Climate change policy in a world of uncertainty: changing environment, knowledge, and tourism in Botswana

ABSTRACT

Tourism is an important economic sector in the Global South. It is however vulnerable to the risks and variations associated with global climate change. The paper qualitatively investigates how issues surrounding uncertainty in the climate change discourse have influenced policy makers’ response to climate change in Botswana’s tourism sector. The analysis of the empirical data derived from in-depth interviews demonstrates that some policy makers remain skeptical about climate change and its impacts on tourism despite growing evidence from regional scientific research and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Constraints that hamper progress in policy response measures include inadequate knowledge of, and the extent to which, climate science can be trusted.

KEYWORDS:

• Botswana
• climate policy
• knowledge
• policy makers
• tourism
• uncertainty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wame L. Hambira

Wame Lucretia Hambira is a Senior Research Scholar at the Okavango Research Institute of the University of Botswana. Her research interests include tourism and climate change adaptation; tourism dependent communities’ resilience to climate change; private sector sustainability practices; and analysing gaps in national and sub-regional policy frameworks in the context of sustainable development and green economies. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Oulu, Finland and an MSc in Environmental Economics, University of York (UK).

Jarkko Saarinen

Jarkko Saarinen is a Professor of Geography at the University of Oulu, Finland, and Distinguished Visiting Professor (Sustainability Management) at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include tourism and development, sustainability in tourism, tourism and climate change adaptation, tourism-community relations and wilderness studies. He is Editor for the Tourism Geographies and Associate Editor for the Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Ecotourism.

Oliver Moses

Oliver Moses is a Senior Research Scholar in Climate Change Science at the Okavango Research Institute of the University of Botswana. His expertise includes the following: Climate change, weather and climate modelling and prediction. His research interest is mainly in climate change in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, and climate modelling.