11 Dec 2024

Save Wildlife Conservation Botswana is making strides in the pursuit of attaining sustainable and empowered communities through its programmmes. 

The organisation’s project manager, Mr Tirelo Ramasimong, said in an interview that they were following a holistic approach that focused on education for conservation which was the yard stick of the organisation. 

He said they worked directly with communities residing adjacent to and within the wildlife contact areas of Ngamiland, Shakawe, Boteti and the Chobe. 

Some of their initiatives, Mr Ramasimong said included a farming project dubbed Okavango Farming Project at Xuoxao, Morutsha and Kata. 

The project is a community development initiative focused on  food security and provision of an alternative source of livelihood to communities of NG 32/35 who are dominantly influenced by tourism. 

The project, he said, had experienced an exponential growth as it now contributes to feeding local communities through the farm produce.

He was happy to share that some beneficiaries had already started harvesting and selling fresh vegetables to some lodges in the Okavango Delta as well as the local market. 

 He said focus had also been extended to capacitating local farmers with technical skills in horticultural production and support with necessary resources to enable them sustain their backyard gardens. 

“From the lessons learnt, we realised that some residents ventured into backyard gardens but needed to be assisted with water bowsers, some with drip system. Our nest step  is to secure funding to buy nets,” he added. 

He said they wanted residents to also adopt climate smart agriculture methods to increase production and boost income. 

Mr Ramasimong said the idea was to build independent communities and minimise reliance on handouts from the community trusts and  the government.

 The project promotes spirit of self-reliance, being independent by producing enough food for sustenance as well as generating income for economic improvement,  he said.

The impact of the project, he said, had motivated other residents to venture into horticultural farming. The organisation is also implementing a Lion project at Xuoxao to promote conservation of wild animals through mitigation strategies and initiatives of sustaining wildlife survivals. 

The project is community led, and Mr Ramasimong said they sought to address the issue of human-wildlife conflict by promoting co-existence between humans and wildlife.  Ends