confining wildlife to much smaller areas than their historic ranges. In the Makgadikgadi region, the fences cut off large migrations routes and led to the death of hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and other migratory species. Recently, farmers have been permitted to fence in their private properties. This has led to a number of cattle fences (pictured here) to be erected.
A Shift Away From Communal Grazing
The privatization of land from the Tribal Grazing Lands Policy of 1975 provided the water rights needed to graze far away from the Boteti River and consequently cattle farming moved into areas previously available only to wildlife. Originally, landowners in CT8 were not allowed to fence their private property allowing free movement of cattle and wildlife in the region. After many years of lobbying by local ranchers, fencing is now permitted in CT8 but because of the high costs, few ranchers have yet to implement them.
Women and Cattle Ownership
Within the herding culture, specific livestock are designated for different members of the family. Often, the responsibility for tending to the cattle are given to the men, and women are responsible for tending to the goats. In recent years, there has been a shift in this tradition with increased cattle ownership and herding by women.
The History of Cattle Commercialization
Before Botswana became a British Protectorate in 1885, most cattle belonged to the dikgosi—chiefs—and their families. The dikgosi also owned the land and made tribal decisions regarding grazing, cattle, and land use. In exchange for herding labor the dikgosi would then loan their livestock to other families and would give access to some of the calves, meat, and milk. Commercialization of cattle in Botswana began in 1905 when the British administration started shipping beef to expanding mining towns in South Africa and later to the UK and other countries during the World Wars. By the time Botswana gained its independence in 1966, beef comprised 85% of its total export earnings.
The Cost of Conflict
Water is scarce, with the only naturally occurring access from the Boteti River or seasonal pans. As the elephant population has increased, they have begun to move farther into the community lands in search of resources. Instead of traveling back to the river to drink, they will destroy water tanks and pull up piping in the ground for access to water.
Skinning
Meat is an important part of Batswana diet. The act of killing and skinning a cow is also a social event and requires many hands. Subsistence farmers will often ask their neighbors for help, in exchange for some of the meat. Other people not involved in the skinning will stop by and chat while the cow is killed and dissected.
Cow Carcass
The three main causes for loss of cattle in Makgadikgadi are disease, predation, and theft. Cattlepredation at a given farm, regardless of size, is more often an isolated event than a constant threat. Between 2007-2019, cattle holders within CT8 reported an 18.54% chance on average that they would lose at least one cow per year. Predation varies across the landscape, occurring less frequently at farms farther from the wildlife protected areas and more frequently on farms with higher cattle numbers. Thus, there is a wide range of depredation rates per cattlepost experienced across the landscape.
Importance of Structural Design
Season and kraal infrastructure impact if cattle will return to the safety of their kraal at night. When there is lots of rain, herders believe cattle can remain outside the safety of their kraals and supplement their water needs from puddles and dew on the grass. Depending on where the kraal is built, rainfall may accumulate as standing water, forcing cattle to sleep standing up if they return to the cattlepost. Consequently, some cows will refuse to return to the safety of the kraal at night during the rainy season and instead sleep in the bush. In the dry season, cattle may return to the kraal only a few times a week to remain in proximity to water and forage.
Fear of Wildlife
How people move on the landscape impacts attitudes towards wildlife predation, conflict, and mitigation strategies. Those that drive vehicles do not encounter wildlife as frequently, nor do encounters inherently become a potentially dangerous situation. Instead, their attitudes are often shaped by how wildlife affect their accumulation of wealth. Individuals who travel on the landscape via foot or on animal-back have more negative interactions with wildlife and thus often hold more fear and animosity for their livelihoods. Some individuals are afraid to travel at all because of wild animals. An extreme is exemplified by K. Thebe, a woman who lives in the Tsoi cattlepost area, who refuses to leave the confines of her enclosure unless her son is with her. When she is left alone at the cattlepost she spends her time making tswii, potato-like pounded tubers from water lilies.
Typical Batswana Cattlepost
Today, the landscape between the two national parks contains seven villages with 1400 individual farms raising an estimated 6800 head of cattle. There are three broad types of farms on the landscape: ranches on private land, ranches on communal land, and subsistence cattleposts. Depicted here is a subsistence cattlepost home.
Cowboy Culture
Workers on both ranches and on cattleposts will call themselves herders but based on the job descriptions they provide they may be better described as farm hands or farm workers. When they are not attending directly to cattle, herders attend to other chores, including kraal upkeep, goat, sheep, and chicken rearing, milking, assisting with breeding, firewood collection, cooking, general maintenance, and assisting nearby farms. Familial herders practicing subsistence farming are not paid, as it is expected that family members support their family’s livelihoods. Ranch herders in Botswana, unlike areas in East Africa where the position of a herder is revered, are undervalued, and paid minimum wage (~USD100 per month).
Labor on a Farm
The labor associated with farming is dynamic and inconsistent. Cattle rearing is continually adjusted to fulfill larger economic and social needs. For subsistence farming, the family structure changes as children are born, attend school, find employment, and get married. Heads of households, normally men, are often absent on the cattlepost except for holidays until they are 40 years old and no longer physically capable of hard labor, such as mining. For ranches, the turnover for herders is high. Most are looking for better opportunities or ones that will allow them to stay closer to their families.
Water for Elephants
Water is a key driver of elephant movement on the landscape. The additional implementation of boreholes has increased the access of water for elephants in a previously dry and uninhabited region. These water points have expanded elephant range from historically bull (male) elephants only visiting the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park seasonally to breeding herds expanding all the way into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
The Threat of Mesocarnivores
While larger predators are known to cause the most animosity, meso-carnivores are the highest reported causes of depredation. Black-backed jackals, one of the most highly abundant mesocarnivores in the area, are well-known to raid chicken coops and livestock pens for young goats. One of the bolder carnivores, they are the most common wildlife species seen on the landscape.
Herding Lifestyle
Livestock rearing and herding in CT8 is inherently social; it requires cooperation and the formation of strong social groups. It is rare for anyone to manage a cattlepost alone, and those who do require help from nearby posts when it is time to brand, vaccinate, sell, or kill a cow. Herding in Botswana is more passive than other parts of Africa, such as East Africa. Often, only a few herders are responsible for large herds. Therefore, it can be days or even weeks before a herder will know that a cow is missing and longer for the herder to find the carcass.
Mosarwa and His Bow
When government policy restructured the land rights of the country in 1975, important tribal lands for indigenous minority tribes, primarily the Bakgalagadi and Basarwa (the plural of a person who is Mosarwa), were converted into commercial ranching. This pushed the Basarwa, nomadic hunters also known as 'bushmen' or 'San', into more remote areas of the landscape, including the Central Kalahari Game Reserve which acted as a safe haven. In 1997, the Botswana government forced relocation of the entire Basarwa population from the Reserve to resettlement camps outside of the park. Despite this relocation and the ban on hunting, the Basarwa still practice their traditional hunter lifestyles.
Forced Resettlement of the Basarwa
The Basarwa people of Botswana are members of anindigenous tribe of hunter-gatherers. A typical Basarwa house is built to fit the nomadic lifestyles of its occupants. The woman in this photo is the mother of the kgosi (chief) of Xere, a Basarwa resettlement village for those forced out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The kgosi, and all of the Basarwa who were forcibly removed from their homes, have been given government houses, a school, as well as cattle. However, the kgosi's mother chooses to live in their traditional housing.
Drilling for Water
The spatial distribution of farms is driven by water requirements and government zoning. Under Botswana land rights, farms can be built without the permission of the Land Board or other governmental bodies as long as they are not a permanent structure. However, farms cannot drill a well without a certificate, and the rights to drill are only given if the designated location is at least 5km from another well point. Many of the private ranches on communal land have water rights while the primary water source for most subsistence cattleposts is the Boteti River.
Contributors to Conflict
Human-elephant conflict arises most directly from crop raiding and destruction of water tanks. However, elephants are often indirectly the cause of livestock depredation. When a borehole or other water source is compromised by elephants, cattle are driven to other locations to find water. Herders stated that when they are forced to push cattle into unfamiliar areas far away from their cattlepost, they are more susceptible to predation.
Alarm Systems
Owning dogs is of the more popular mitigation strategies that are seen across the landscape for both by private ranchers and subsistence farmers. Dogs are used to provide protection to livestock and farms as well as alert owners to the presence of predators. While the majority of dogs are a mutt-mix known as Canis africanis, also known as an Africanis or Tswana dog, some people purchase pure-bred dogs to protect their livestock, holdings, and family.
Subsistence Household
Variation in depredation differentially affects other aspects of daily cattle rearing. The death of a cow from an already small herd has vast implications on whether a cattlepost can sustain itself and support the entire household. This loss could have cascading effects on the rest of the family, including individual household members subsidizing income with a job in another village or city.
Perceptions of the Fence
Fences in the area, even when properly maintained, can be ineffective. Elephants can easily destroy or modify most barriers and have little patience to search for a way around a fence. Even when fences are permeable, they do have an impact on people’s perceptions of conflict. When a predator-proof fence was built in the region, there was a lower perception of conflict despite the number of conflict reports remaining consistent.
Predation
Predation events are broadly influenced by lion demography, as well as seasonally dictated by prey migration, and temporally dictated by human activity. In Makgadikgadi, male lions are more likely than females to raid livestock. Across the region, dispersing males who leave their natal pride are less risk-averse than other lions and thus are more likely to be the primary contributor to human-lion conflict. Lions that raid livestock do not shift their home ranges to follow the zebra and wildebeest migration back to the Okavango Delta in the dry season (May-October). Thus, cattle-raiding lions hunt the migratory herds in the wet season but supplement their diet with livestock in the dry season.
Informants
Vultures are important indicators of a depredation event for herders. Vultures will begin to gather around a carcass soon after an animal has been killed. Often, farmers will use circling vultures to identify when and where a livestock kill has occurred.
Taking Matters Into Your Own Hands
Frustration with the slow response time of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks has led farmers to take matters into their own hands. This can lead to retaliation killing, including poison, shooting, or as depicted here, trapping, and killing the animal. This leopard trap was purchased in hopes to trap a large male who had been killing the farmer's goats.
Spatial and Temporal Activity of Lions
The temporal activity of lions is influenced by human activity. Lions avoid cattleposts during hours of high human activity (06h00—20h00) and often kill livestock overnight (22h00–4h00). The depredation of cattle allow lions to avoid the energetic and reproductive costs of following the zebra migration, as well as the threat of encountering and engaging in conflict with other territorial prides in the Okavango Delta. For some of these apex predators, these energetic costs outweigh the risk of human conflict. Perceived and actual threats of predation from lion can result in retaliation towards these predators.
Water for the Goats
Water is a coveted resource in Botswana, as boreholes are by permit only and natural water sources are limited. While cattle can often travel to natural water sources, goats are unable to do so. Many farms that do not have well points and are far away from the river must transport water daily. Herders may travel up to 20 km on donkey or horse back to get water from a neighboring cattlepost.
Space for Leopards
Leopards are one of the more elusive predators on the landscape and seem to have adjusted to human disturbance. However, the leopard population across Africa is quickly diminishing, with only a few large intact landscapes left for them to exist. Botswana is one of the last remaining countries where the range for leopard covers the entire country.
Sharing Water for Coexistence
Elephants are one of the most common causes of water insecurity in this region of Botswana. In order to combat elephant destruction of boreholes, some farmers have begun to pump extra water for the elephants to drink. Additionally, they may place their cattle troughs outside of the kraal so that elephants have no incentive to break them down. In the southern part of the region close to Xere village, there is a farm that has elephants drinking with cattle almost every night. The herders don't like how close the elephants will get but respect the wishes of the owner.
Missing From the Compensation List
One of the main frustrations of local farmers is the lack of inclusion of hyaena (spotted and brown) on the compensation list. Spotted hyaena specifically are known to leave the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and kill livestock. One argument for not including hyaena on the compensation list is that spotted hyaenas are traditionally known as scavengers, but data shows they are very capable of hunting for themselves. There is also an argument that it is easier to chase off a hyaena than it is a lion or leopard, and therefore are a lower-risk predator.
Keeping The Lights On
Farmers use a number of different mitigation techniques to protect their property and livestock from wildlife. The most common conflict mitigation strategies among herders are livestock guardian dogs, generating loud noises, bright lights, and fires. Solar lights have proven to be one of the most successful reported deterrents of the available options but are costly.
Proximity to a boundary
Wildlife do not recognize the boundaries of the National Parks. The lack of maintenance of the National Park fences, and the low human density near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve makes the divide between the community lands and the protected area quite blurry. Using a timelapse video, we can see the movement of wildlife just outside the boundary of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in concert with vehicles and human movement.
The Establishment of Ranches
The shift from communal grazing to one of private farms originated from the Tribal Grazing Lands Policy of 1975 (TGLP), a World Bank-sponsored program established to help “boost” the cattle industry and address the problem of land degradation in Botswana. The TGLP was established to convert communally grazed land into three separate zones: Commercial, Tribal and Unused, in order to relieve grazing pressure from large, commercial ranching. The government built fenced-in properties, complete with boreholes, across the sandveld of the Kalahari and sold them at a subsidized price. The TGLP only heightened socio-economic inequalities, and both the tribal lands and local, small-scale ranchers suffered.
Modes of Transportation
Herders are constantly visiting one another, either to track wandering cows, collect water, or to make a social call. Herders are often seen on the roads or trails moving between one cattlepost to the other. The most common mode of transportation is by horseback or donkey, though a number of people do walk, both day and night. Vehicles are most often reserved for the cattlepost owners, and many of them only frequent their post at the end of each month.
Where the Cattle Roam
The privatization and fencing of properties prevents cattle from visiting other cattleposts and prevents access to fresh water boreholes without permission from the owner. The CT8 region was historically an ancestral lake meaning that many existing underground aquifers are salty, and boreholes draw highly saline water. This makes certain cattleposts with "sweet water" (non-salty water) important visiting centers for cattle and often the first place to check for missing cattle. If a herder is unable to get permission to water the cattle at another farm, then the herd might have to be driven farther away, or to a poor-quality borehole, to access water. The farther away cattle have to be driven to find water, the more likely it is that they will get lost.
Elephant Highway
Elephants like to frequent certain areas over and over again, developing well-traveled "elephant trails". Other species are also known to use these wide paths, but must always give way to the ecosystem engineers that maintain them. Sometimes, elephants will begin using a road or human path so frequently, that farmers will abandon it, either taking a longer route or building a completely new one, in order to avoid the elephants.
Cattle Status
The region’s practices around cattle rearing are shaped by subsistence farmers and more wealthy ranchers in conjunction with the role cattle play in Botswana’s culture, identity, and economic security. Owning cattle is as a mark of status from precolonial Batswana culture. Cattle are slaughtered for ceremonial and community gatherings, they are used in bridewealth, loans, and funerals, and their hides are used in traditional dance attire. Importantly, a man with livestock demonstrates that he can provide for his family. Subsistence cattle owners’ interests do not always align with regional or global markets—or even with their neighbors. Livestock are seen as an investment rather than a consumable commodity, a farmer sells cattle only for a specific purpose (e.g., to cover funeral costs or school fees), not for profit.
Privatization of a Farm
Beginning in the 1930s, the government began to place thousands of kilometers of fencing across the country to protect against Foot and Mouth and other diseases, a practice that has continued to this day. These fences were designed to separate wildlife from cattle—confining wildlife to much smaller areas than their historic ranges. In the Makgadikgadi region, the fences cut off large migrations routes and led to the death of hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and other migratory species. Recently, farmers have been permitted to fence in their private properties. This has led to a number of cattle fences (pictured here) to be erected.
A Shift Away From Communal Grazing
The privatization of land from the Tribal Grazing Lands Policy of 1975 provided the water rights needed to graze far away from the Boteti River and consequently cattle farming moved into areas previously available only to wildlife. Originally, landowners in CT8 were not allowed to fence their private property allowing free movement of cattle and wildlife in the region. After many years of lobbying by local ranchers, fencing is now permitted in CT8 but because of the high costs, few ranchers have yet to implement them.
Women and Cattle Ownership
Within the herding culture, specific livestock are designated for different members of the family. Often, the responsibility for tending to the cattle are given to the men, and women are responsible for tending to the goats. In recent years, there has been a shift in this tradition with increased cattle ownership and herding by women.
The History of Cattle Commercialization
Before Botswana became a British Protectorate in 1885, most cattle belonged to the dikgosi—chiefs—and their families. The dikgosi also owned the land and made tribal decisions regarding grazing, cattle, and land use. In exchange for herding labor the dikgosi would then loan their livestock to other families and would give access to some of the calves, meat, and milk. Commercialization of cattle in Botswana began in 1905 when the British administration started shipping beef to expanding mining towns in South Africa and later to the UK and other countries during the World Wars. By the time Botswana gained its independence in 1966, beef comprised 85% of its total export earnings.
The Cost of Conflict
Water is scarce, with the only naturally occurring access from the Boteti River or seasonal pans. As the elephant population has increased, they have begun to move farther into the community lands in search of resources. Instead of traveling back to the river to drink, they will destroy water tanks and pull up piping in the ground for access to water.
Skinning
Meat is an important part of Batswana diet. The act of killing and skinning a cow is also a social event and requires many hands. Subsistence farmers will often ask their neighbors for help, in exchange for some of the meat. Other people not involved in the skinning will stop by and chat while the cow is killed and dissected.
Cow Carcass
The three main causes for loss of cattle in Makgadikgadi are disease, predation, and theft. Cattlepredation at a given farm, regardless of size, is more often an isolated event than a constant threat. Between 2007-2019, cattle holders within CT8 reported an 18.54% chance on average that they would lose at least one cow per year. Predation varies across the landscape, occurring less frequently at farms farther from the wildlife protected areas and more frequently on farms with higher cattle numbers. Thus, there is a wide range of depredation rates per cattlepost experienced across the landscape.
Importance of Structural Design
Season and kraal infrastructure impact if cattle will return to the safety of their kraal at night. When there is lots of rain, herders believe cattle can remain outside the safety of their kraals and supplement their water needs from puddles and dew on the grass. Depending on where the kraal is built, rainfall may accumulate as standing water, forcing cattle to sleep standing up if they return to the cattlepost. Consequently, some cows will refuse to return to the safety of the kraal at night during the rainy season and instead sleep in the bush. In the dry season, cattle may return to the kraal only a few times a week to remain in proximity to water and forage.
Fear of Wildlife
How people move on the landscape impacts attitudes towards wildlife predation, conflict, and mitigation strategies. Those that drive vehicles do not encounter wildlife as frequently, nor do encounters inherently become a potentially dangerous situation. Instead, their attitudes are often shaped by how wildlife affect their accumulation of wealth. Individuals who travel on the landscape via foot or on animal-back have more negative interactions with wildlife and thus often hold more fear and animosity for their livelihoods. Some individuals are afraid to travel at all because of wild animals. An extreme is exemplified by K. Thebe, a woman who lives in the Tsoi cattlepost area, who refuses to leave the confines of her enclosure unless her son is with her. When she is left alone at the cattlepost she spends her time making tswii, potato-like pounded tubers from water lilies.
Typical Batswana Cattlepost
Today, the landscape between the two national parks contains seven villages with 1400 individual farms raising an estimated 6800 head of cattle. There are three broad types of farms on the landscape: ranches on private land, ranches on communal land, and subsistence cattleposts. Depicted here is a subsistence cattlepost home.
Cowboy Culture
Workers on both ranches and on cattleposts will call themselves herders but based on the job descriptions they provide they may be better described as farm hands or farm workers. When they are not attending directly to cattle, herders attend to other chores, including kraal upkeep, goat, sheep, and chicken rearing, milking, assisting with breeding, firewood collection, cooking, general maintenance, and assisting nearby farms. Familial herders practicing subsistence farming are not paid, as it is expected that family members support their family’s livelihoods. Ranch herders in Botswana, unlike areas in East Africa where the position of a herder is revered, are undervalued, and paid minimum wage (~USD100 per month).
Labor on a Farm
The labor associated with farming is dynamic and inconsistent. Cattle rearing is continually adjusted to fulfill larger economic and social needs. For subsistence farming, the family structure changes as children are born, attend school, find employment, and get married. Heads of households, normally men, are often absent on the cattlepost except for holidays until they are 40 years old and no longer physically capable of hard labor, such as mining. For ranches, the turnover for herders is high. Most are looking for better opportunities or ones that will allow them to stay closer to their families.
Water for Elephants
Water is a key driver of elephant movement on the landscape. The additional implementation of boreholes has increased the access of water for elephants in a previously dry and uninhabited region. These water points have expanded elephant range from historically bull (male) elephants only visiting the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park seasonally to breeding herds expanding all the way into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
The Threat of Mesocarnivores
While larger predators are known to cause the most animosity, meso-carnivores are the highest reported causes of depredation. Black-backed jackals, one of the most highly abundant mesocarnivores in the area, are well-known to raid chicken coops and livestock pens for young goats. One of the bolder carnivores, they are the most common wildlife species seen on the landscape.
Herding Lifestyle
Livestock rearing and herding in CT8 is inherently social; it requires cooperation and the formation of strong social groups. It is rare for anyone to manage a cattlepost alone, and those who do require help from nearby posts when it is time to brand, vaccinate, sell, or kill a cow. Herding in Botswana is more passive than other parts of Africa, such as East Africa. Often, only a few herders are responsible for large herds. Therefore, it can be days or even weeks before a herder will know that a cow is missing and longer for the herder to find the carcass.
Mosarwa and His Bow
When government policy restructured the land rights of the country in 1975, important tribal lands for indigenous minority tribes, primarily the Bakgalagadi and Basarwa (the plural of a person who is Mosarwa), were converted into commercial ranching. This pushed the Basarwa, nomadic hunters also known as 'bushmen' or 'San', into more remote areas of the landscape, including the Central Kalahari Game Reserve which acted as a safe haven. In 1997, the Botswana government forced relocation of the entire Basarwa population from the Reserve to resettlement camps outside of the park. Despite this relocation and the ban on hunting, the Basarwa still practice their traditional hunter lifestyles.
Forced Resettlement of the Basarwa
The Basarwa people of Botswana are members of anindigenous tribe of hunter-gatherers. A typical Basarwa house is built to fit the nomadic lifestyles of its occupants. The woman in this photo is the mother of the kgosi (chief) of Xere, a Basarwa resettlement village for those forced out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The kgosi, and all of the Basarwa who were forcibly removed from their homes, have been given government houses, a school, as well as cattle. However, the kgosi's mother chooses to live in their traditional housing.
Drilling for Water
The spatial distribution of farms is driven by water requirements and government zoning. Under Botswana land rights, farms can be built without the permission of the Land Board or other governmental bodies as long as they are not a permanent structure. However, farms cannot drill a well without a certificate, and the rights to drill are only given if the designated location is at least 5km from another well point. Many of the private ranches on communal land have water rights while the primary water source for most subsistence cattleposts is the Boteti River.
Contributors to Conflict
Human-elephant conflict arises most directly from crop raiding and destruction of water tanks. However, elephants are often indirectly the cause of livestock depredation. When a borehole or other water source is compromised by elephants, cattle are driven to other locations to find water. Herders stated that when they are forced to push cattle into unfamiliar areas far away from their cattlepost, they are more susceptible to predation.
Alarm Systems
Owning dogs is of the more popular mitigation strategies that are seen across the landscape for both by private ranchers and subsistence farmers. Dogs are used to provide protection to livestock and farms as well as alert owners to the presence of predators. While the majority of dogs are a mutt-mix known as Canis africanis, also known as an Africanis or Tswana dog, some people purchase pure-bred dogs to protect their livestock, holdings, and family.
Subsistence Household
Variation in depredation differentially affects other aspects of daily cattle rearing. The death of a cow from an already small herd has vast implications on whether a cattlepost can sustain itself and support the entire household. This loss could have cascading effects on the rest of the family, including individual household members subsidizing income with a job in another village or city.
Perceptions of the Fence
Fences in the area, even when properly maintained, can be ineffective. Elephants can easily destroy or modify most barriers and have little patience to search for a way around a fence. Even when fences are permeable, they do have an impact on people’s perceptions of conflict. When a predator-proof fence was built in the region, there was a lower perception of conflict despite the number of conflict reports remaining consistent.
Predation
Predation events are broadly influenced by lion demography, as well as seasonally dictated by prey migration, and temporally dictated by human activity. In Makgadikgadi, male lions are more likely than females to raid livestock. Across the region, dispersing males who leave their natal pride are less risk-averse than other lions and thus are more likely to be the primary contributor to human-lion conflict. Lions that raid livestock do not shift their home ranges to follow the zebra and wildebeest migration back to the Okavango Delta in the dry season (May-October). Thus, cattle-raiding lions hunt the migratory herds in the wet season but supplement their diet with livestock in the dry season.
Informants
Vultures are important indicators of a depredation event for herders. Vultures will begin to gather around a carcass soon after an animal has been killed. Often, farmers will use circling vultures to identify when and where a livestock kill has occurred.
Taking Matters Into Your Own Hands
Frustration with the slow response time of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks has led farmers to take matters into their own hands. This can lead to retaliation killing, including poison, shooting, or as depicted here, trapping, and killing the animal. This leopard trap was purchased in hopes to trap a large male who had been killing the farmer's goats.
Spatial and Temporal Activity of Lions
The temporal activity of lions is influenced by human activity. Lions avoid cattleposts during hours of high human activity (06h00—20h00) and often kill livestock overnight (22h00–4h00). The depredation of cattle allow lions to avoid the energetic and reproductive costs of following the zebra migration, as well as the threat of encountering and engaging in conflict with other territorial prides in the Okavango Delta. For some of these apex predators, these energetic costs outweigh the risk of human conflict. Perceived and actual threats of predation from lion can result in retaliation towards these predators.
Water for the Goats
Water is a coveted resource in Botswana, as boreholes are by permit only and natural water sources are limited. While cattle can often travel to natural water sources, goats are unable to do so. Many farms that do not have well points and are far away from the river must transport water daily. Herders may travel up to 20 km on donkey or horse back to get water from a neighboring cattlepost.
Space for Leopards
Leopards are one of the more elusive predators on the landscape and seem to have adjusted to human disturbance. However, the leopard population across Africa is quickly diminishing, with only a few large intact landscapes left for them to exist. Botswana is one of the last remaining countries where the range for leopard covers the entire country.
Sharing Water for Coexistence
Elephants are one of the most common causes of water insecurity in this region of Botswana. In order to combat elephant destruction of boreholes, some farmers have begun to pump extra water for the elephants to drink. Additionally, they may place their cattle troughs outside of the kraal so that elephants have no incentive to break them down. In the southern part of the region close to Xere village, there is a farm that has elephants drinking with cattle almost every night. The herders don't like how close the elephants will get but respect the wishes of the owner.
Missing From the Compensation List
One of the main frustrations of local farmers is the lack of inclusion of hyaena (spotted and brown) on the compensation list. Spotted hyaena specifically are known to leave the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and kill livestock. One argument for not including hyaena on the compensation list is that spotted hyaenas are traditionally known as scavengers, but data shows they are very capable of hunting for themselves. There is also an argument that it is easier to chase off a hyaena than it is a lion or leopard, and therefore are a lower-risk predator.
Summary
The Makgadikgadi landscape is a series of interconnected practices of cattle rearing, human-wildlife interactions, and cattle depredation created by the herders, owners, cattle, and wildlife in the region. Each of the practices is also shaped by natural and anthropogenic features; the river system, fences, vegetation, and water points all contribute to creating human-wildlife interactions.
Any attempt to isolate social or ecological dimensions would be superficial and would reveal a clear entanglement of the two systems. To effectively conserve biodiversity, we must find a balance between protecting wildlife populations and supporting and recognizing human livelihoods.
