Let me first just inform you all that I'm a nerd. but I'm okay with that. I really love my ISP. Last week I spent a lot of time reading background info on CBNRM in general and in khwai, which was so interesting. I've just started looking at my survey results, and my goal for this week is to mostly get through analyzing them this week. I'm so excited to see what I find out when I analyze them, though. I really can't wait. It's tricky when the internet at the internet cafe I use keeps shutting down (yay developing coutries!) but hopefully it will stay on from now on.
It's weird being in the same place for so long. It's been 2 weeks now I've been staying at the same place, and I have about 3 more to go. We're getting to know the hotel staff and making friends with some of the people that live here, which is fun. We even have some favorite taxi drivers, and I have a favorite art vendor who I met in Gaborone and then found again randomly up here in Maun. It's kind of funny how small the world becomes in a country of only 1.7 million people.
It's been fun finding things to do to keep us busy. During the day we do ISP and at night cooking dinner over the campfire takes a while and then we usually hang out by the bar at the hotel (it's a hotel/campsite) or sometimes go out. There's not much to do in maun though. There are about 3 options for restaurants and there's old mall and new mall, neither of which have much. And they're not malls, really; just a place where grocery stores, clothing stores, etc. are generally located. It's nice to be with other people for my ISP, though. we have fun.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
excursion/ ISP prep
Last week we were in the bush the whole time. We moved between 3 different campsites and went on a lot of game drives. We were in the Makgadikgadi Pans area for most of it, which is a national park. For a few days, we would go on a game drive in the morning and evening when it was light enough but still cool so that animals would be out. We saw quite a bit-zebra, giraffe, gemsbok (definitely the most beautiful antelope you'll ever see), springbok (the most entertaining antelope you'll ever see. It's hilarious to watch them proking. I could probably watch them for hours on end), steenbok (smallest antelope you'll ever see...are you getting the idea that there are a lot of different types of antelope here?), jackals, foxes, a cheetah (the only cat we saw, which was slightly disappointing but incredible to see even that), lots of birds, crocodiles, buffalo, etc. Then we went into the salt pans which are really cool. You go to the middle and all you can see is sand up to the horizon. It's like being at the ocean when all you can see is water. It's pretty amazing. That area used to have water from the Okavango Delta flowing in it, but it's dry now. We also went to Nxai Pans. Loads of zebra there. Literally over a thousand in sight at one time.
This past week was "ISP prep" week (ISP= Independent study project). The last month of the program, we each come up with an individual project which cna be anywhere in Botswana and we spend the month doing that project. So this week we had to come up with what we're doing. We also finished up all of our assignments for our other classes and took exams in Ecology & Conservation and Setswana. It's really nice to be done with all of that now. For my ISP I'm going to stay in Maun at a campsite. My project is working with CBNRM (community based natural resource management) which is a government program that started in the mid 90's. There is a huge human-wildlife conflict here because people really like their cattle. They're seriously mroe important than having money in the bank. And obviously there is also a lot of wildlife. Unfortunately, lions and other carnivores like to kill cattle and other livestock so farmers have a problem with that and kill the wildlife. There are other environmental problems with things like simple conservation and things like that too, but the cattle is a big one. Oh, and elephants like to eat crops too. So to help end this conflict, the idea behind cbnrm is that people will have lifestyles that allow them to benefit from the environment. this, in turn, will encourae them to conserve natural resources. So an village inside of a wildlife management area (wma), which is not part of a national park but inside the veterinary fence that separates cattle from wildlife, now is part of cbnrm and they have to develop a cbo (community based organization) which has some focus. There are 2 main categories-tourism and veldt products. Tourism cbos have photographic and hunting safaris so conservation is promoted becasue you haqve to have wildlife to bring in tourism, and wildlife is conserved, money is generated-good news for all parties involved. Veldt products are traditional crafts and other things made out of natural resources like baskets made of palm leaves, wooden crafts, marula products (soap, oil, etc.) . So then all cbnrm villages are not allowed to keep cattle, but then hopefully generate an even better income off of tourism or veldt products and the ecostystem is conserved at the same time. Good deal. so now, after that mini-lecture what I'm going to be doing is figuring out, in one case, if this cbnrm deal is actually working. about 10 years ago in a village called Khwai, a number of interviews were conducted with ocmmunity members asking aobut their natural resource use, feelings toward the environment, wildlife, etc. Someone, at that time, analyzed, interpreted, and drew conclusins form those interviews. Just recently they did the same interviews again with community members in Khwai and they're at the stage of only having raw interview manuscripts. I'm going to go throgh them, anazlyze, etc. and figure out how people now feel about natual resources, then compare it to the results from pre-cbnrm. Hopefully that will give me/other people who care and are involved in cbnrm some idea about whether cbnrm is successful in its original goal. Hopefully it will be. One interesting thing is that Khwai lies right on the okavango and their focus is on tourism. They have a few safari camps, but all of the camps are owned by outside companies; they aren't run by residents of khwai. This is a technique that many cbos have gone with. It seems like it works better to get people to conserve when they are directly involved, though which makes sense. Money, then, is going more directly into their pockets. In khwai it sounds like there is some employment that the native people benefit from , but not that much. So we'll see what I come up with. Also interesting-my friend Alyssa is doing her IsP on basically the same thing but in a different location and in her villages they didn't conduct surveys before cbnrm so she has nothing to compare it to. But there, the people are much more directly involved in tourism so they may be more inclined to practice conservation. It will be interesting to see how everything turns out. I'm actually really excited for this project.
It's going to be weird over the next few days, as people start to trickle off and go to other locatins for isp. Some people still don't have their projects finalized. Yesterday it looked like there would only be me and alyssa in Maun, with maybe our friend Jenn but now it looks like 2 others might be here as well. It would be fun to have a few people, and the people staying are some of my closest friends in the group so it should be a good time. I think we're going to be working hard, but hopefully we'll get to take some fun weekend trips to places we haven't been yet.
This past week was "ISP prep" week (ISP= Independent study project). The last month of the program, we each come up with an individual project which cna be anywhere in Botswana and we spend the month doing that project. So this week we had to come up with what we're doing. We also finished up all of our assignments for our other classes and took exams in Ecology & Conservation and Setswana. It's really nice to be done with all of that now. For my ISP I'm going to stay in Maun at a campsite. My project is working with CBNRM (community based natural resource management) which is a government program that started in the mid 90's. There is a huge human-wildlife conflict here because people really like their cattle. They're seriously mroe important than having money in the bank. And obviously there is also a lot of wildlife. Unfortunately, lions and other carnivores like to kill cattle and other livestock so farmers have a problem with that and kill the wildlife. There are other environmental problems with things like simple conservation and things like that too, but the cattle is a big one. Oh, and elephants like to eat crops too. So to help end this conflict, the idea behind cbnrm is that people will have lifestyles that allow them to benefit from the environment. this, in turn, will encourae them to conserve natural resources. So an village inside of a wildlife management area (wma), which is not part of a national park but inside the veterinary fence that separates cattle from wildlife, now is part of cbnrm and they have to develop a cbo (community based organization) which has some focus. There are 2 main categories-tourism and veldt products. Tourism cbos have photographic and hunting safaris so conservation is promoted becasue you haqve to have wildlife to bring in tourism, and wildlife is conserved, money is generated-good news for all parties involved. Veldt products are traditional crafts and other things made out of natural resources like baskets made of palm leaves, wooden crafts, marula products (soap, oil, etc.) . So then all cbnrm villages are not allowed to keep cattle, but then hopefully generate an even better income off of tourism or veldt products and the ecostystem is conserved at the same time. Good deal. so now, after that mini-lecture what I'm going to be doing is figuring out, in one case, if this cbnrm deal is actually working. about 10 years ago in a village called Khwai, a number of interviews were conducted with ocmmunity members asking aobut their natural resource use, feelings toward the environment, wildlife, etc. Someone, at that time, analyzed, interpreted, and drew conclusins form those interviews. Just recently they did the same interviews again with community members in Khwai and they're at the stage of only having raw interview manuscripts. I'm going to go throgh them, anazlyze, etc. and figure out how people now feel about natual resources, then compare it to the results from pre-cbnrm. Hopefully that will give me/other people who care and are involved in cbnrm some idea about whether cbnrm is successful in its original goal. Hopefully it will be. One interesting thing is that Khwai lies right on the okavango and their focus is on tourism. They have a few safari camps, but all of the camps are owned by outside companies; they aren't run by residents of khwai. This is a technique that many cbos have gone with. It seems like it works better to get people to conserve when they are directly involved, though which makes sense. Money, then, is going more directly into their pockets. In khwai it sounds like there is some employment that the native people benefit from , but not that much. So we'll see what I come up with. Also interesting-my friend Alyssa is doing her IsP on basically the same thing but in a different location and in her villages they didn't conduct surveys before cbnrm so she has nothing to compare it to. But there, the people are much more directly involved in tourism so they may be more inclined to practice conservation. It will be interesting to see how everything turns out. I'm actually really excited for this project.
It's going to be weird over the next few days, as people start to trickle off and go to other locatins for isp. Some people still don't have their projects finalized. Yesterday it looked like there would only be me and alyssa in Maun, with maybe our friend Jenn but now it looks like 2 others might be here as well. It would be fun to have a few people, and the people staying are some of my closest friends in the group so it should be a good time. I think we're going to be working hard, but hopefully we'll get to take some fun weekend trips to places we haven't been yet.
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