Community Perspective on State Forest Management Regime and its Implication on Forest Sustainability: A Case Study of Chobe Forest Reserve, Botswana

ABSTRACT

Forest management regimes have evolved worldwide over time in a quest to protect and conserve forests. This paper analyzed local communities’ perspectives on the existing management regime for the Chobe Forest Reserve, Botswana. The study draws from a combination of triangulated data sources comprising household survey and focus group discussions. A total of 183 respondents from three communities were randomly sampled for the household survey, complemented with focus group discussions. Descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic analyses were used for analyzing data. Communities’ perspectives were expressed through three central aspects underpinning the management regime: (1) level of satisfaction on state forest management regime, (2) willingness to partake in conservation activities, and (3) consultation and involvement in decision-making. Generally, the satisfaction scores showed that communities were ambivalent on the performance of the Chobe Forest Reserve management regime. Moreover, focus group discussants argued for inclusiveness of management approaches. This manifests from the locals’ exclusion in the management and conservation of the forest, resulting in the formulation of regulations which infringes on the locals’ right to access and use of forest resources for livelihood sustenance. This calls for a swift shift away from the longstanding tradition of local community exclusion but to inclusive participatory approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Forest management regime
• sustainable forest management
• Chobe Forest Reserve
• Botswana

Acknowledgements

Part of the content of this article was presented at a conference: 7^th Forest Science Symposium, 18 – 20^th July 2017, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The first author would like to express his sincere gratitude to Prof. Charlie Shackleton (Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University) for partly financing the conference attendance. Thanks to Lorato Mongatane and Emmanuel Zuku from Forest Conservation Botswana for availing unpublished documents on forestry discourse. We are grateful to the Chobe Enclave communities’ for their tremendous support during data collection stage.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicting interests.

Notes

¹ Small effect = .01, medium effect = .06 and large effect = .14 (Cohen, 1988, p. 284).

² Primary = 7 years, Junior Secondary = 3 years, Senior Secondary = 2 Years; Primary and Junior secondary education levels are pursued consecutively while Senior secondary is subject to a minimum pass at Junior exist examinations.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) (Task 311) supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The Task 311 was hosted at Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources.