The plight of the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana has long been in the media limelight thanks to Survival International, the human rights organization. As with so much in life, the issue is far from simple and the 25th May 2007 Survival International Report gives clues as to the dilemma the Government of Botswana faces in this sensitive matter.
The CKGR was proclaimed in 1961 as a game reserve and “… the protection it offered to the Bushmen was written into the Constitution with the agreement of Botswana’s first democratic government.” This was at a time when the Bushmen were still leading their hunter/gatherer way of life and hunting with bows and arrows.
As Botswana progressed (it is one of Africa’s political and economic success stories) the government foresaw the inevitable social cataclysm when the 20th Century would meet the Stone Age. The Bushmen were ill-equipped to deal with what was to come. In order to ease this passage the government introduced the Remote Area Dwellers Programme (RADP) in the 1980s. Bushmen were allowed to hunt and gather certain species for resale in the towns. Government officers were located in several settlements in the CKGR to assist the Bushmen with transport and negotiating the best deals in town. Water was even trucked into these settlements by the government to encourage people to settle.
The first time I went to the CKGR was in 1987. We crossed the reserve diagonally from the south-east to the north-west. In the southern portion we followed diamond prospectors’ gridlines, so there is no doubt in my mind that the necessary research has been done. However, in Botswana (as in most African countries) ownership of mineral wealth falls to the State, as per the country’s constitution. So if viable mineral wealth has been discovered in the CKGR then constitutionally the State has a right to it, and it is doubtful that any government would allow a game reserve and the lifestyle of a few to stand in the way of benefiting the majority. Unlike other African countries where mineral wealth is exploited by international corporations with the collusion of local elites, the major portion of profit from Botswana’s diamond wealth goes back to the government. Debswana, the 50/50 partnership between De Beers and the Botswana Government, pays its taxes on profit in … Botswana. So the winning partner is the government. (The model is so successful and beneficial to the country that it is set up as an example to other African countries.) In Botswana’s solid democracy diamonds have financed development since independence. So the myth that the Bushmen removal from the CKGR is about diamonds just doesn’t ring true.
All the while inexorable change knocked at the CKGRs door.
Since the RADP terminated in the early 1990s, the Bushmen have been gradually encouraged to move out of the CKGR with the enticement of free primary schooling, free health-care and permanent water. As expected, there were some, especially the older ones, who couldn’t cope with this change. “… alcoholism, boredom and depression …” are disorders that afflict many indigenous people overwhelmed by a less sympathetic culture.
I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic to the Bushmen. On the contrary, as a First People, I feel they’ve had a rotten deal at the hands of many colonizers, of all ethic origins. To paraphrase Laurens van der Post, the Bushmen provide a mirror in which both Black and White people can reflect on the shadow side of their natures.
So here we sit in 2007 where a large segment of the Bushmen population has partially adapted to 21st Century life. They own rifles and guns and they hunt from vehicles. They are pastoralists with herds of goats. They wear Western-style clothing and they are accustomed to permanent water.
You can see the dilemma the Government of Botswana sits with. “Small” herds of goats become large herds of goats if they have water and forage. Goats are notorious for overgrazing and debilitating an ecosystem, if left unchecked. Taking a quick look at areas outside of the CKGR in Botswana, where permanent water is provided, will confirm this.
Also to expect hunters, who own rifles, to resort to using bows and arrows is naïve. Unrestricted hunting with rifles in a game reserve will soon decimate wildlife numbers.
The CKGR is opening up to non-consumptive photographic tourism with job creation being a government objective. Tourism is Botswana’s third economic pillar (diamonds and beef being the other two) and diversification makes sound managerial sense.
So in order to preserve the integrity of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the government is trying to “… persuade the Bushmen not to return to the CKGR.”
The big mistake came in the forced removals carried out in 2002 and it is obvious from the judgment of the Botswana High Court in 2006 that the letter of the law was not followed. And while law abiding countries in Africa should be commended, this does not detract from the predicament the government now finds itself in. Just when the world is coming to realize the threat the environment is under and that continued human consumption cannot continue on the scale it has, we have a First People clamoring for their share of the spoils.
So which is paramount: human or environmental rights? As with most important issues, it’s not that simple. Perhaps the question should be reframed. Is Man dependent upon Mother Earth or is Creation somehow dependent on Mankind? And how should Man adjust to changing conditions to ensure his own long term survival as a species?
These are the questions of our Time.
The irony of all this is that it’s happening to a people who were, in their traditional spirit, utterly comfortable with the concept of a symbiotic relationship with the Earth.
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