Keywords

5.1 Introduction

Given the increased awareness of the importance of host communities and environmental responsibility in tourism, community-based tourism (CBT) has gained popularity as a strategy for environmental conservation and social inclusion (TIES 2006). At present, CBT programs are in place in different countries across Africa, Latin America and Asia (Baktygulov and Raeva 2010). CBT is ‘a form of tourism where the local community has a substantial control over, and involvement in its development and management, and a major proportion of the benefits remain within the community’ (WWF 2001). Rozemeijer (2001) suggests that CBT initiatives ideally should be owned by one or more defined communities, or as joint venture partnerships with the private sector with equitable community participation as a means of using the natural resources in a sustainable manner to improve their standard of living. Rozemeijer (2001) further argues that CBT calls for:

  • economic viability (i.e. the revenue should exceed the costs);

  • ecological sustainability (i.e. the environment should not decrease in value);

  • equitable distribution of costs and benefits among all participants; and

  • institutional consolidation (i.e. a transparent organization, recognized by all stakeholders, and established to represent the interests of all participants).

In order to better understand the premise of CBT, this introduction highlights three closely related narratives that support the concept − the debate on sustainable tourism, community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) and community empowerment − and argues that more research into the community empowerment dimension of CBT is warranted.

5.1.1 Sustainable Tourism

Sustainable tourism is a branch of sustainable development that was put on the world agenda with the publication of the Brundtland report (WCED 1987). The emergence of sustainable tourism can be viewed as a reaction to the philosophical underpinnings of sustainable development. Therefore, sustainable tourism debates have extended beyond examining the impacts of tourism, to propose concrete steps which could be taken by the industry (Inskeep 1991; Bramwell and Lane 1993) to achieve sustainable tourism development. The lucrative appeal for sustainable tourism does not only strive to address lasting economic and environmental conservation issues, but also addresses issues of power and equity in society (Crick 1989; Urry 1990). Although the available literature defines sustainable tourism in multiple ways, generally, sustainable tourism refers to tourism that maintains its viability in an area for an indeterminate period of time (Tosun 2001) and “does not degrade or alter the human and physical environment in which it exists” (Butler 1999: 12). In order to achieve sustainable tourism, numerous approaches to tourism have been explored, for instance CBT. Community empowerment through community participation is considered an essential step to ensure that CBT development is sustainable at host destinations.

5.1.2 Community-Based Natural Resource Management

The failure of top-down approaches to conservation (i.e. ‘fortress conservation’) led many countries, especially in the developing world, to involve communities in conservation management (Swatuk 2005). Such community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) encompasses local people deciding on how best to protect and use the natural resources on their communal land (Taylor 2002). In Botswana, rural communities participate in CBT through the rubric of CBNRM. Many communities who reside in wildlife endowed areas embraced this concept, to engage in community tourism enterprises (Stone and Rogerson 2011). The philosophy of CBNRM is that a community will manage natural resources better once they realize the benefits accrued from them (Mbaiwa 2011). It is promoted on the belief that governments cannot successfully and efficiently protect natural resources outside protected areas, and that community resource management would be a better development and conservation strategy (Arntzen et al. 2003). The new thinking in community development and conservation is that local people are very important conservers, also shown in history where humans lived together with wildlife in ways that improved biodiversity (Pimbert and Pretty 1995).

In Botswana, CBNRM officially commenced in 1989, and was made possible through funding from the USAID and the support by the Government of Botswana as a joint Natural Resources Management Project (NRMP) (Gujadhur 2000). CBNRM in Botswana focuses on three domains: conservation, rural development, democracy and good governance (Zuze 2006). When focused on conservation, it is concerned with the wise and sustainable use of the resources, and re-investing CBNRM benefits in natural resources can increase the value of the environment and may ultimately yield higher returns in tourism. As a rural development strategy, CBRNM promotes income generation or improved livelihoods. When focused on democracy and good governance, CBRNM involves the devolution of authority from central government to communities (Zuze 2006). The latter dimension of CBRNM relates to the discourse on empowering communities as discussed next.

5.1.3 Community Empowerment

In recent years, the vocabulary of community empowerment has entered the discourse on tourism development. Empowering interventions have been promoted by tourism planners, researchers and practitioners alike. Empowerment strategies are variously operationalized as community participation, ownership, capacitation, livelihood diversification, partnerships, community-based management and community sovereignty (Tosun 2005; Scheyvens 1999; Cole 2006; Timothy 2007; Zimmerman 1995). Moreover, the many definitions of community empowerment promote either inter-personal or contextual elements and define it either as an outcome or a process (Laverack 2001). Yet, what these definitions have in common is their focus on a level of community control, community ownership, and the importance of community livelihoods derivation (Scheyvens 1999; Tosun 2005; WWF 2001). More specifically, the UNWTO (2011) asserts that community empowerment as a precept of sustainable tourism can be a tool for economic development and poverty reduction. Community empowerment through tourism is based on cultural, wildlife and landscape assets that belong to the poor and promotes linkages to local economies and tourism leakage reduction (WTO 2002).

Despite the promotion of community empowerment through tourism projects, the meaning and reception of community empowerment from the community’s perspective is little understood. Warburton (1998) argues that true active participation or empowerment has received little attention in the tourism development literature. In the same vein, Laverack (2001) posits that for the realization of sustainable tourism, community empowerment is regarded as a central component to community development and yet making this concept operational in a program context remains elusive.

Attempting to bridge this oversight, this chapter adopts Schevyens’ (1999) empowerment framework to assess how CBT has been perceived as well as transformed community livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. The Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust (CECT) in Botswana is examined as a case study.

The chapter is organized into three parts. First, an overview of the discourse around CBT is presented, highlighting the importance of community empowerment. Second, drawing on the Chobe case, CBT’s organizational structure is discussed in terms of actors, roles and interests. Finally, the outcomes and effects of CBT in terms of community empowerment are highlighted.

5.2 Theories on Community Empowerment in Tourism

Strzelecka (n.d.) defines community empowerment as a process characterized by the gradual increase of the local actors’ capability to control elements of their local environment as the local society is the most significant for community wellbeing. Colton and Harris (2007: 229) argue that community empowerment is about “governance, the level of control the community has over projects and community-based sovereignty”. Community empowerment implies that the community has the ability to influence local decision-making and implement proposed solutions (Cole 2006).

In an endeavor to conceptualize what community empowerment is about, Buckley (1994) devised a framework which proposes that for CBT to be sustainable, it should include environmental education and support conservation. Nevertheless, Buckley’s framework has been criticized on the grounds that CBT is much more than just a product, and the framework fails to consider whether the quality of life of local communities will be enhanced by tourism activities (Scheyvens 1999). Another operationalization is found in Lindberg et al. (1996) where an economic perspective is taken to assess the extent to which tourism generates economic benefits for local communities. However, Lindberg et al. (1996) did not account for the distribution of the income generated amongst communities and how communities are affected culturally and socially by tourism ventures. While tourism can generate revenues to communities, tourism impacts on communities’ culture and social life may be more damaging, thus undermining people’s overall quality of life (Wilkinson and Pratiwi 1995).

Hence, a community empowerment framework needs to recognize the significance of social, economic, environmental and cultural dimensions of empowerment equally, rather than focusing on one or some of the dimensions in isolation. Scheyvens (1999) developed such a framework that recognizes four dimensions of empowerment; social, economic, political and psychological. According to Scheyvens’ framework, economic gains of tourism are signs of economic empowerment. Psychological empowerment comes from self-esteem and pride in cultural traditions. Social empowerment results from increased community cohesion when members of a community are brought together through a tourism initiative. Scheyvens’ political empowerment is best illustrated with Sofield’s (2003) assertion that empowerment is about a shift in balance between the powerful and the powerless; between the dominant and the dependent.

5.3 Community-Based Tourism in Botswana

5.3.1 Background and Overview

CBT in Botswana has gained popularity over the last two decades. It paved the way for greater community participation and involvement in the tourism sector, which has long been dominated by international tourism entrepreneurs. Different government policies and strategies were critical in the adoption of CBNRM and CBT (e.g. the 1986 Wildlife Conservation Policy, the 1990 National Conservation Strategy, the 1990 Tourism Policy, the 1992 Tourism Act, the 1992 Wildlife Conservation and National Parks Act). These policy documents call for tourism product diversification and increased opportunities for local communities to benefit from wildlife and other natural resources.

Interest is widespread as most stakeholders stand to gain from successful CBT enterprises. Botswana adopted CBT in anticipation of benefits in three areas:

  1. 1.

    Community-managed tourism generates income and employment and, as such, contributes to marginalized areas development;

  2. 2.

    The benefits derived from the use of natural resources for tourism has the propensity to prompt community to utilize these valuable resources in a sustainable manner;

  3. 3.

    CBT adds utility to the national tourism product through diversification of tourism activities (Rozemeijer 2001).

Cognizant of this, CBNRM programs in Botswana experienced a boom in the 1990s. Today there are about 123 legally registered community-based organizations (CBOs) (DWNP 2010). Such CBOs often involve several communities. That is, the formation of a CBNRM project involves the identification of an area which is endowed with natural resources, in most cases, wildlife resources. Villages that happen to be close to the identified area are ‘grouped’ together to form a ‘community’ that is to benefit from the project (see Fig. 5.1). How the formation process of a CBO takes place is detailed in the next section.

Fig. 5.1
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Visualization of village-engagement in a CBNRM project (Source: Stone and Nyaupane 2013)

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5.3.2 Formation Process of a CBO

Before a community can use natural resources for commercial gains, a CBO has to be formed, a community management plan has to be developed, and legally registered (DWNP 2010). The first step involves community mobilization in which all stakeholders are involved and their views and needs are taken into consideration. At this stage many issues are supposed to be discussed, including “the concept of CBNRM and what it entails, its advantages and disadvantages and procedures for obtaining leases, sub-leasing to safari companies, entering into joint venture partnerships and legal requirements such as licenses, taxes and permits” (DWNP 2010: 11). Table 5.1 summarizes the institutional arrangement of CBNRM.

Table 5.1 Main features of CBNRMs institutional arrangement
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The mobilization stage is followed by the socio-economic survey, where details on the socio-economic conditions of the community, including their history, existing institutions, educational background, household incomes, employment status, ownership of assets, lifestyle and type of skills are collected (DWNP 2010).

The third stage involves the formation of the CBO. The CBO must be a Representative and Accountable Legal Entity (RALE) (Arntzen et al. 2003). A RALE is defined as an organization that is “representative and accountable to the community and also responsible for all the decisions it makes on behalf of the community” (DWNP 2010: 11). Therefore, it should act in the interest of the community, inform members of all decisions taken, operate democratically and be responsive to the needs of the community (Hancock and Potts 2010).

Furthermore, a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has to be formed, which is made up of government officials. The TAC has to be satisfied with how the RALE is set up (Hancock and Potts 2010). A constitution governing and regulating the CBO should also be developed (DWNP 2010). Next, natural resource use planning and user rights are obtained by the community. The community has to develop a land use management plan in line with government policies and laws (Hancock and Potts 2010). In order to obtain access to a Controlled Hunting Area (CHA), a management plan has to be submitted to a land authority (Gujadhur 2000). Also at this stage, the community has to come up with an inventory of all natural resources in their area, resource utilization options, zoning of the CHA into concessions for commercial photographic tourism and hunting areas (DWNP 2010). This process attracts a lot of external assistance in terms of funding and training as communities are inexperienced in coordinating and managing such activities (DWNP 2010).

Lastly, monitoring has to be put in place to ensure CBOs have information on the distribution and availability of natural resources in their area as well as the impact of their activities (Rozemeijer 2001).

5.4 Methods

5.4.1 Research Design

This chapter adopts a case study approach. Case studies require a problem that seeks a holistic understanding of the event or situation in question using an inductive logic from specific to more general terms (Patton 1990). The Chobe Enclave Conservation Trust (CECT) was selected as a case study because it was the first community project in the country and has been adopted as the model for implementing CBT elsewhere in Botswana. It is thus an instructive site to understand the nature and dynamics of community empowerment through CBT development. Some questions that the study addresses include: How does CBT empower communities? Does the community perceive itself as empowered? Is CBT informed by contextual settings? The answers to these questions provide a platform through which an assessment is made of whether community empowerment through CBT is feasible.

To obtain as complete a picture of the participants as possible, the interview selection process was guided by purposeful sampling. A total of 34 participants were interviewed between June and September, 2011. Respondents included CECT staff, board members and community leaders (i.e. the village chiefs, village development committee chairpersons, farmers’ association chairpersons, councilors, lodge managers, tourism and wildlife district officers). Purposeful sampling was chosen to aid the selection of information-rich stakeholders whose participation could illuminate the questions studied.

This study employed semi-structured, open-ended interviews administered in a face-to-face fashion to enable eliciting in-depth responses and extensive probing (Bailey 2007). A voice recorder was used to record the interview process. The data were transcribed verbatim. With the aid of Microsoft Word, through the use of track changes and comment boxes, text units were highlighted and labeled as codes to identify analytical categories. As suggested by Denzin and Lincon (2000), a codebook was developed consisting of code categories which were defined to help to consistently and systematically code all transcripts. The development of codes was guided by content analysis based on an inductive approach (Glasser and Strauss 1967). As suggested by Glasser and Strauss (1967) the idea is to become grounded in the data and to allow understanding emerge from the close study of texts. This grounded theory approach was only used to help analyze data, not to create theory. After the coding, themes were developed in order to answer this chapter’s research questions.

5.4.2 Study Area

The CECT is a CBO, consisting of five villages, namely Mabele, Kavimba, Kachikau, Satau and Parakarungu. The villages are located on a belt that runs along the Chobe Basin, forming an enclave surrounded by Chobe National Park. The Enclave villages are located within two controlled hunting areas: CH1 and CH2 where photographic and hunting tourism are practiced (see Fig. 5.2).

Fig. 5.2
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Study area (Source: Stone 2013)

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The enclave villages are accessible by a road that passes through the Chobe National Park. The estimated population of the enclave community is 4,108 (Kachikau: 1,356; Kavimba: 549; Mabele: 773; Parakarungu: 845 and Satau: 605 respectively) (Botswana 2011). The CECT community has a mixed economy based on three main domains: subsistence livestock rearing, crop production and wage employment. The cattle population owned by the CECT community is estimated at around 9,000 (informal interview, Department of Veterinary Services Coordinator). The local soil is dry, sandy and has poor crop yields mainly due to the arid desert environment.

CECT as a CBO is run by a board of trustees elected from each participating village. In total there are 15 board members (i.e. two members are elected by the general membership from each village and the chiefs by virtue of their positions are ex-officio members). The board is elected for a term of 3 years in office. The board works closely with all the village development committees (VDCs) which are responsible for the development of villages. Thus, income generated by CECT is allocated to VDCs to decide on what development to undertake.

The commencement of CBT can be traced back to several meetings held in 1989 to find ways to reduce human-wildlife conflicts and promote benefits through wildlife utilization (Jones 2002). The main agents for such change were NGOs – the Chobe Wildlife Trust (CWT), Kalahari Conservation Society (KCS), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and donors, such as the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) (Jones 2002). The government of Botswana was also actively involved in the provision of policy guidance. Due to community deficiency in technical expertise, community mobilization and wildlife utilization, NGOs and external funding from donors were identified as a remedy (Hazam 1999).

In 1991, a team of external advisors from the government’s Natural Resources Management Project (NRMP), funded by USAID, began working with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) to assist government in the implementation of CBNRM activities (Jones 2000). More specifically, the NRMP team began a series of meetings, first at district level, then with chiefs, headmen and village development committees (VDCs) and then the general village populations (Jones 2002). The WWF and CWT jointly drafted a proposal for support to the communities, highlighting issues like limited funding, need for technical assistance and capacity building to make CBT work (Jones 2000). Nevertheless, villagers were suspicious about the involvement of NGOs, particularly CWT. They expressed concerns about who would control the project and who would benefit (Jones 2002). Due to lack of consensus on what CWT would support and with advice from the DWNP/NRMP extension team, the DWNP director asked CWT to suspend its involvement and interest in the project in 1993 (Jones 2000). This affected the facilitation of the project especially on community capacity building. Without facilitation on capacity building and mobilization, in 1993, CECT was granted its first wildlife hunting quota and decided to put the quota out for tender by the private sector (see Sect. 5.5.2 for more details). Table 5.2 summarizes the overview of the main events in the development of CECT.

Table 5.2 Main events in the development of the institutional arrangement
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Up to date, CECT manages the annually issued wildlife hunting quota in CH1 and photographic tourism in CH2 (see Fig. 5.2). How these CBT activities have empowered the communities is detailed in the next section.

5.5 Results

5.5.1 Political Empowerment

There seem to be two opposing insights on issues of what community political empowerment is. On the one hand the five villages have formed a formal institution to lead and facilitate community participation in tourism development and conservation. The creation of this new institution is interpreted as an indication of devolution of power from the central government to the community level. Indications of empowerment are that the community can now decide on what to do with funds generated from CBT. For example, every year when the income generated from CBT is ready for distribution, each village holds a forum to propose projects for funding. For example, in 2008 the community decided to buy each village a tractor; a total of five tractors with trailers and plowing equipment were purchased to boost agriculture and two general shops to provide service to the community. Before the general shops were built, the community used to travel more than 100 km to the town of Kasane to access shop services. In 2009 the community took a decision to fund three mechanized corn grinding mill projects, one cement brick molding project and five large size tents with chairs to help the community with shelter during wedding and funeral ceremonies. An annual general meeting is held where the board reports back to members on the operation, financial status of the project as well as discuss and take decisions whether the welfare of the project has politically and socially empowered the community.

On the other hand, indications of disempowerment still exist. For instance, communities still perceive limited restructuring of power and control among interested and affected stakeholders. The community still perceives that decision-making powers lie with government-controlled departments, such as the Department of Tourism (DoT), DWNP and the Botswana Tourism Organization (BTO). More specifically, the BTO still has the power to select, develop and bring to marketable standards any tourism product from CECT, while the DWNP unilaterally decides the number and species of wild animals to allocate to communities in their hunting quota. Communities therefore perceive that the authority on natural resource management remains with the same institutions and accountability ultimately still lies with the central government. This arrangement is prone to conflict of interest and yields tensions between local communities and government agencies. The prevailing circumstances are therefore viewed as lack of trust by the government to grant communities full natural resources management custodianship.

In sum, although the community may have the power to decide on what to do with the funds from their CBT, the commencement of CBT did not tilt the government-community power relations and thus invalidates the assumption that CBT empowers communities to independently manage natural resources.

5.5.2 Economic Empowerment

An analysis of CECT’s economic empowerment indicates positive outcomes. Due to lack of human and financial capital, the community opted for a joint venture partnership (JVP) with private safari companies to compensate for these deficits. JVPs in this instance refer to “business arrangements between a private company and a rural community for the commercial utilization of an area’s natural resources, be it game, land or culture” (Gujadhur 2000: 15). To this end, CECT has contractual agreements and partnerships with three private safari companies in running CH1, CH2 and Ngoma lodge (see Fig. 5.3 in terms of money generated due to these agreements and partnerships). In addition, the community also gets a portion of game meat from each kill by professional hunters, an arrangement meant to mitigate poaching. JVPs provide the community with revenue, employment and game meat. With assistance from donors, USAID and AWF, CECT was awarded a grant and able to contribute USD1.77 million towards the construction of Ngoma Lodge. The private partner invested an equivalent amount. Through this partnership, employment for 36 people working in the lodge was created. The private partner provides professional human capital in business planning and operations, hospitality management, and marketing with the goal of transferring skills to community members so that they can eventually take over when the partnership ends.

Fig. 5.3
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Revenue generated by CECT from 1997 to 2011 (Source: Stone 2013)

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Subsistence arable farming has also blossomed due to investment generated from CBT, although this may pose a threat that could further fuel existing human-wildlife conflicts. Farming has been mechanized, some crop fields have been fenced, and the use of pesticides, fertilizers and modern practices like row planting are in effect. Interviews with a DWNP official indicate that the introduction of tourism was meant to ultimately replace subsistence agriculture. However, communities perceive the dependency on tourism as being too risky, especially in the event that a shock or stress occurs, thus tourist dollars generated have been used to boost agriculture.

Figure 5.3 indicates that the revenue generated has been increasing annually except in 2004, a drought year, when there was no wildlife quota allocation due to low wildlife numbers. Between the years 2005 and 2011, high revenue generation has been realized and reinvested in projects discussed above, however, the bulk of the money is saved in the community bank account. During the time of data collection, further discussions on what to use the money for were ongoing.

Employment opportunities have been created too, and the CECT chairperson linked employment creation to the reduction in dependency on veld products (i.e. food or other utility products collected from the land). To illustrate this point he noted that “people are now employed in CBT establishments, safari companies and indirectly related projects hence there is no time for them to collect veld products or hunt” (CECT chairperson). The same view was shared by the CECT secretary, who noted that they “used to collect a lot of veld products and hunt small animals but people now derive income from employment in tourism establishments, hence they are able to buy better food” (CECT secretary). These comments indicate that individuals employed in tourism establishments no longer prioritize participating in traditional chores that have a direct impact on natural resources. The community is now economically empowered to use the money earned from tourism to buy food. Further, the creation of employment and easy access to cement bricks has made it more easy to build better houses.

In terms of economic disempowerment, CBT has created disparities within the community as it cannot employ everyone in the villages. Here CBT is interpreted as bringing economic inequalities within the community. We can therefore conclude that the results show that CBT brings both economic empowerment and disempowerment at the same time.

5.5.3 Psychological Empowerment

In assessing psychological empowerment, the results are also mixed on what constitutes empowerment. The CECT board, VDC members and those who are directly employed by tourism are happy with the new arrangement and are confident when they speak on how CBT has transformed their lives in general. Arable farmers also recognize the importance of the new mechanized farming arrangement that has relieved the labor level asked from them as they now use tractors rather than hands or cows to plow.

Contrary, some farmers blame CBT for increasing the number of wildlife that lead to the exacerbation of crop damage and livestock predation. Some felt that wildlife is now accustomed to people resulting in increasing human-wildlife confrontations. Farmers reported elephants damaging crops and water points for their livestock. Diseases, especially foot and mouth, are prevalent in the area and partly blamed on the African buffalo as the main agent that transmits the virus to community’s livestock.

Due to competition between CBT and agriculture, some farmers find it difficult to recognize CBT as a community empowering venture. Equally, farmers highlighted that agricultural constraints are just as important to address as CBT’s challenges if CBT is to unequivocally empower everyone. In this case farmers are considered psychologically disempowered as they are disillusioned and frustrated about the CBT initiative.

In expressing their frustrations, farmers suggested the use of income generated from CBT to buy electric fences for their farms or adequate compensation as a means to reduce their loss. These suggestions, however, have never been effected and this has further reinforced the negative perception about CBT. Consequently, where CBT is seen as an opportunity for additional socio-economic activity to complement existing livelihood, it is seen as an empowering development, but where it is seen as competing with existing livelihoods it is regarded as disempowering.

5.5.4 Social Empowerment

Due to multi-stakeholder involvement in the implementation of CBT there are different perceptions on who should benefit from CBT generated benefits (i.e. individuals, households or community) and how these benefits should trickle down to the same identified units of beneficiaries. Indications of social empowerment include the belief of some board members of the CECT trust that as trustees they are already empowered to manage the trust on behalf of the larger community, while some believe that the ultimate target for empowerment should be the ‘community’ because a community is made up of individuals, families and households. CECT management strongly believes that the CECT’s philosophy in the management and distribution of income generated is intended to benefit the larger community, thus the beneficiaries are the community through village development committees (VDCs). CECT funds are allocated to each village’s VDC, which are believed to be custodians of the funds as they are entrusted with the development of respective villages. Another common shared understanding of empowerment was revealed when interviewees appreciated the provision of tractors by CECT to help farmers. This was considered empowering as tractors can be used by everyone and this has brought the community together, which is in line with Scheyvens’ framework. The community purchased six tractors to provide draught power to the five villages and villagers use the tractors at subsidized prices. However, the severe crop damage they face from wildlife brings a form of disempowerment because altogether communities lose self-sufficiency in food production and security.

Nevertheless, an official from the District Tourism Office has a different view on how the allocation of funds should be conducted. The officer views empowerment as starting at an individual level and acknowledges that this contrasts with most CBT projects’ assumptions that empowerment starts at the group level. The District Tourism officer explained that this assumption emanates from CBT being a government motivated program.

Government builds school so that children can go to them; builds roads so that people can utilize them, it doesn’t build them for individuals, thus CBT has been conceptualized in the same manner (District Tourism office).

However, many respondents also view the beneficiaries of CBT at the individual level. They ask, what is in it for me to benefit? Most respondents felt that if there is nothing to benefit for them as individuals, they rather not invest in a CBT project but use their time to improve their lives. This finding diverges from Scheyvens’ framework, as CBT does not contribute to increased community cohesion. CBT should empower all levels of community: individuals, households and community. The community does not want to invest in community cohesion because they feel not sufficiently economically empowered.

A contested issue that emerged was that the philosophical underpinning of CBT speaks for the poor at the expense of the rich. Some respondents, for example lodge owners, accuse the concept of CBT as being skewed towards the poor. They argue that the poor live alongside the rich. Thus, CBT seems to be selective in nature, as it tries to empower the poor by creating employment for them. The community, however, is made up of heterogeneous individuals, whereby some do not need employment but are looking for different benefits. For example, one respondent said:

I live in CH 1. If you want me to participate, like becoming a board member, what will I derive from that? You can’t say I will get a job, I don’t want a job. But if you could say that since I own a lodge, professional hunters can stay at my lodge during the hunting season, then I can see the benefit and would be able to participate. (Informal discussion with a lodge owner)

The statement above represents the voices for those who are not necessarily poor, but are part of a community that wants to benefit from CBT, while their interests are overshadowed by those of the poor. What is interesting here is that contrary to existing literatures (Mbaiwa 2011; Swatuk 2005) that emphasize ‘elite capture’ of CBT projects, the findings suggest the opposite. The ‘rich’ feel deprived and alienated from CBT. Community empowerment should not be skewed to certain segments of the community but should be inclusive in nature by promoting community unity and cohesion to avoid negative perceptions.

The findings here emphasize that a ‘community’ is diverse and heterogeneous, thus empowering certain segments of the community may be perceived as disempowering other segments at the same time.

5.6 Discussion

Overall, empowerment through CBT is not uniformly perceived and varies widely within communities. What is perceived as community empowerment is a function of how CBT affects people’s livelihoods. One operational problem of CBT is central to the supposition that a distinctive, neutral and homogeneous community exists. Thus, CBT in the context of Botswana, has been driven by a single model approach (see Fig. 5.2), probably because it is easily understood and easier to implement. However, a uniform approach is unlikely to incorporate local variations. The one model approach can easily become coercive and ignore important local factors (Arntzen et al. 2003).

The term community-based may suggest an integrated community order, but it should be better understood as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive approach (Appadurai 1991). This verifies the insight that a community is not merely a geographical location but has relational, emotional, political and psychological dimensions involving interpersonal relationships (Gusfield 1975). Thus, local planners, managers and governments should solicit the goodwill of, and collaborate with, communities to design models of participation that suit each locality so that economic, social, cultural, environmental and political sustainability are achieved (Choi and Sirakaya 2005).

Similar is the assumption of a distinct, and somewhat stable, local environment, which is perceived to have succumbed to deterioration and needs to be restored through CBT. The community is perceived as the fitting body to bring out such restoration and is envisioned as being proficient of acting cooperatively towards common interests. This supposition explicitly implies that harmony existed between humans and the environment before, until such a time when it was upset by changing human factors. This human-environment balance thinking has framed problems in certain ways and in turn prescribes particular solutions, such as CBNRM or CBT innovations. Indeed, many of the analyses of people-environment relations conceive the relationship as a simple and linear one (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1992), not as a relation that has its ups and downs. Therefore, CBT is deployed as a way to bring community and environment back into harmony. CBT may sound to be germane in promoting a win-win situation in community development and biodiversity conservation, however, it may not always bring intended outcomes as it is not neutral, but practiced in contested environments.

As the results indicate, empowerment through CBT is a subjective, malleable entity and can easily misrepresent communities’ interests. Important to note is also that CBT is intended to reconcile development and conservation but is undertaken by a diverse set of stakeholders, representing wide-ranging intents. Immediate stakeholders are community members with diverse opinions, interests and aspirations. Other stakeholders highlighted are donors, international organizations, NGOs and regulatory agencies. The effects of different social actors who tend to represent a wider community, actively manipulate communities as they do not necessarily share communities’ interests. Swift and Levin (1987) assert that the exercise of power is principal to the concept of community empowerment. Community empowerment models transcend hierarchical, patriarchal, coercive or violent conceptualizations of power (Gerschick et al. 1990) and challenge the assumption that power is a zero-sum commodity. That is, increasing the power of one community, organization, or individual implies decreasing the power of another (Bartunek and Keys 1982). For example, donor agencies are powerful entities as they dictate how money should be spent, regardless of local variations that may exist. In critical reviews of major international funding institutions, it has been suggested that the attempts of global agencies to support poor people should just be seen as acts performed for altruistic reasons but to also serve their interests as promoters of globalization from below (Brecher et al. 2000). The stakeholder’s conceptual differences of what constitutes CBT as a ‘vehicle’ of community development and environmental conservation are downplayed in favor of reaching a common goal. Due to the diverse structural nature of CBT, what is to be developed and conserved according to stakeholders’ opinions, becomes very broad.

In view of these discussions then, theoretically, CBT sounds like a noble idea, nevertheless, it can be perceived as an example of a community development ‘imposter’ driven by economic imperatives and a neo-liberal agenda, purported to further exploit local communities (Blackstock 2005). The results are in line with Swatuk’s (2005: 118) sentiments, that “many residents do not fully understand their formal relationship to the land”. Nonetheless, while CECT may be perceived as having attained limited community empowerment success, the case study offers a positive example of how the government’s approach to natural resource management is evolving. Yet, CBT in Botswana still needs improvement.

5.7 Conclusion

Contingent on this chapter’s results we can conclude that structural designs of any program, developed to promote community empowerment, may not in itself guarantee the achievement of development and environmental conservation. Thus, it is necessary to carefully balance local diverse viewpoints with strategic community empowerment intervention objectives. Nonetheless, substantial variation in the presence of, and roles and levels of community livelihoods, make it difficult to define community empowerment. Therefore, careful planning and design by community development planners, based on an understanding of local community variations, can greatly enhance the positive impacts of CBT. Structures initiated to promote community empowerment must be sensitive and informed by in-situ, rather than ex-situ, backgrounds.

This chapter therefore recommends that conservation-development planners need to have multiple ‘lenses’ in their repertoire, in order to capture the varied peoples and situations within which they work. It is important that all stakeholders’ needs and aspirations are taken into consideration. If this is jeopardized, community resentment can occur and the intended goals of CBT will not be reached. One approach could be to use participatory rural appraisal techniques to assess communities’ strengths and implications for project interventions. Moreover, the significance of social capital in bridging and bonding of community cohesiveness should be devised to build community solidarity before the inception of the innovation. Only then CBT can live up to its full potential.

To conclude, whereas some authors emphasize the potential for CBT to promote the wellbeing of both local people and their environments (Hoenegaard 1994), others are cautious about these assumptions and call for the critical acceptance of CBT as a form of community development (Ziffer 1989; Cater and Lowman 1994). In light of this debate, this chapter aimed to explore the benefits and challenges of CBT in Botswana, focusing specifically on community empowerment. Drawing on a rich case study of the CECT, the chapter demonstrates that the degree of empowerment and disempowerment differs for community member groups. For example, members of the CECT board, VDCs and people working in the tourism establishment felt economically, politically, psychologically and socially empowered. Yet, farmers felt disempowered as they feel not benefitting sufficiently from tourism. Therefore, CBT varyingly empowers communities.