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Leveraging traditional and scientific knowledge for a sound Botswana National Ecosystem Assessment
While most ecological assessments primarily use scientific approaches and methodologies, these approaches have at times proven to be insufficient by overlooking or failing to understand how traditional and local communities have historically managed, governed and utilized ecosystems within their territories. This historically entwined relationship between nature and culture translates into a wealth of knowledge, innovative strategies, and practices that could strengthen biodiversity policies and actions. By leveraging scientific and traditional knowledge, the Botswana National Ecosystem Assessment (BW-NEA) aims to establish the extent to which biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services exist in the country’s different ecosystems and how communities utilize and relate to them.
Botswana National Ecosystem Assessment
The Botswana National Ecosystem Assessment (BW-NEA) was officially launched in August 2023, however it had kick-started in 2022 with an update of the scoping report developed in 2021. The updating process adopted a multiple evidence-based (MEB) approach by interweaving scientific and traditional knowledge systems for a robust scoping exercise. To ensure consideration of traditional knowledge, the BW-NEA team nominated a lead author to coordinate and lead this workstream. The team is currently in the process of developing a dedicated traditional knowledge task force to provide advisory role to the assessment team.
Engaging Traditional and Local Communities
Acknowledging traditional and local communities as critical stakeholders and knowledge holders in the assessment process, the BW-NEA team conducted reconnaissance surveys and community dialogues. The aim of the reconnaissance surveys and community dialogue was to avail platforms for community members to provide inputs on the scoping report.
The reconnaissance surveys conducted in various regions across the country, each characterised by distinct ecosystems, enabled the BW-NEA team to pinpoint areas that represented specific ecosystems. The reconnaissance accorded the team a preliminary understanding of available goods and services and an opportunity to engage traditional knowledge holders and other stakeholders to create awareness about the NEA project in the area.
Community dialogues were held in Palapye, and it brought together communities from different villages in Tswapong and Botswana National Ecosystem Assessment team of experts to share their personal perspectives, experiences and narratives about the traditional knowledge found in the Tswapong Hill ecosystem. The outputs that emerged from the dialogues were used to enhance the contents of the scoping report.
One of the ecosystems visited during the reconnaissance survey was the hill ecosystem, represented by the Tswapong Hills in the Palapye administrative district. This flat-top rocky range stretches over 70 kilometres from Palapye in the east to Lerala village in the west. Several small villages are strategically spread at the foot of the hills, which have an average height of 400 metres and width of 15 kilometres. The majority of these villages are located near water springs and essential ecosystem goods and services. The Tswapong Hills are also home to spiritual practices and ancestral religious values and beliefs of the local communities.
The interaction with traditional knowledge holders during the reconnaissance survey in Tswapong villages revealed the Tswapong Hills ecosystem as a potential case for the assessment. To better understand how communities, through their knowledge and cultural practices, manage and utilize the hilly ecosystems, the BW-NEA team, in collaboration with UNESCO, organized community dialogues. Through this participatory methodology, selected community members were brought together to share their in-depth insights, knowledge, practices, and experiences about how local ecosystems are managed and utilized and the prevailing challenges. Community dialogues also helped the BW-NEA team to identify relevant themes and issues of focus in the assessment connected to traditional knowledge.
To ensure inclusive engagement of all villages, representatives from communities around the Tswapong Hills were selected and transported to Palapye village where the community dialogues were held for two days. The dialogue participants were carefully selected with the help of community leadership to ensure the inclusivity of all voices. During the community dialogues, the team strived to create an enabling environment to foster free sharing of ideas and promote dialogue while observing cultural (communication) protocols. As such, the participants were divided into four group categories: Dikgosi (customary chiefs, consisting of both male and female leaders), women, elderly men, and youth (composed of both genders). This enabled participants to candidly share their perspectives with their peers.
To assist with the logical flow of responses, some guiding thematic questions were developed, and each group was to address them as much as possible. These were divided into:
- Multiple benefits/values (economic, cultural and medicinal benefits) and opportunities for value chain development
- Community conservation practices
- Customary/local governance systems (practices and policy issues)
- Environmental challenges
- Drivers of change – both positive and negative
- Intergenerational knowledge transfer (how traditional knowledge is transferred and the challenges encountered)
Multiple values of nature
Through the community dialogues, participants were able to list provisioning and cultural benefits derived from the local ecosystem:
Traditional conservation practices
The participants shared a wide range of traditional conservation practices that have maintained and sustained the ecosystem goods and services in the area to discourage overutilization of some services. For example, tampering with the source of the spring water would result in the “death of the spring water” or drying of the spring, which will disrupt the livelihoods of people due to water insecurity.
Customary Governance
The participants also discussed the role and importance of customary governance in natural resources management. The issue that stood out was how the local governance structure is treated as unimportant by statutory government policies. It was revealed that historically, community leadership controlled, governed and regulated the use of natural resources. Nowadays, the utilization of natural resources is guided by the central government permits and regulatory systems, which has led to some instances of overutilization or harvesting of resources before reaching maturity. Examples that featured prominently were the larvae of mophane (Gonimbrasia belina) and thatch grass (Eragrostis pallens Hack).
Drivers and Challenges
Environmental challenges raised during the dialogues were related to water springs and caves. The participants reported that these are being vandalized and trash left behind by religious groupings destroys their aesthetic value. The other challenge was the proliferation of invasive species in the area as well as the uncontrolled recreational activities /camping in ecologically sensitive areas.
Climate change was cited as the major driver of change in the area. Other instances of drivers of change were taboos, values and beliefs governing the utilization of natural resources by the local communities are no longer respected and followed, especially by the community youth and people who come outside these communities.
The participants felt the need to devise ways to transmit the traditional knowledge practices to future generations. Some of the ways suggested were to include these practices in the school curriculum and establish cultural festivals where traditional knowledge and practices can be showcased and promoted.
Next steps
After the approval of the , the BW-NEA team will embark on the assessment evaluation stage of the project to compile and synethize all available data, in
The experiences gained, and lessons learnt from conducting dialogues have provided the BW-NEA team with insights on how to engage communities to comprehensively document traditional knowledge and incorporate it into the final assessment report.
Acknowledgements
The BW-NEA is implemented by Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Affairs.
The at UNEP-WCMC is part of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (t), working in partnership with UNDP and UNESCO.
BW-NEA is financially supported by the International Climate Initiative () of the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection of the Federal Republic of Germany
