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Gudigwa Learning Document

The document provides a historical overview of the Gudigwa Cultural Village tourism initiative in northern Botswana as a community eco-cultural tourism project. It discusses Conservation International's role in establishing the project and lessons learned, including that early involvement of a private sector partner is essential for success. While the project created some social benefits, it struggled commercially and continues to do so despite good intentions from Conservation International.

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Gudigwa Learning Document

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The Gudigwa Cultural

The Gudigwa Cultural Village

Village
An historical overview of a community eco-cultural
tourism initiative in northern Botswana

A learning document

Rowena Smuts
Lovemore Sola
Neel Inamdar
Leo Braack
Colin Bell
Conservation International
Southern Africa Wilderness & Transfrontier Conservation Programme Page ii

Acknowledgments

This review document was prepared by the Southern Africa Wilderness and Transfrontier
Conservation Programme, based in Cape Town, South Africa, in collaboration with various
members of the CI Global Tourism Team and other individuals. We would like to thank the
following people, who generously contributed to the document through their historical
association with the project over the years:

Conservation International
Sharon Safran, Eileen Gutierrez, Karen Ross, Susan
Stone, Edward Millard, Fred Boltz, Dave Bayard

Other
Molefe Rantsudu (employed as a consultant to obtain information on
community perspectives)
Nathalie Barbancho (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation)
Parakh Hoon (independent PhD researcher at Virginia Technical
University, USA)
Kgoberego Nkawana (BigFoot Safaris, the Gaborone based tourism
operator who took over management of the camp in 2006)

Donors
The following organisations, companies and individuals generously contributed towards
financing this project during the various stages of its inception and operation:

Bancker-Williams Foundation; Department for International Development - Business Link

Challenge Fund (DFID-BLCF); European Union (EU) Micro Projects, Botswana; Kalahari
Management Services (KMS), Botswana; Mulago Foundation Healthy Communities
Initiative (HCI), USA; Swift Foundation; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
(SDC); United Nations Development Programme/National Conservation Strategy
Coordinating Agency (now Department of Environmental Affairs) (UNDP/NCSA),
Botswana; US Embassy- Ambassador Fund, Gaborone, Botswana.

Gudigwa Cultural Village – An historical overview of a community eco-cultural tourism initiative in northern Botswana
Conservation International
Southern Africa Wilderness & Transfrontier Conservation Programme Page iii

Preface
Tourism has long provided a rationale for conservation and economic development around the world.
Since the first national parks were established in the United States by Theodore Roosevelt, the
promise and lure of tourism dollars has been used to support the twin aims of biodiversity
conservation and economic development.
The use of tourism as a tool for economic development and conservation has evolved dramatically
over the past 100 years. The common approach in the 1960s and early 1970s involved a neo-colonial,
heavy-handed enforcement model, often in tandem with mass tourism development investment funded
by the World Bank. By the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a shift toward a greater emphasis on
developing enterprises at the site level, such as Chalalan Ecolodge and others.
However, despite large-scale donor investment in site-based ecolodge development, the majority of
these initiatives did not achieve economic success. This reality, combined with the growing donor
desire to extend benefits to local people, led to the further evolution of tourism projects throughout the
1990s into integrated parts of rural development projects. By this time, tourism was widely accepted
as a key component of many rural economic development initiatives which supported wildlife
conservation.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Conservation International (CI) was at the forefront of the movement to
support “local economic development as a strategy for wildlife conservation and conflict resolution”
(IUCN / UNEP / WWF 1980). In Ecotourism and conservation: A review of key issues (K. Brandon,
1996), ecotourism was identified as a way to provide the following five benefits to conservation:

• Financing for parks and conservation;

• Economic justification for park protection;
• Economic alternatives for local people to reduce exploitation of conservation areas and
resources;
• Constituency building that promotes conservation; and
• An impetus for private conservation efforts.

During this period it became more and more evident that “…the economic benefits of wildlife and
biodiversity are diffuse and accrue to society in general,… (the) financial benefits generally accrue to
governments and external entrepreneurs,... (and) many of the costs are acute and borne locally”
(Dixon & Sherman, 1990; Wells, 1992; Balmford & Whitten, 2003).
Against this background and following the success of CI’s ecolodge project at Chalalan, Bolivia
(which contributed in part to the establishment of Madidi National Park), CI decided to engage the
community at Gudigwa in a tourism venture.
This document has been prepared to record the successes and failures of the initiative, and to support
our learning around such interventions.

Executive Summary
As a result of previous successes with ecotourism and their contribution to conservation, CI made the
decision to invest in establishing what would be a demonstration ecolodge project in Gudigwa,
Botswana. As is documented here, CI as an organisation had good intentions; however it made some
fundamental and strategic errors in the early stages of project implementation that materially
compromised the viability and sustainability of the project, dooming it to failure. While CI thought it
was doing everything “right” based upon its knowledge and understanding of community tourism
development initiatives at the time, the project was a commercial failure and continues to struggle as a
tourism enterprise despite creating some lasting positive social impacts for the community.
Understanding why this happened is crucial to informing the design and successful implementation of
tourism based interventions which address the twin challenges of biodiversity conservation and
poverty alleviation.

Some of the key “lessons learned” from this experience are:

• CI’s failure to include a private sector partner early in the project created a host of issues
which hobbled the project from the onset; CI engaged in an activity outside its core
competency, in a remote location and with minimal professional assistance in a highly
competitive industry. Early involvement of qualified, private sector tourism operators /
professionals is essential to ensure value chain linkages and operational integrity.

• Indirect incentive schemes that attempt to integrate economic development and conservation
are a challenge and must be extremely well conceived, planned and implemented.

• At the community level, poorly implemented tourism initiatives often result in:
− Benefits that are few and which do not offset individual costs;
− Benefits that are too indirect to act as incentives for conservation; and
− A direct correlation between increased promises and increased aspirations.
More specific lessons learned from the Gudigwa experience include:
• Company, Business and Management Structures are crucial – At the outset of the project
the facilitators lacked the understanding that an impoverished and marginalized rural
community with little or no formal education did not have the capacity to directly manage a
start-up tourism business. Structures and practices should have been in place to allow the
community to slowly over time take more and more of the responsibility involved in running
the business.

• Partner selection is crucial – There was a mismatch between the low volume/high revenue
tourism model advocated by Wilderness Safaris, who had to package Gudigwa as part of a
suite of luxury products, and the NGO facilitators’ expectations of the community’s capacity
to run such a high end business.

• Partner timing is crucial – In addition to selecting the right partners, their early involvement
is essential to ensuring the integrity of the tourism product. Wilderness Safaris should have
been brought on board from the outset to both manage and market the business rather than just
market it.

• Tourism is very competitive – All tourism enterprises are highly competitive business
ventures dealing with clients who have high expectations. Thus the involvement of a private
sector partner that has experience in a commercial business environment is very important.

• Professional Management is crucial – Lodge Management should have been the

responsibility of a high-end tourism operator. Neither CI nor the Gudigwa community were
experts in business development, financial management of tourism enterprises or service
delivery. As a consequence the operation lacked solid business principles and staff
recruitment and financial management were not carried out in accordance with basic good
business practice, despite training.

• High Expectations – Both CI and the community had unrealistic expectations of what could
be accomplished in a short period of time. The community expected to obtain profits within
the first couple of years of operation in order to improve the livelihoods of the people of
Gudigwa. Expectations could have been managed if a professional operator had been included
from the onset, leading to risks being carried by the operator rather than the community.

• Conflict resolution – there were problematic relationships between various project

stakeholders at different times. It is possible that a more proactive approach to conflict
resolution should have been taken earlier in the project cycle to address miscommunication
issues.

The lessons learned from the Gudigwa experiences are being disseminated to other similar CI projects
globally as part of our learning initiative.

Embracing these lessons learned, and building on the explosive growth of the tourism and ecotourism
industries over the past 15 years, CI has altered its strategy to focus more attention on the private
sector. By focusing on the Tourism Value Chain and assuming the role of a facilitator as opposed to
that of a participant, CI is attempting to utilize market forces and market players to address many of
the challenges associated with tourism operations in areas of high biodiversity and poverty.
Fortunately, this change in approach coincides with a heightened awareness within the tourism
industry of the threats and challenges tourism creates in areas of high biodiversity and scenic beauty,
and with an increasingly environmentally aware/concerned traveling public. CI now has the
opportunity to achieve the five goals outlined by Katrina Brandon (1996) with the willing and active
support of the broader tourism market.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

BCCT Bugakhwe Cultural Conservation Trust

BLCF Business Link Challenge Fund
CBNRM Community Based Natural Resource Management
CBOs Community Based Organisations
CI Conservation International
CSO Central Statistics Office
DFID Department for International Development, United Kingdom
DWNP Department of Wildlife and National Parks
EMC Enterprise Management Committee
JVP Joint Venture Partnership
KFO Kuru Family of Organisations
LDC Less-Developed Countries
NG12 Ngamiland 12 (Wildlife Management Area Unit)
OCT Okavango Community Trust
OWS Okavango Wilderness Safaris
OWT Okavango Wildlife Trust
PRA Participatory Rural Appraisal
RADP Remote Area Development Programme
RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands (RAMSAR, Iran, 1971)
SADC South African Development Community
TOCaDI Trust for the Okavango Cultural and Development Initiatives
TAC Technical Advisory Committee (a Botswana government
advisory body)

Timeline of Development

1987: Gudigwa village est. when Khoesan people from the area between the
1987
Okavango Delta and Linyanti River settled in NG12

1991: CI’s Okavango Program started in Maun – focused on conserving

biodiversity associated with Okavango Delta

1998: Mike Taylor undertook research for PhD dissertation of San in northern
Botswana – identified need for development of income generating activities for
Khwe San based at Gudigwa

1999: BCCT established. Initial conceptualization, development and

construction of camp

2000: BCCT registered

2003: 28 March – Gudigwa Camp officially opened

November – destroyed by wild fire

2004: 29 May, Camp re-opened,

December - closed

2005: Camp not in operation

2006: June, CI handed Camp over to BigFoot Safaris 2006

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Executive Summary

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Timeline
Timeline of Development vii

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Purpose of report 1
1.2 Data gathering 1

2 Background 2
2.1 Overview of the Project 2
2.2 Motivation for Gudigwa Camp Establishment 4
2.2.1 CI’s perspective 4
2.2.2 The community' s perspective 7
2.2.3 Wilderness Safaris’ perspective 8
2.3 Cultural History of Gudigwa 9
2.4 Establishment of the Bugakhwe Cultural Conservation Trust (BCCT) 10
2.5 CBNRM and Tourism Initiatives in Botswana 11
2.6 The Gudigwa Tourism Product 12

3 Operations and Management: Structures and Processes 13

3.1 The BCCT 13
3.2 The Enterprise Management Committee (EMC) 13
3.3 Camp Management and Staff 14
3.4 Community Capacity Building/Training 14
3.5 Management 15
3.5.1 Wilderness Safaris 15
3.5.2 Donor Evaluation 16
3.5.3 Lodges of Botswana 17
3.5.4 BigFoot Safaris 17

4 Financial Overview 17
4.1 Capital Investment - Funding Obtained 17
4.2 Visitor Numbers 18
4.3 Estimated Revenues and Operating Expenses 19
4.3.1 DFID/BLCF funds 19
4.3.2 Other organisations & consortium partners 19

5 Project Successes 21
5.1 Community perspectives 21
5.2 CI’s perspective 22
5.3 Visitors’ perspectives 26
5.4 OWS'perspective 26

6 Challenges Encountered 26
6.1 Financial Feasibility Questionable 26
6.2 CBNRM in Botswana 27
6.3 Fire 28
6.4 Problems with the BCCT 28
6.5 Management 29
6.6 Client satisfaction 29
6.7 Issues of Capacity 29
6.8 Community Expectations 31
6.9 Partners 31
6.10 Participation of Stakeholders in the Project 32
6.11 Lack of Documentation 33

7 Lessons Learned 34
7.1 Include a private sector partner at project inception 34
7.1.1 Structuring a commercial agreement or clear Memorandum of Understanding 34
7.1.2 Representation 35
7.1.3 Selection of Appropriate Business Model 35
7.2 CI had unrealistic expectations of the Gudigwa community 35
7.3 Inclusive stakeholder consultation required prior to project being formalized 36
7.4 Model mismatch and unrealistic expectations 36
7.5 Inadequate levels of experience/capacity to manage a complex tourism
product within community and NGO 37
7.6 Ongoing inclusive stakeholder consultation was necessary throughout
the project 38
7.7 Conflict amongst project stakeholders 39
7.8 Poor business practices 40
7.9 Camp management 41
7.10 Marketing of the camp could have been improved 42
7.11 Poor financial management and reporting controls 43
7.12 CI’s exit from the project viewed as premature by Gudigwa community 43

8 Conclusions 43

9 Reference List 46

1 Introduction
1.1 Purpose of report
The Gudigwa Cultural Village Eco-tourism project, located in northern Botswana, received
extensive support from a wide range of committed organisations and individuals over a seven-
year period (1999-2006). Conservation International (CI) played an instrumental role in the
conceptualization and establishment of this tourism initiative. Although the project was
approached with the best of intentions at both an organisational and individual level, it failed
in its objective of establishing a viable, sustainable and profitable community-based tourism
enterprise during the time in which CI was involved.

CI realized that, in order to avoid this outcome on other projects, the organisation needed to
critically review this project and recognize how certain activities could have been approached
differently. It is hoped that the lessons learned from this experience will provide a learning
tool that contributes to future planning of tourism initiatives.

This report aims to provide a historical overview of the Gudigwa Cultural Ecotourism
Initiative since its inception, and to document benefits accrued to the local community and
lessons learned during the implementation of the project. While intended primarily as an
internal review document, it may also serve to answer some of the questions that have been
raised by Botswana’s citizens, tour operators and the general public at large regarding this
project. CI also intends to share this document with donor organisations and individuals who
generously contributed towards this initiative.

CI is no longer involved in Gudigwa and handed over activities to a local Gaborone-based

tourism operator named BigFoot Safaris in June 2006, who continue to operate the camp.

1.2 Data gathering

In order to provide a comprehensive overview of the project activities that took place, this
document draws on the opinions and experiences of a wide range of project stakeholders
including:

• Numerous CI project participants;

• The Gudigwa community; and

• Wilderness Safaris, the tourism operator responsible for marketing the product.

In many instances, various project stakeholders expressed conflicting opinions; some of these
conflicting viewpoints have intentionally been retained in the document to illustrate different
perspectives on the same issue. Differences of opinion were evident both within stakeholder
groups (i.e. CI project proponents, Gudigwa community focus groups) as well as between the

different stakeholder groups. The Gudigwa community perspectives were obtained by Molefe
Rantsudu (a previous employee of both CI and Wilderness Safaris)1 who visited Gudigwa
during December 2007. Focus group discussions were held with the following groups of
people, and a total of 25 respondents were interviewed:

• BCCT Board and members of the EMC;

• Former staff members at the Gudigwa camp;

• Craft makers, traditional guides and dancers;

• Elderly people;

• Youth; and

• Women.

In addition, Mr. Colin Bell of Wilderness Safaris was invited to provide his input to the
document at its inception and for its final review, to ensure that the views of the operator were
appropriately captured.

This study dealt with project conceptualization, planning processes, stakeholder involvement,
competencies that existed prior to project inception within the community, and the support
given to enable the community to launch a sustainable tourism business.

2 Background
2.1 Overview of the Project
The Gudigwa Community-Based Eco-cultural Tourism project was a unique eco-cultural
tourism initiative situated on the northern fringes of the Okavango Delta in Ngamiland
District, Botswana (Figure 1.1). The camp, which was initiated by the Bugakhwe
Conservation Cultural Trust (BCCT) in partnership with Conservation International, was
located five km from the nearest village, Gudigwa.2 The overall project goal was “to enable

1
A potential limitation of the data collection process arises from the fact that the researcher involved with the project was a CI
employee who had a direct relationship with the communities prior to his engagement as a consultant for this study. Since the
community was knowingly dealing with a former CI employee they may have filtered their responses to suit the researcher,
particularly with regard to questions relating to CI’s involvement. The advantage of using this consultant was his familiarity with
a number of the issues pertaining to this project.

2
Gudigwa village is the last in a string of villages that stretches from Mohembo village in the southwest, near the border with
Namibia. The village is about 65 km northeast of Seronga village on the eastern side of the Okavango River Delta.

the Gudigwa community to take advantage of economic development opportunities, while

preserving natural resource management goals”.

The following performance indicator was identified to demonstrate whether the project goal
had been accomplished or not: the creation of commercially viable, community-based
enterprises that contribute to conservation and bring benefits, basic services and economic
development structures to a remote area of Botswana. The overall project purpose entailed the
successful operation of an ecotourism enterprise by the BCCT and Gudigwa community,
simultaneously achieving their socio-economic development goals while actively helping to
achieve biodiversity conservation goals. The envisioned impacts of the project included:

• A fully functioning traditional San village, receiving 25,000 annually in revenues;

• The establishment of a development fund after year five, redistributing 7% of

business profits into development projects;

• Ecotourism development that clearly resulted in biodiversity conservation outcomes

and the preservation of cultural heritage by creating links between community
development and the preservation of those resources.

Fig 1.1: Map showing Gudigwa Village, Northern Okavango Delta

Source: Conservation International GIS (2008)

Gudigwa camp was viewed as an opportunity to offer guests a rare experience; intimate
exposure to the cultural richness of the San3 who inhabit the northern reaches of Botswana

3
The terms San, Khwe, Sho, Bushmen, and Basarwa have all been used to refer to hunter-gatherer peoples of southern Africa.
Each of these terms has a problematic history, as they have been used by outsiders to refer to them, often with pejorative
connotations. In Botswana the official term is Basarwa however this is a Tswana term and is also seen as having negative

between the Okavango Delta and the Namibian border. Guests were accommodated in grass
huts made from local materials and modeled after traditional San shelters but which included
luxury facilities such as comfortable beds and linen, solar lighting and private open-air
bathrooms with a flush toilet and hot-water shower. Meals consisted of local foods cooked
over an open fire. Guests also had the opportunity to go on guided walks with experienced
San trackers to learn more about traditional hunting and gathering techniques.

CI was instrumental in introducing and encouraging the BCCT and the community to develop
a common vision of conservation and stewardship. CI conducted a Participatory Rural
Appraisal (PRA) in 1999 with the Gudigwa community. During the exercise, the people of
Gudigwa were asked to identify possible projects that would benefit the community as a
whole.

The idea of a cultural village was encouraged because: 1) the community liked the idea; 2)
this community, as one of the world’s last true San communities, had extensive cultural
knowledge to develop a cultural village; and 3) Wilderness Safaris (the Okavango branch was
called Okavango Wilderness Safaris, OWS) became involved due to an established
relationship between Karen Ross (the CI Botswana Programme Director at the time) and
Colin Bell (then the CEO of Wilderness Safaris). Karen Ross invited OWS to market the
camp. OWS was very interested in the idea of a San cultural village as an add-on to their
normal game-viewing tourist ventures and they agreed to become marketing partners on this
project.

The Gudigwa camp was officially opened on 28 March 2003 with Wilderness Safaris, and
operated for seven months before a wild fire destroyed it in November 2003. It was
reconstructed and re-opened to guests on 29 May 2004. The camp was not in operation in
2005 (as detailed later in this document), and renovation of the existing structures was
required before the camp could be re-opened. In June 2006 CI facilitated the signing of a
contract between the Bughakwe Cultural Trust and Gaborone-based tourism operator BigFoot
Safaris who assumed management of Gudigwa, and who continues to operate the camp today.

connotations. The term San has been selected throughout this document since the term is appreciated by the group of traditionally
hunter-gatherers who inhabit Botswana as opposed to either Basarwa or Bushmen (personal communication with ToCADI). The
San are in fact the indigenous people of Southern Africa (Silberbauer, 1965) and their population numbers an estimated 100,000
in Southern Africa today (Taylor, 2000; Saugestad, 2001). They have lived for more than 15,000 years in Southern Africa,
specifically in the area demarcated between present day Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Angola. The largest population,
estimated to be around 60,000, live in Botswana today (Suzman, 2001; Saugestad, 2001).

2.2 Motivation for Gudigwa Camp Establishment

2.2.1 CI’s perspective

CI’s Okavango Programme (located in the Maun office in Botswana) was started in 1991. The
establishment of this programme was driven primarily by the perceived need for CI to play an
active role in contributing to the conservation of the extraordinary biodiversity associated with
the Okavango Delta and to assist the existing players in maintaining the integrity and
functionality of the ecosystem.4

CI’s overall conservation objectives are guided by the belief that human societies are able to
live harmoniously with their natural environment. This was in line with conservation thinking
in Southern Africa in the 1990s which sought to demonstrate Community Based Natural
Resource Management (CBNRM) through tourism. Following its ecolodge success at
Chalalan in Bolivia, CI believed this model could be replicated in Southern Africa at an
appropriate site.

In 1998, Mike Taylor was collecting field data in Botswana for a PhD dissertation (Edinburgh
University) on the San of Botswana. His work took him to a very remote settlement of Khwe
San, who had recently been moved by the government to a site north of the Okavango Delta
called Gudigwa. At the time, and even today, it was one of the world’s largest settlements of
Khwe San, with more than 600 residents. Mr. Taylor was concerned about the welfare of the
Khwe San because they had been removed from their ancestral lands in the late 1980s with the
promise of a better life. However, at the time he visited Gudigwa there was not a single
income-generating activity taking place in the entire community and the residents were
entirely dependent on food aid from the government, a situation similar to that of many other
villages in the NG12 area.

The Gudigwa community had heard of the economic activities that CI had been engaged with
in other communities in northern Botswana, in particular a women’s basketry project, and
through Mr. Taylor they requested CI’s help in developing income-generating activities. At
first, CI-Botswana worked with Mr. Taylor and the Gudigwa community on a socio-
economic/natural resources data activity called “Mapping the Land”. Mr. Taylor and select CI
staff went out with members of the Gudigwa community, equipped with GPS units and 4x4
vehicles, to map the traditional lands of the Gudigwa community. One of the community
members involved, Orakilwe Tsima, was the youngest son of the village chief and one of the
few young people who had gone to school and was computer literate. He was dedicated, hard
working and knowledgeable and his grasp of English, Setswana and Khwe made him

4
The Okavango River Basin covers an area of approximately 10 million ha, extending from Angola, through Namibia into the
Okavango Delta in Botswana. The Okavango Delta is a RAMSAR Site and is one of the most intact of the three inland deltas in
the world. It is unique for its mosaic of rivers, floodplains and channels and is home to a wide diversity of plant and animals
species.

invaluable to the project. CI later hired him as a staff member and he worked with CI as the
Gudigwa Traditional Village project developed.

The map was detailed, intricate and fascinating (available from Mike Taylor and/or Edinburgh
University). It showed that until the late 1980s, the Khwe San community of Gudigwa was
split into many clans that lived, hunted and gathered in a large area of northern Botswana,
stretching north of Gudigwa settlement to the Namibian border. The area roughly comprised
the land-use zone called NG13. Even more interesting was the fact that these ancestral lands
had been annexed by the Department of Agriculture during the building of the Northern
Buffalo Fence and the re-zoning of NG13 for cattle use. It became apparent from this study
that the removal of this Khwe San community from their lands, and their resettlement at
Gudigwa, was undertaken to clear NG13 of people so that the fence could be built and the
land re-gazetted as cattle grazing territory.

CI-Botswana had had a long history of tracking the Botswana fences issue. In terms of
conservation, CI felt that the fencing issue justified its involvement with Gudigwa, though the
desire to assist this destitute and remote community of people was compelling enough. In
terms of CI’s strategic interest in creating corridors in the Okavango ecosystem, it was hoped
that by forming a trust and helping the community with income generating activities, CI could
assist them in re-claiming their lost lands in NG13, and thus re-establish a conservation
corridor between Okavango and Namibia’s Caprivi protected areas. This was CI-Botswana’s
long-term vision; in the short-term, CI focused its activities on assisting the community in
establishing income-generating activities.

To this end, a team of CI social workers, in particular Shex and Kathy Gouwe, worked with
the community in conducting a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA exercise), assisted by
Orakilwe, who by then was employed full time by CI-Botswana. The PRA identified the
community’s desire to earn money by doing what they know and love – hunting and gathering
on the land, living a traditional way of life, etc. The community expressed its desire to create a
business through an ecotourism enterprise, and this idea evolved into the concept of a
Traditional San Village that would be built, owned and operated by the community which
would share the profits. This idea combined the concept of earning money through ecotourism
with the use of their traditional skills and expertise as Khwe San.

Tourism initiatives are encouraged by CI as a means of supporting the organisation’s

conservation objectives in a variety of ways:

• Tourism can function as a vehicle to finance conservation through the creation of

concessions, user fees, trust funds, etc.

• Tourism has the potential to reduce impacts on biodiversity through planning,

managing, assessing and monitoring within areas of high conservation importance,
and sharing experience. Additionally the development of policies, legal frameworks,
regulations and agreements can contribute to conservation objectives. The

development of standards, guidelines and best practices (community, private sector,

protected area, visitor management) for a particular tourism operation can also have
far-reaching benefits for other similar operations.

• Tourism can function as a sustainable economic activity in areas of high

conservation importance, through the creation of alternative livelihoods, the
development of entrepreneurial capacity in both communities and the private sector,
and the creation of enabling environments.

• Tourism can create constituencies for conservation in communities, NGOs,

government and businesses, and can help establish partnerships and alliances while
simultaneously contributing to capacity building, education and interpretation.

Gudigwa provided CI with the opportunity to demonstrate how tourism could effectively
contribute to some of CI’s conservation objectives in Southern Africa, building upon
experiences at Chalalan, in Bolivia.

2.2.2 The community’s perspective

Community respondents unanimously agreed that Gudigwa Camp had been established
predominantly for economic reasons and as a cultural preservation project. Economic reasons
included the need to secure their future through a community income-generating project. It
was thought that the income would contribute in some way toward alleviating the poverty
articulated by community members.

Members of the community stated the following reasons for wanting to set up the Gudigwa
Project:

• To increase livelihood options in Gudigwa, aimed at developing the community and

improving the lifestyles of the Gudigwa people;

• To create employment opportunities for community members and earn income that
could be used to develop Gudigwa village and its people;

• To revive, preserve and celebrate Bugakhwe culture through tourism activities in the
camp; and

• To set up their own San-owned community project separate from the Okavango
Community Trust (OCT) and to address their perceived marginalization by the OCT. 5

5
In the early 1990s, the Gudigwa community had foregone their hunting rights (Special Game Licenses) and they were of the
opinion that the Okavango Community Trust (OCT) was not doing enough to meet their basic needs and to compensate their loss
of livelihood. The Gudigwa community had wanted to withdraw from OCT. However, on the advice of CI and Okavango

Gudigwa community members were consistent in their choice of at least three critical
stakeholders, namely: CI, OWS and the government. The following were advanced as reasons
for involving the stakeholders in the Gudigwa Camp before the formation of the BCCT:

• CI was chosen for its interest and its proven expertise in working with rural
communities to develop community enterprises.

• OWS was chosen for its existing relationship with the OCT communities as the
operator of the two community concessions of NG22/23, as well as its expert
knowledge of the tourism business.

• The government was chosen because it is the representative of the people and was
involved in the larger Community Based Natural Resource Management Programme
(CBNRM).

Community respondents unanimously recognized that the partnership with CI was integral to
the successful establishment of the Gudigwa camp. Equally important, OWS was seen as an
indispensable business partner that would link the camp with its future clientele and ensure
that it became a successful business operation.

2.2.3 Wilderness Safaris’ perspective

Wilderness Safaris has been involved in tourism in southern Africa for more than 25 years and
is committed to the long-term conservation of wildlife and pristine wilderness areas. The
company manages over 60 successful camps in 7 SADC countries and strongly believes in the
future of African wilderness regions, parks and wildlife, while encouraging the active
involvement of the people who live alongside those areas. Wilderness Safaris functions both
as an international tour operator and a local destination management and marketing company,
specializing in marketing and managing wildlife game lodges and wildlife safaris. As such, it
was well placed to both market and manage the sales for the camps.

Since hardly any Gudigwa community members had a formal education, there were problems
with marketing capacity for this new product. For that reason, CI approached OWS in 2002 to
explore ways to collaborate on this ecotourism venture.

OWS liked the idea of a traditional village as a one-night add-on to its existing high-end
camps nearby, notably Vumbura and Little Vumbura. OWS agreed to collaborate with
CI/Gudigwa community as the sole market agents for the camp, and also to assist with
training. Significantly, OWS was not expected to manage the camp; with the help of OWS the
BCCT managed the day-to-day activities of the camp.

Wildlife Trust (OWT), Gudigwa remained involved in OCT and set up its own community trust, the BCCT, which contributed
toward setting up the Gudigwa Camp seven years later, with assistance from CI.

2.3 Cultural History of Gudigwa

Gudigwa6 village was established in 1987 when the Khoesan people from the area between
the Okavango Delta and the Linyanti River settled in NG12. Specifically, people of Khoe
extraction were relocated there as part of the Botswana government’s Remote Area Dwellers
Programme (RADP) (Mbaiwa & Rantsudu, 2003). The objectives of RADP were to
encourage the San and other ethnic groups living in remote and scattered areas to come
together and live in a collective of villages where they could be provided with services such as
housing, education and water.

The Khwe people can be roughly divided into two groups: the “Buga,” who derive their
subsistence from the wilderness or sand and are known as the Bugakhwe, and the Ani, who
derive an existence from the water or river and are known as the Anikhwe. The riverine
Anikhwe occupied the area around the Okavango Delta for centuries before the arrival of
Bantu speakers in the 1800s (Tlou, 1985).

The Khwe people of Gudigwa are primarily (95%) Bugakhwe. Gudigwa has a population of
approximately 732 people (Central Statistics Office (CSO), 2002), though it is estimated that
the population may have grown to more than 1,000 individuals. The village has a Kgotla
(customary court) and offices for the local police, a primary school, a clinic, a water tank and
engine for the tank, a veterinary camp and accommodation houses for the local policemen.
The village has several shops, including two bars. There are two offices for the BCCT and
Okavango Community Trust (OCT), one of which houses a radio for communication between
the people of the five neighboring villages of OCT. The Bugakhwe people are indigenous to
the Okavango Delta, and related to the San tribes of the Kalahari. Officially, Gudigwa village
represents the largest organized San community in Botswana, and is also the only Bugakhwe
tribe still living on land that forms part of their traditional territory for hunting and gathering.

The Bugakhwe of Gudigwa is comprised of eight main clans,7 which came from eight
different areas in the region. Taylor (2002) noted that most of the people of Gudigwa came
from Gamwi and Letshaobe, not far from present day Gudigwa. The various clans and people
who make up Gudigwa village lived for centuries in the northern Sandveld of the Okavango
Delta. The Bugakhwe have historically moved freely between Botswana, Namibia and
Angola. Taylor (2002) observed that Gudigwa could be more accurately described as a cluster
of small villages spread over several kilometers, with each section separated by a band of
trees.

Gudigwa is a Bugakhwe name for a big and strong tree, representing the strength and unity that the Bugakhwe people of
Gudigwa envisaged when they settled in the area in 1987.

7
The eight main clans include Xhondoro, Xharango, Gwakeqwe, Xhwatau, Ghicudza, Xhwakatsu, Hqwengu and Thobokhuru.
The eight chalets at Gudigwa Camp were named for these eight clans.

Although the San are the dominant group at Gudigwa, there are other ethnic groups that have
since settled in the village. These include refugees from Angola, Basubiya, Bayei and
Hambukushu. While the people of Gudigwa are of San origin, over time they have inter-
married with the Bayei (Wayei) who reside in neighboring villages. The Bugakhwe residents
of the Gudigwa village are the owners of Gudigwa camp.

The socio-economic activities of the people of Gudigwa are mainly pastoral and limited to dry
land farming. However, the people of Gudigwa recognize the potential value of engaging in a
natural resource project for the purpose of sustainable development. As a result, they are part
of the Okavango Community Trust (OCT)8 and have also formed the Bugakhwe Cultural
Conservation Trust (BCCT) to enable them to participate in and derive socio-economic
benefits from tourism in the Okavango Delta.

2.4 Establishment of the Bugakhwe Cultural Conservation Trust

(BCCT)
Once the Community had established (through the PRA Exercise) that it wished to engage in
an eco-tourism enterprise, the next action of CI-Botswana was to assist the community in
forming a legal entity; a trust that could legally participate in a community ecotourism project.
The work of developing a trust was considerable, but eventually the Bugakhwe Cultural
Community Trust was formed. With the Trust formed and OWS agreeing to market the
traditional village, the stage was set for the camp to be built. This effort was spearheaded by
Sharon Safran with the help of CI’s Ecotourism division in Washington, D.C.. Money was
raised to build the camp, for training, to build an airstrip and so forth. The work was
considerable; reconciling the group dynamics of a Khwe San community, an international
NGO and an international tourism company (Wilderness Safaris) proved to be difficult.

The villagers of Gudigwa established the Bugakhwe Cultural Conservation Trust (BCCT) in
1999 and it was registered in 2000. The Trust was formed out of a Community Participatory
Planning Process with the Gudigwa community members, facilitated (at the community’s
request) by Conservation International’s Maun office, and is considered to be one of CI’s
most significant legacies of the project. The Trust aimed to represent the Gudigwa
community’s interests and to ensure that funds raised for the Gudigwa camp would provide
direct and measurable benefits to the villagers and community members. The Board of
Trustees had 10 members and any community member of Gudigwa over 18 years old was
eligible to be a member.

The objectives of the Trust were three-fold: first, to revitalize Bugakhwe cultural practices and
the utilization of natural resources found around the village of Gudigwa; second, to achieve an
improved standard of living for its members through training and income generation; and

8
A Trust or CBO is the legal entity used by communities to conduct CBNRM activities.

third, to ensure the conservation of natural resources in the area. A number of specific
objectives were also developed for the BCCT.9

This community-based eco-cultural tourism venture was developed by the BCCT in

partnership with CI’s Okavango Programme serving as technical advisors and facilitators to
the project. OWS was identified as the marketing and reservations partner in the project. OWS
also provided supplies and made orders for the camp, however it had no management
authority or input into the enterprise, although they did deploy the first managers to the BCCT
to manage the camp.

2.5 CBNRM and Tourism Initiatives in Botswana

Community-based tourism is commonly approached through the CBNRM10 Programme in
Botswana. In the past decade, the CBNRM Programme has become an essential component of
rural development in the Okavango region, particularly for community-based tourism in the
Okavango Delta and Ngamiland District. The government provides communities with
guidelines for establishing community-based organisations (CBOs), in some instances the
communities are also provided with a concession area. Only communities that are provided
with land are required to abide by the guidelines, which include contributing a specified
percentage of income to a conservation fund that can be used for development purposes. The
amount which has to be contributed varies according to the income obtained.

In Botswana, there are two overriding policy documents that advocate the involvement of the
rural communities in the sustainable utilization of natural resources: the Wildlife Conservation
Policy of 1986 and the Tourism Policy of 1990. The premise is that if rural communities
utilize natural resources to derive economic benefits, this will cultivate the spirit of ownership
and will ultimately lead to more sustainable natural resource use.

“CBNRM aims to alleviate rural poverty and advance conservation by strengthening rural
economies and empowering communities to manage resources for their long-term social,

9
Specific objectives of the BCCT included the following:
• To promote cultural heritage for future generations of the people of Gudigwa.
• To promote conservation of local natural resources, specifically land, soil, animals, plants and water.
• To subscribe and adhere to government environmental policy and legislation.
• To explore and utilize local fauna and flora economically.
• To combat poverty and unemployment through sustained utilization of natural resources.
• To represent the environmental conservation interests of the Gudigwa Community.
• To empower the Gudigwa Community with environmental management knowledge for decision-making.
• To facilitate networks between the Bugakhwe Cultural Conservation Trust and similar institutions in the region and
abroad.

10
“CBNRM within the southern African states has become a mode of development where the conservation paradigm has shifted
from a centralized preservationist and protectionist approach to a more integrated approach” (Mbaiwa, 1999). This approach
recognizes the need for the promotion and empowerment of the local communities by linking economic and social development
to natural resources management.

economic and ecological benefits” (Rozemeijer and Van der Jagt, 2000). The CBNRM
Programme is perceived to be a hybrid of the modern system of development and the
indigenous knowledge systems.

Based on the CBNRM framework, the BCCT was formed with the aim of involving the
people of Gudigwa in tourism and natural resource management; hence the establishment of
Gudigwa Camp to provide traditional tourism services to tourists.

2.6 The Gudigwa Tourism Product

Gudigwa camp was officially opened by the Minister for the Environment, Wildlife and
Tourism (MEWT), the Honorable Pelonomi Venson, in March 2003. The camp offered guests
on safari the opportunity to escape into the bush and experience the rich Bugakhwe cultural
traditions through tourism services, including traditional accommodation, meals, music and
dance, walking trails, and story telling. Guests who arrived by charter plane from Maun,
Kasane or other safari camps in the Okavango, were met by a professional guide from the
Gudigwa community and were then transported approximately five kilometers by safari
vehicle to the camp. Accommodation was provided in eight units (with two beds each) that
were constructed resembling traditional Bugakhwe huts.

Walks in the bush with a San guide provided a unique opportunity to experience first-hand
some of the secrets of the bush. Guests could learn about the medicinal uses of plants, how to
track animals on foot, discover how the San found underground water, learn to make fire from
sticks, find out which plants were edible (and which not) and learn how the San survived off
nature’s resources. The San shared their culture and background with guests through the aid of
a professional guide who functioned as an interpreter while also ensuring the safety of the
guests.11 The Gudigwa camp experience highlighted the intimate connection between the
Bugakhwe San’s cultural heritage and their natural environment. By sharing their culture and
knowledge of the bush they contributed to reviving their dying culture and passing on the
intricate and intimate knowledge of the environment to future generations.

Meals included a combination of local delicacies and Western foods cooked over an open fire.
In accordance with the Tourism Policy of Botswana, the camp was designed to cater to high-
end visitors in low volumes. Due to the limited range of activities offered at the camp, the
ideal length of stay was viewed as a single night to complement visits to the wildlife viewing
camps of the Okavango Delta and Linyanti. In 2004, the camp operated from May to early
November. Net rates (after travel agent, tour operator and booking office commissions)
applied during this period (May to November) were US$308 and included air charters, dinner,
bed and breakfast, entertainment and walking trails in the morning.

11
The occurrence of elephants and other wildlife became more common throughout the life of the project.

3 Operations and Management: Structures

and Processes
3.1 The BCCT
While the camp was in operation, the BCCT was largely responsible for the overall
management of the Trust, although it was not responsible for the operation of the camp. The
camp was managed by a management team that was officially employed by the Trust, but
reported to the Enterprise Management Committee (EMC), of which the Trust was a member.
The Trust Board was active in the development stage of the business and managed more
general issues related to the tourism project and its relation to the community. The BCCT was
administered by a 10-member board and ex-officio board members including, amongst others,
the Kgosi12 of Gudigwa village. The general objectives of the Trust have been outlined in
Section 2.4 above. The BCCT board met at least three times per year and was responsible for
ensuring that adequate books and records of the financial and operational activities of the
Trust were maintained. The Board of Trustees had the power (in consultation with members
of the EMC) to select, appoint or dismiss personnel of the Trust (in accordance with
established labor laws and policies), and establish conditions of service.

3.2 The Enterprise Management Committee (EMC)

Conservation International assisted the BCCT in implementing an advisory structure that is
quite different from that usually adopted by CBOs. An EMC was established to assist in
management by advising the Trust on business matters. It was recognized that the BCCT did
not have the experience or expertise to manage its own business, and as a result, the EMC was
developed into the advisory structure of the Trust. The EMC comprised the following
representatives:

• Two members of the BCCT Board;

• Three business advisors;

• An accountant; and

• A representative from CI.

The EMC assisted the community in managing its business and in the development of good
business practices and sound financial management.

12
Kgosi is the Setswana word for local chief of the village.

It is important to note that Wilderness Safaris were excluded from both the BCCT and the
EMC, which was a strategic flaw in the governance and management of the enterprise.

3.3 Camp Management and Staff

The full-time staff at Gudigwa included approximately 21 employees (Table 3.3.1), although
the exact number varied during the course of CI’s involvement with the project. The staff also
included an additional 24 part-time workers who were mostly singers, dancers, and traditional
guides. Of the full-time workers, all were from the Gudigwa community except the managers,
who were deployed to the project and employed by the Trust. The first two couples were
originally from South Africa with a successful track record of running camps in Botswana.
People in the village that made crafts were not included as staff of the Trust, and were paid
per curio purchased by the Trust or the camp.
Table 3.3.1: Full-time staff members at Gudigwa
Staff - Position Number
Managers 1 (& partner)
Assistant managers 2
Guides 2
Chefs 1
Prep cooks 3
Waitresses 2
Scullery 1
Laundry 3
Camp-hand 3
Night watchmen 2
Driver 1
Of the above mentioned staff, the management team, guides, chef and night watchmen were
all employed on a full-time basis, while the rest worked a minimum of eight days a month, pro
rata to the number of bookings.

The camp also employed traditional guides and dancers on a casual basis. Although the camp
manager was South African, the assistant managers understudied her with the objective of
slowly building management capacity in the community, so that at some point they would no
longer require an external manager and would be able to run the camp independently. The
responsibilities of the two assistant managers were split between administration and staff and
operations. There were significant issues related to the qualifications of the community
assistant managers as they did not have any training or background in the hospitality industry.
This created significant challenges to the professional management of the enterprise.

3.4 Community Capacity Building/Training

All full-time staff of the camp participated in training programmes and courses before
beginning their employment, which were funded in part by OWS, CI and supporting donors
and partners. The manager, who was required to have prior camp management and/or tourism
hospitality experience, participated in a three-week intensive training course organized by
Wilderness Safari management staff to become familiarized with their company procedures.

The BCCT Office Manager and Gudigwa assistant camp manager were sent for a three-and-a-
half-month training course in tourism and hospitality management, business communications,
computers, word processing and spreadsheets, introduction to business, and human resource
management. The treasurer participated in similar training, although human resource
management was replaced by an introduction to bookkeeping and accounting. This intensive
course followed a five-day financial management training conducted in the community.
Guides and cooking/catering staff were sent on a three-month apprenticeship at another safari
lodge in the delta. Guides also participated in a two-week course specifically designed to
prepare for the Professional Guides exam administered by the Department of Wildlife and
National Parks. On-going training for the management and guiding staff was provided by the
OWS Training Facility, an independent training school, to increase the capacity of the staff
working in the camps that comprised their tourism circuit. Support staff was trained on-site
and through short apprenticeships to other safari camps prior to opening

The following workshops were organized and facilitated by OWS and CI for a broader group
of community members in Gudigwa:
1. Ecotourism Awareness (approximately 25 people participated), followed by a
familiarization tour to five other community-based or ecotourism destinations in northern
Botswana.
2. Product Development (approximately 45 people participated).
3. Ecotourism Marketing (for five people), followed by a trip with the group to Indaba, the
largest tourism trade show for Africa, held annually in Durban, South Africa.
4. Planning and Managing a Business (approximately 20 people participated).
5. Book-keeping and Accounting course (for BCCT treasurer and manager and camp
assistant managers).

Furthermore, more than 40 weavers, carvers and bead/jewelry makers received training
through five two-week Design, Production and Training workshops (one for carvers, two for
weavers, and two for jewelry makers) and one, one-week Quality Control and Grading
workshop.

Consultants were hired for a month to help get the camp ready before opening and to train the
staff in their specific job duties. A professional chef was also hired to create a menu with the
staff and practice its delivery and presentation.

3.5 Management
Two organisations were approached to perform the role of Operator/Manager as described in
this section: Wilderness Safaris and Lodges of Botswana.

3.5.1 Wilderness Safaris

The Gudigwa camp was officially opened on 28 March 2003 with Wilderness Safaris’
support. OWS seconded a manager to the enterprise and agreed that they would provide relief

managers to assist in the interim and recommendations of candidates to manage the camp
more permanently.

Additionally, a number of Gudigwa staff were placed in OWS camps for training prior to the
opening of the camp, at some expense to OWS. Once opened, it was agreed that Gudigwa
staff would have the opportunity to participate in OWS’ ongoing training activities.

However, due to OWS’ lack of representation in the governance structures of the project, and
a lack of clear lines of authority and responsibility, the managers at Gudigwa rapidly departed.
Once the word got out to the employment market after two successive managers had unhappy
stays at Gudigwa, it became impossible to get anyone good to work there to try and manage
the camp. As the managers did not have the authority to hire, fire or discipline the staff, and
did not have access to the higher governance bodies of the enterprise, there was little incentive
for any professional manager to invest their time in the project.

3.5.2 Donor Evaluation

OWS was the first company to be approached following recommendations from an evaluation
in late 2005 by the major donor for the project (DFID through its implementing agency the
BLCF) for the BCCT to enter into a joint venture management with a private company. The
basis for approaching OWS was that the company was already a partner in the business, since
it was involved in marketing. OWS declined the offer due to the issues with the governance
structure and indicated that it would prefer to simply market the camp instead of repeat its
experience with managing the camp. OWS made it clear that while it was willing to continue
with the role of marketing and reservations, it did not want to take on a formal management
function unless the governance issues were addressed. While never stated in open forum, it
was assumed that OWS’ lack of interest was related to the widely expressed opinion that
discipline among camp staff was poor and workers did not have a good work ethic. Several
potential partners and local people anticipated that the Gudigwa employees would be difficult
to manage. OWS also had personal experience of interference by the board members in the
other OCT trusts. This, however, needs to be placed within the context that the Gudigwa
community members were the first generation of a “settled” San community in Botswana.
They had absolutely no experience with this type of activity, or indeed this type of life,
historically having been a hunter/gatherer culture. The community members were not
prepared, in training, life experience, or culture, for this type of high-level management and
were thus considered “unreliable”. Additionally, a lack of understanding of certain subtle
cultural aspects of this community may have contributed to the problematic working
relationships that characterized the project later on.

In a letter written by OWS to the BCCT Chairperson (12/04/05), it was stated that: “OWS
continues to believe that the Gudigwa experience is a marketable one, and should the BCCT
be able to find a suitable new partner who will maintain the quality of the Gudigwa
experience, we would be happy to negotiate a deal whereby we continue to sell this product.”

3.5.3 Lodges of Botswana

As early as 2005, Lodges of Botswana had expressed interest in entering into an Operating
partner contract with the BCCT to manage and operate Gudigwa camp. Lodges of Botswana
is owned by Mr. Peter Sandenbergh and operates two camps (Oddballs and Delta camps) in
the Okavango Delta. However, despite the company’s interest, Botswana law requires that an
open tender process be followed for such opportunities, in the interest of fairness. Due to
various reasons13 Lodges of Botswana appeared to lose interest in Gudigwa camp and did not
submit a bid when the camp was advertised for tender in January 2006. With the delay in the
process as per the requirements by the Government of Botswana through the Land Board, it
became too late for Lodges of Botswana to enter an Operational Agreement with BCCT. The
Land Board only approved the request of entering into an interim operational agreement
between Lodges of Botswana and BCCT seven months after the request was submitted. The
approval was for a period of 12 months (January 1 to December 31, 2005).

3.5.4 BigFoot Safaris

Management of Gudigwa was taken over by BigFoot Safaris in June 2006. From June to
October refurbishments of the lodge took place and the lodge was then operational between
October 2006 and June 2007. An average of 12 guests per month visited Gudigwa over this
period and the nightly rate charged was US$ 320. Unfortunately in October 2007 the lodge
once again caught fire and required further refurbishment which BigFoot Safaris were still
busy undertaking in early 2008.

4 Financial Overview
4.1 Capital Investment - Funding Obtained
Since the inception of this project, funds were received from various donors who generously
supported the Gudigwa Cultural Eco-tourism camp. These funds were used for various project
activities (Table 4.1.1). Most of the funding was used for the construction of the camp
infrastructure, including buildings and the airstrip, while other activities included project
management, staff time, training and workshops, stocking the camp with goods, provision of
services and equipment, furniture and a vehicle for the camp. A second vehicle, a new safari
type vehicle for transporting guests, was bought using Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation (SDC) funds.

13
Reasons included the considerable delay in receiving interim approval from the Land Board pending
outcome of an open tender process, the resulting missed opportunity of catching the peak tourism
season (June-September), attrition of camp maintenance and theft of camp stock.

Table 4.1.1: Funds received from different donors

Name of Donor Amount received Date of receipt of Grant
Department for International UK 158,540.00 2002
Development – Business Link (BWP 1,268,320.00)
Challenge Fund (DFID-BLCF) (US$ 258,840.00)
US Embassy – Ambassador Fund, US$ 12,500.00 2002
Gaborone, Botswana
United Nations Development BWP 250,000.00 2002
Programme/National Conservation (US$ 50,875.00)
Strategy Coordinating Agency (now
Department of Environmental
Affairs)
(UNDP/NCSA) Botswana
European Union (EU) Micro BWP 595,206.00 2002
Projects, Botswana (US$ 121,470.00)
Kalahari Management Services BWP 60,000.00 2002
(KMS), Botswana (US$ 9,230.00)
Swift Foundation – Conservation US$ 50,000.00 2002
International Sojourns USA
Bancker-Williams Foundation US$ 20,000.00
Mulago Foundation (Healthy US$ 28,500.00 2002
Communities Initiative (HCI)) USA
Swiss Agency for Development and US$ 100,000.00 2003
Cooperation (SDC)
TOTAL DONOR FUNDS US$ 651,415.00

4.2 Visitor Numbers

During 2003, there were 19 full-paying guests in April and 38 full-paying guests in June. The
camp was operational for the entire season in 2004, and during that period, visitor numbers at
the camp increased (Table 4.2.1). The average occupancy during the period of operation from
June to November 2004 was approximately 12 percent. The camp closed on a high note at the
end of the tourist season in November, and by the end of 2004, Wilderness Safaris had already
confirmed bookings for 2005 corresponding to occupancies of 20 percent in May, 21 percent
in June, 30 percent in July, 22 percent in August, and 11 percent in September. However, soon
after closing the camp in November, the camp general managers submitted their letters of
resignation. The camp was never re-opened in 2005, because they could not find a willing
management partner.
Table 4.2.1: Number of guests at the camp in 2004
Month No. of Guests Percentage Occupancy (%)
June 29 8
July 42 11
August 68 18
September 91 25
October 28 7
November 22 6
TOTAL 280 12.9%

4.3 Estimated Revenues and Operating Expenses

4.3.1 DFID/BLCF funds

A snapshot of how the funds obtained from DFID/BLCF were used for the period from 1
April to 31 December 2003 is provided in table 4.3.1.
Table 4.3.1: Summary of operating expenses from DFID fund for period 1 April to 31
Dec 2003 in BWP.
1 Apr – 30 Jun 1 Jul – 30 Sept 1 Oct - 31 Dec
Activity (BWP) % (BWP) % (BWP) %
Quality control &
standards training 22,032.15 15 12,668.20 6 0
HR & organisational
management training 4,517.06 3 0 0
Financial Management 449.68 0 1,280.00 1 13,833.10 16
Marketing activities 0 39,550.00 20 0
Technical/
Environmental
Planning 0 0 0
Communication/ IT
development 10,316.00 7 69,037.12 35 0
Environmental
Interpretation 0 4,760.00 2 2,602.70 3
Environmental
Monitoring 481.56 0 370.40 0 164.48 0
Project Management14
& transportation 106,841.98 74 70,209.45 35 71,094.03 81
Total in Botswana
Pula 144,638.43 197,875.17 87,694.31
Total in GBP ( ) 18,079.80 24,734.40 10,961.79

The majority of funds obtained from DFID during the period of 1 April to 31 December were
used for project management and transportation. From July to September 35% of the total
expenditure was in the communications/IT development category due to the deposit for a
vehicle.

4.3.2 Other organisations & consortium partners

Other organisations and consortium partners contributed to Quality Control and Standards
Training ( 600), Marketing Activities ( 9,000), Technical/Environmental Planning and
Expertise ( 667) and Project Management and Transportation ( 18,224). These contributions
were repeatedly made on a quarterly basis.

Bugakhwe Cultural Conservation Trust (BCCT) made an in-kind contribution of £ 6200

between April – June 2003 without remuneration through assistance with the building of the

14
Project Management included salaries for drivers/messengers, receptionists and community
development officers.

camp, formation of Policy and Procedures and Camp Operations Manual, the review of the
Trust constitution and meetings with CI, partners and OWS (at least 1 meeting per week
during this period). After the fire at the Camp, the Board was involved in even more meetings
and the Trust members collected thatching grass and poles to be used in the re-building.

CI’s specific contribution to the project during the period April – December 2003 came to a
total of approximately 47,221.00. This was largely due to the time expended by CI staff
including on-the ground project support, financial control in Cape Town and Washington, site
visits, guidance by the Director of the SA Wilderness & Transfrontier Conservation
Programme, a bookkeeper in Botswana and use of CI vehicles for project implementation.

Okavango Wilderness Safaris was responsible for marketing the Gudigwa Camp product and
it was estimated that US$ 50,000 was spent on this annually (personal communication with
Colin Bell). A breakdown of costs into specific activities indicated the following expenditure
between 01 April and 31 December as shown in Table 4.3.2:
Table 4.3.2: OWS expenditure relating to marketing of the Gudigwa Camp product over
the period 01 April to 31 December
Trade show participation and Sales trips 5,859
(World Travel Market in London, BIT in Italy, ITB in Berlin, INDABA in Durban,
Top Resa in France, Getaway Show in SA, ILTM in Cannes, etc.)
Overseas marketing trips 2,000
Overseas marketing agents for Wilderness Safaris 3,516
Promotional Materials (website update: www.gudigwa.com, brochure creation, CD 7,813
Roms, banners, flyers, PowerPoint presentation etc.)
Public Relations & communications (journalist articles, press releases) 3,125
Administration (admin, education, distribution, newsletters, tour operators) 4,688
Quality Control & Standards Training (training for management trainees & support 1,800
staff, visits to Gudigwa to offer feedback on improvements and driving and vehicle
maintenance)
Technical/Environmental Planning & Expertise (tech. support on fire damage 1,250
estimation and advice/reconstruction plans/site plans for relocation etc., participation
in EMC Meetings, community meetings on staffing issues etc.)
Total 30,051

Proposed expenditure for 2004, 2005 & 2006 focused on the following activities:

• Community development;
o Environmental education
o Income generation capacity building skills development
o Community awareness
• BCCT and community leadership capacity building;
• Business understanding;
• Development of Trust documents and agreements;
• Development of BCCT awareness of CBNRM practices;
• Gudigwa camp related support;
• Socio-economic assessment and monitoring;

• Environmental assessment and monitoring; and

• Project support.

5 Project Successes
5.1 Community perspectives
According to the interviewed community members and focus groups, there was a general
consensus that they were happy to see the Gudigwa Camp vision realized when it opened in
March 2003. Gudigwa Camp was more than just a camp; it also had a strong symbolic
meaning for the people of Gudigwa, particularly since they had historically been marginalized
in the socio-economic and political landscape of Botswana (Nthomang, 2005; Saugestad,
2001).

All of the respondents indicated that the Gudigwa Project was viewed as a viable tourism
product, as it had a competitive advantage over other tourism products in the Okavango Delta.
In their view, this competitive advantage outweighed the risks associated with the project.
They also highlighted that their product was cultural, which made it unique and hence
attractive amidst the plethora of wildlife-based products in the delta. Because the product
reflected their culture, they were familiar with all aspects, did not have to learn about what
they were offering their clientele, and could use the many different experiences on offer to
celebrate their culture, with participants from various age groups.

During the community focus group interviews, it emerged that different respondents had quite
independent views on what went according to plan in Gudigwa camp (Table 5.1.1).

Table 5.1.1: Perceptions of Gudigwa community respondents regarding which activities

had been carried out according to plan
Focus Group Statement
Women (craft makers, dancers, We were happy to see our camp re-built after the fire, and clients
elders, guides) started coming in again.
Elders (committee leaders, The business started having clients in the first year.
former chair persons, local Infrastructure development went according to plan.
authority leaders) Training of staff, managers, drivers etc.
Opening of the camp went according to plan.
Former staff guide (current The camp was able to promote the culture of Gudigwa people.
Gudigwa Camp manager) The first manager was good, knew how to work with people.
CI was committed to seeing the camp run successfully.
Youth group (former staff, Marketing in the first year was good.
villagers, former manager) Equipment was purchased according to plan.
The community experienced cultural awakening and revival.
Former chairperson BCCT, The first manager was good, and knew how to handle community
Former chairperson OCT. relations as well as take good care of camp customers and staff.
CI was committed and provided very good support.

Benefits obtained from the project

Community informants listed, among others, the following benefits that accrued to Gudigwa
villagers:
a) The youth acquired skills and trades that they could transfer elsewhere if the project
collapsed (such as making and selling baskets, cooking, camp keeping, witnessing,
guiding, etc.).
b) The community received a lot of exposure interacting with international guests in the
camp and the tourism industry.
c) The village acquired a number of assets through the project, such as the airstrip,
equipment in the camp, camp furniture, vehicles, and all other property in the camp.
d) The dancers were able to get re-organized and started dancing more regularly, and this has
instilled a lot of cultural pride in the younger generation of the Khwe San.
e) Limited income accrued to some families whose relatives worked in the camp.
f) The community had an opportunity to practice democracy during the various processes of
decision-making.
g) The community acquired skills in tourism development enterprises.
h) The land on which Gudigwa Camp is located, as well as the lease, is owned by the BCCT.
i) There was a general cultural awakening in Gudigwa and a realization of the value of their
traditional culture.
j) Employment, both part-time and full-time, became available to some of the members of
the community.

5.2 CI’s perspective

Direct Benefits

Employment of local community members

Twenty-one community members from Gudigwa village were employed on a full-time basis
during operational phases of the camp, in addition to 24 part-time employees (dancers,
trackers, hunters and casuals for maintenance). Numerous community members received
training in tourism-related activities, including financial management and leadership skills.
The money from working at the camp had a high multiplier effect as it was shared among
extended families. Many staff members were able to get jobs in other OWS camps after the
camp closed. Others who were not directly employed by the camp were nevertheless able to
sell curios at the camp. Revenues from curios were quite significant: approximately P 5,000 a
month (equivalent to US$ 1,000 per month) which was approximately three times more than
what the assistant manager was earning per month.

Indirect benefits

A marginalized community was empowered

From the inception of this project, the rich culture of the Bugakhwe people was actively
promoted. There was a programme that focused on the culture of the Bugakhwe, which

demonstrated the intimate connection between the Bugakhwe culture and the environment.
This programme was popular within the community, and the children rallied around it. It
helped to revive a sense of pride in the community and their connection to the environment
and also helped to document some of the Bugakhwe language and cultural traditions.

Overall, the project could be considered to be empowering for a marginalized community that
felt that it had not been recognized by developers in the area in the same ways as other
villages had. The development of this camp made a lot of the community members realize that
there was an opportunity to better themselves. Several entrepreneurial people in the
community kept approaching CI with ideas of micro-businesses they wanted to start in the
community, to ask if CI could assist. This was supported by the community.

The project also created more awareness of Gudigwa within the OCT communities. With the
camp being built, people started paying more attention to the community, and as a result the
Gudigwa people had a better voice on the OCT board.

Impacts on conservation and wildlife

CI’s focus was largely on getting the camp established and working with the local community
to set up the business. Measuring and documenting specific conservation impact was not a
focus of the project and thus baseline assessments and ongoing monitoring were not funded.
Thus, very little data was gathered on changes in wildlife numbers associated with the
establishment of Gudigwa Camp.

Nevertheless, there is some evidence that the presence of the camp did make a positive
contribution to wildlife conservation in the area. In 2003, elephants returned to Khwasa
Island, where the camp is located. Khwasa means “the place where the elephants come to
drink,” but severe drought over the previous few years meant that there was no water available
for the elephants.

Water was pumped into the waterhole every day, and from June onwards there were up to 19
elephants at a time visiting – initially just in the dead of night but eventually at all hours of the
day and night as they became used to the human activities in the area.

As local owners of livestock (cattle, goats, donkeys, horses) were responsible for ensuring that
their animals were kept away from the camp area, some wildlife began to return to the area.
The following animals were seen around camp: lions, hyena, kudu, wild dogs, duiker,
leopards and cheetahs. However, no actual records of wildlife were kept during the camp’s
operation.

Ecotourism awareness

Awareness seminars introduced the community to sustainable tourism as a development tool

with the means to ensure the economic and social well being of local populations as well as
environmental protection for conservation areas. These seminars provided information to help

communities make informed decisions about whether or not they should choose ecotourism as
a sustainable development tool, by presenting the benefits as well as the risks of a tourism-
based business.

Familiarization tours

Familiarization tours helped clarify concepts introduced during prior workshops. Community
members obtained an understanding of the daily operations integral to running an ecotourism
business, and at the same time were able to experience a tourism project as a tourist. Those
participating in the tour were able to:

• Inventory the various services (transport, infrastructure) necessary for tourism to be

feasible;

• Witness impacts from tourism/tourists (environmental damage, litter, etc.);

• Differentiate between the various types of tourism activities available (campsite,

traditional village, etc);

• Determine the various types of infrastructure necessary for a tourism venture;

• Distinguish between tourists and residents by their behavior, activities, dress, etc.;

• Observe how community-based tourism ventures are advertised and marketed

(signposts, brochures, etc.);

• Compare the advantages and disadvantages of the various enterprises, including

management styles, benefits to the community, skills training, influence on local
culture, etc.;

These tours helped facilitate a discussion of issues relevant to Gudigwa’s own ecotourism
business.

Product Development Workshops

During the Ecotourism Product Development Workshops (EPD), participants learned about
the tools needed to formulate mission statements, conduct resource inventory and market
research, and develop, market and implement a product. Financial and profitability planning,
legal issues, monitoring and evaluation, and business plan development were also
incorporated into the workshop. The workshops illustrated that ecotourism products need to
benefit local communities and meet conservation objectives in design, implementation and
management.

Marketing Training Workshops

Marketing Training Workshops are designed to provide the community with information, to
establish product-market matches and to create marketing strategies that will effectively
promote local ecotourism products and help maximize a business’s success. The marketing
workshop in Gudigwa was followed-up with a familiarization tour to local travel agents and a
regional tourism trade show in South Africa.

Practical training

In addition to the workshops, which were used to teach tourism concepts or plan for the
implementation of the business, it was necessary to train individuals who would be the
employees of the Traditional Village and were directly linked to the success of the business.
Since the majority of the positions were filled by individuals lacking prior job experience,
apprenticeships and courses were arranged to build the capacity of individuals to satisfy the
requirements of the jobs identified for the business. These apprenticeships and training
courses included: guiding, driving, accounting, and cooking. Other employees, such as
cleaners and waiters, were trained on-site two months prior to the opening of the business.
High-level positions, such as the head chef and manager, were hired from outside the village
at the beginning, as these positions required multiple years of training and significant on-the-
job experience. Appropriate individuals from the community shadowed these staff members.

The project also aimed to publish leaflets, brochures and books that could be sold to tourists
for supplementary income. While the information was meant for tourism purposes, the BCCT
members saw the information as useful in creating a curriculum at the school that focused on
the Bugakhwe cultural traditions and their connection to the environment. The process of
collecting cultural information began through a programme initiated at Gudigwa Primary
School in 2002. Children were asked to go home and collect information about their culture
from their parents and grandparents and write sentences or draw pictures to represent the
information in little booklets. Another aspect that BCCT members aimed to achieve was
production of crafts for the tourism market at the camp. This would give people at Gudigwa
who were not necessarily directly employed by Gudigwa camp the opportunity to create
crafts, such as baskets, wood carvings, and San crafts that could then be sold at curio shops at
the Traditional Village.

Establishment of Airstrip

The very fact that guests could arrive by charter plane, as the guests of the opening ceremony
did, was perceived as a major achievement in this project, as Gudigwa had previously been
extremely isolated. All the community work entailed long and difficult 4x4 drives into the
village, taking more than 10 hours each way from Maun, where CI was based. For the
community, this isolation meant that any casualty, snakebite, lion attack, malaria, etc., meant a
long and bumpy vehicle journey (if a vehicle could be found) for medical treatment. CI

Botswana raised the funds and oversaw the building of the first bush airstrip in this extremely
remote wilderness region.

5.3 Visitors’ perspectives

Nathalie Barbancho of SDC conducted a visitor survey at Gudigwa during the 2004 visitor
season, and collated the results into a March 2005 summary report.

In the 50 questionnaires completed (out of a total 280 visitors in 2004), there was a very
positive response from guests and, in many instances, the Gudigwa experience exceeded their
expectations. The dances and bush walk were cited as the most enjoyable activities. Guests
also valued the friendliness of the staff and the relaxed ambiance. The quality of
accommodation, food, service and activities were rated from good to excellent. Suggestions
for improvement included providing more background information (culture, livelihoods today,
etc.) and a more in-depth experience of the village, having the possibility to buy curios (crafts,
books), and also having more cultural activities available for guests (e.g. learning how to
weave baskets).

Unfortunately, this data generates more questions than it answers. If clients were so happy,
why was the project not a success? It is hard to make generalizations or make determinations
based on these overall positive surveys. There is little information with regards to the
conditions under which the data was collected. The general sense was that the clients who
visited the enterprise were very happy with what they received.

5.4 OWS’ perspective

OWS is committed to working in remote parts of southern Africa and to working, where
possible, with local communities to ensure that there is a win-win for all stakeholders and the
environment. The opening page of the company’s website states its mission:

“Wilderness Safaris: responsible ecotourism and conservation. The reason we exist is to protect
pristine wilderness areas and the flora and fauna – or biodiversity – that they support. We
believe that in protecting these areas, and including the local communities in this process, we
will make a difference to Africa and ultimately the world. In short, we believe that the world’s
wilderness areas will save humankind.” (Wilderness Safaris, 2007)

OWS considered this initiative a failure, despite its track record of operating over 60 successful
camps in seven SADC countries.

6 Challenges Encountered
6.1 Financial Feasibility Questionable
The initial project feasibility appraisal was questionable. Although PRA determined
ecotourism as an appropriate and viable economic venture in 1999, the first version of the

Gudigwa proposal stated that the project was not feasible due to poor access to markets and no
communication infrastructure (roads, airports). However, an airstrip was built and Wilderness
Safaris was brought in to do the marketing. A second version of the proposal specifically
investigated access to markets and private-sector partnerships, which looked promising based
on buy-in to the concept from Wilderness Safaris, which did not have any cultural tourism
products at this stage.

However, the camp did not generate any significant profit for re-investment into the
community. The camp had very high overhead costs, due to the large staff complement,
remote location, and the fixed costs associated with running an operation like this. In the
absence of a professional tourism partner, the camp could not benefit from an aggressive
marketing and management regime, which could have cut the break-even period to under
three years.

6.2 CBNRM in Botswana

The CBNRM concept is a challenge in Botswana. In the country as a whole there are very few
successful examples of community-driven business initiatives. Two examples of successes
are:

• the D’Kar Trust, near Ghanzi;

• Khwai Development Trust, and the Ghanzi-Craft Centre, which aims to promote craft
marketing for the craft producers in the remote settlements of Ghanzi and Kalahari.

These Trusts were established with the assistance of external advisors and donor funding.
Many other CBNRM projects in the country have failed because of the lack of financial
management capacity within communities, which on occasion has led to gross
misappropriation of funds. In other instances, failure was due to the lack of ownership,
because projects were brought in with a top-down approach. Also, a large number of CBOs
have failed to produce audited financial statements as required by their leases.

The BCCT, through Gudigwa camp, also failed to successfully operate its enterprise, possibly
for the following reasons:

• The local communities had a poor understanding of the CBNRM programme;

• Funds were not reinvested into tourism activities;

• The communities involved in community-based tourism were not sufficiently

empowered to independently sustain what had been initiated;

• Insufficient managerial skills; and

• Absence of true ownership for the tourism enterprise.

CBOs that have disposed of their hunting quotas through auction sales have not been paying
resource utilization royalties due to the responsible authorities - such as the North West

District Council - and the same applies to CBOs with joint ventures. There have even been
cases where some joint venture partners have absconded without paying, leading to the CBOs
having to pay legal costs for recovering lost income.

An additional complication arose from the development of this enterprise in the relationship
between Gudigwa and the OCT. The other villages saw that Gudigwa was being looked after
by CI and hence they were then excluded from some of the OCT benefits. It is entirely
plausible that if the camp had not gone ahead, then the people at Gudigwa would not have
been alienated from the OCT. Ideally, consultations should have taken place with more of the
stakeholders in neighboring villages before this project was even discussed at the local level to
work out ways to ensure a win-win situation.

6.3 Fire
Gudigwa camp was completely destroyed by a wild fire in November 2003. The cause of the
fire is not known. Although some people hold the opinion that the fire was probably an act of
arson, northern Botswana, including the site where Gudigwa camp is located, is susceptible to
wildfires which normally occur during the dry season. Most of these fires are human induced
to clear moribund growth and stimulate fresh growth, but there are some cases where the fires
are caused by natural phenomenon such as lightning. The camp had to be rebuilt using
insurance money and remaining donor funding. As a mitigation measure against future fires, a
40m-wide firebreak was constructed around the camp premises. The critical issue with
firebreaks is that they need to be well-maintained (see Table 6.10.1); this one was not.

6.4 Problems with the BCCT

It has been noted through reports by previous camp managers that the BCCT Board members
used to interfere in the day-to-day running of the camp, leaving the camp managers with no
autonomy to run and manage the camp. The BCCT board members often displayed poor
business ethics in their dealings with the camp managers. Some of the employees took
advantage of the fact that they had relatives who were members of the board, resulting in the
camp managers not having full control of the employees because they could not easily
discipline some of them. This contributed to low morale and frustration among the camp
managers. Some members would request use of the camp vehicle for private errands. There
was a case in which a staff member assaulted a female camp manager, resulting in the camp
being temporarily closed. The BCCT did not take any disciplinary action against the staff
member, making it appear that the BCCT condoned the lack of discipline by a staff member at
the camp.15

15
It is important to present this issue from the perspective of contributing causes. The issue of the assault was very complex and
linked to a number of factors aside from uncontrollable employees. Violence is never acceptable, but it should be noted that the
camp manager in question had similar difficulties in her previous association with the Poler’s Trust that resulted in the
termination of her involvement with that organisation. It needs to be recognized that there may have been significant issues
related to CI staff/manager’s skills in intercultural communication and in handling conflict, which may have contributed to the

6.5 Management
The camp had a high management turnover. Three camp managers resigned in close
succession, all citing lack of discipline among staff as the primary reason for their departure.
Despite these challenges, the camp closed at the end of the tourist season in November 2004,
but soon thereafter the camp general managers submitted their letters of resignation. The
BCCT board, together with CI, then began a search for new camp managers. Advertisements
were placed in the local Botswana papers, but the responses that were received were from
people who had no experience in camp management. It is possible that word had spread
among experienced managers about conditions prevailing at the camp.

The impact of high management turnover and the over-involvement of the BCCT should not
be underestimated. Combined with the lack of OWS representation on the governing body,
this created an untenable situation for any private sector operator.

With particular reference to human resource management, the over-involvement of the BCCT
was a significant contributor to the lack of discipline and the lack of consistently high
standards of service. Staff thought that they were employed by the BCCT and as they had
powerful connections to the BCCT, many thought that they were indispensable and could not
be fired. Staff were caught stealing from the lodge, but the managers were forbidden from
dismissing them, so a culture of ill discipline was reinforced and managers’ authority was
undermined. In such situations, management is quickly rendered impotent and no competent
manager will want to work in such an environment

6.6 Client satisfaction

As a consequence of the poor management practices and the departure of the management,
word rapidly circulated in the travel industry, in particular to travel agents and tour operators,
that the camp had problems and, potentially, would be unable to provide adequate services for
guests. Regardless of what clients say at the camp, in the absence of professional management,
no operator would want to risk their reputation by sending clients to the camp; as a
consequence demand for the product dried up. “When Gudigwa did not deliver the quality it
promised, the market ran” (personal communication with Colin Bell).

6.7 Issues of Capacity

Opinions among Gudigwa respondents were divided as to whether the community was
adequately prepared to successfully embark on the project in 2003. Only 25 percent were in
agreement that they were prepared, whereas the majority (75 percent) maintained that they
were not prepared in many respects. The most opinionated group on this particular issue was
the women’s group, which maintained that the community had done everything necessary to

escalation of the conflict situation. CI could have perhaps played a more active role in solving the issue of employee discipline
and attitude toward employment by providing additional training in conflict resolution, etc. Since the community was clearly
supportive of the project, there may have been significant misconceptions about the level of employment and benefits that
contributed to the situation.

prepare itself to ensure the success of the Gudigwa Camp. The study, however, has shown
beyond reasonable doubt that the Gudigwa community did not possess the relevant skills to
run a camp successfully. Though the community possessed the culture that they were selling,
the staff attitudes were incompatible with the kind of industry they were involved in. Different
focus groups disagree on the issue of preparedness, but there is strong agreement that the
community did not possess the right attitude toward work, which eventually led to the
collapse of the camp.

Figure 6.7.1: Dancers, guides, and craft makers at Gudigwa Camp

Capacity building is an essential component of any project if sustainability is to be achieved.

The BCCT and the employees at the camp did not have the capacity to ensure that Gudigwa
camp was operated professionally and efficiently. As part of capacity building for the staff,
OWS had a programme to train the staff on housekeeping, catering, public relations and other
tourism-related activities. CI, through the Community Development and Tourism Sections,
provided training to the BCCT in the following areas:

• Financial management and skills;

• Roles of treasurer, bookkeeper and accountant;

• Income and expenditure;

• Bank accounts - signatories, bank statements, financial control sheets, bank ledger,
monthly reconciliation;

• Auditing requirements;

• Financial record-keeping;

• Asset and property registers;

• Financial reporting and monitoring; and

• Leadership qualities.

The above training was aimed at equipping the BCCT with the required skills for operating
Gudigwa camp. The short courses that OWS conducted for staff at the camp were standard
and critical for the tourism industry in the Delta. This training aimed to provide Gudigwa
camp staff with the skills to provide a similar standard of service to that experienced by guests
at other OWS camps. Many of the guests came from OWS camps and arrived with high
expectations based on their experience of OWS camp standards and quality elsewhere in
Botswana. The training process undertaken was insufficient to adequately prepare the
community for effective management of the camp. CI should perhaps have carried out an
assessment to determine what additional training was required to address inadequate capacity.

6.8 Community Expectations

All community respondents maintained that their expectations were realistic, since tourism is
a viable business in Ngamiland, especially around the Okavango Delta. They maintained that
the camp was not competing with any other camp product in the whole of the Okavango Delta
region and, as such, they were selling a unique and viable cultural product to supplement the
OWS’ wilderness experience. Community members also affirmed that their expectations for
benefits accruing from the business were realistic and commensurate with the market potential
of Gudigwa Camp.

The main objective of the project from the community’s perspective was to improve the
livelihoods of the people of Gudigwa. By providing extra income to the families, it was hoped
that there would then be less dependence on the natural resources found in the area. The
community anticipated that profits accrued from the project would be shared at the household
level.

Since these expectations were not met, there was discontent among some of the community
members. The only people who benefited directly from the camp project were those who were
employees at the camp and the BCCT board members, who received “sitting fees” for board
meetings.

6.9 Partners
As residents of the largest remaining San village in Botswana, the Gudigwa people were
proud to be promoting a cross-cultural exchange with visitors and reviving their traditional
way of life, which is increasingly being threatened by modernization.

The partnerships established with the private sector, NGOs and donors were intended to
benefit every member of the village (at least indirectly), as it was anticipated that the jobs
created would funnel proceeds back into community development projects.

A product was indeed established and the camp operated for the whole of 2004 without major
problems. The camp had great potential during the time when it was running.

Due to the various problems that the camp encountered, the community learned valuable
lessons. The BCCT board members have also seen the consequences of intervening in the
day-to-day running of the camp.

Following an evaluation of the community project by DFID BLCF in early 2005, a

recommendation was made for the BCCT to consider a Joint Venture Partnership (JVP) with a
private company. In accordance with the Government of Botswana regulations, this JVP had
to be undertaken through an Open Tender Process. Initially, the BCCT refused this suggested
approach as they felt that, since this was a community project, this partnership would result in
a loss of control. They eventually agreed when they saw that no benefits (profits) were being
obtained from the project and there was also a high turnover of camp managers. The BCCT
decided that they needed to explore going into a joint venture with a private company. CI,
together with the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) representatives from government
departments, then assisted the community in drafting the tender guidelines.

CI then placed advertisements on behalf of the BCCT for a commercial partner to take over
the Operations of Gudigwa camp on a lease basis. There were no responses to the
advertisement, which ran in newspapers for two weeks in early 2006.

Since no new managers were found and the process of engaging a private operator was
unsuccessful, the camp remained closed for the whole of 2005. Only in June 2006 was an
operating partner eventually engaged, at which stage CI formally withdrew from further
involvement in the Gudigwa initiative.

6.10 Participation of Stakeholders in the Project

There are opposing views with regard to the question of whether different stakeholders
applied themselves adequately to the project. Table 6.10.1 presents these views with regard to
local stakeholders and their participation, while Table 6.10.2 presents a variety of views with
regard to external stakeholders and their participation.

Table 6.10.1: Respondents’ views with regard to participation of local stakeholders

Local stakeholders Perceptions on participation
Community 75% of the respondents, including leaders, argued that the community was
not ready to embark on a large-scale project such as the Gudigwa Camp.
Their negative attitude contributed to the downfall of the camp. Speculation
was rife that the fire that gutted the camp was deliberately caused by
unhappy villagers. This is said to have been done by an individual as a
protest against management action that had been taken against his relative,
who was an employee in the Camp.
Camp staff There was complete consensus that staff lacked the necessary skills in
tourism and running of camps, and was considered to be an uncooperative
group who managed the camp along family ties. The assistant managers
were also thought to lack managerial skills and, as such, were not able to
assist the manager and often teamed with junior staff against the camp
manager.
Board and local 75% of the respondents concluded that the Board was responsible for most,
leaders if not all, problems inside the camp. It did not know its role and its limits in
camp matters. It often interfered with camp management, making the
supervision of staff very difficult for management, which was largely
foreign.

Table 6.10.2: Respondents’ views with regard to participation of external stakeholders

External Perceptions on participation
Stakeholders
Managers Most lacked the know-how to deal with community camp issues, and this
was not helped by having a Board that sometimes sent conflicting messages
to the community members and staff. In a community-owned enterprise,
the power to hire and fire staff rested with the community board, as
opposed to the manager.
EMC There was 100% consensus that the EMC was an ideal but not practical
management structure. Its limitation was mainly its absence and that most
of its members were active business people who were often not able to
convene in a timely manner to address Gudigwa Camp staff issues. They
were a management team in absentia.
CI CI performed well to prepare for the opening of the camp, but left the
management of the camp too early before the camp managers, staff and
communities were ready to work together. Fifty percent of respondents
maintain that CI should have placed its field staff in Gudigwa to supervise
activities inside the camp directly, since they understood the community
better. CI should also have gradually withdrawn from the camp as relations
became firmly established.
Government agencies Government agencies were not active on the ground, since they only came
to Gudigwa Camp as arbitrators when there were staff-related challenges.

6.11 Lack of Documentation

CI was not particularly vigilant in the records that it kept on this project. It was an extremely
arduous process to retrieve documentation on financial and management data over the

duration of the project and very little information was recorded in terms of game or species
associated with the establishment of Gudigwa camp. It appeared that no conservation
indicators were set up which could be monitored during the course of CI’s involvement in this
project. Although early on in the project CI prepared a financial feasibility study that
questioned the project viability based on its remote location and absence of communications
infrastructure, the project still went ahead.

7 Lessons Learned
This section presents a variety of issues that were mentioned by respondents as factors that
undermined the success of Gudigwa Camp. These issues can be summarized into the
following major challenges for future community tourism enterprises, which are (in order of
priority):

7.1 Include a private sector partner at project inception

CI’s failure to include a private sector partner early in the project created a host of issues
which hobbled the project from the onset. CI was engaging in an activity outside its core
competency in a remote location with minimal professional assistance in a highly competitive
industry.

7.1.1 Structuring a commercial agreement or clear Memorandum of

Understanding

Time should have been invested in negotiating and establishing a commercial agreement at
the onset of the project to address issues related to:

• Profit and loss – the private sector partner should carry the early year losses and
guarantee early payments through a lease mechanism which protects the community
from the fluctuations and seasonality of the travel industry.

• Community Equity – include conditions to secure community equity at the onset in

exchange for a recognition of the cultural value of the land, as well as potential
resources (labour, raw materials etc), as well as an opportunity to earn equity over a
predefined time / period.

• Site Planning, Design and Construction – utilization of low-impact, environmentally

sustainable and culturally suitable design and building methods should be agreed by
all concerned. Where appropriate, measures to mitigate impact / construction damage
should also be included / resolved. The private sector should be brought in prior to the
design and building process to ensure that the facilities being built will be suitable to
their company and the target clientele.

• Staffing – the training and recruitment of local employees, along established

principles of professional management and human resource development and a
service ethic should be included in such agreements along with an agreed schedule for
inclusion and promotion.

• Human / Wildlife Loss – ensure that if the project is in an area where there is a
problem with human / wildlife conflict, a compensation scheme, funded by tourism, is
established. This is especially important where livestock co-exist with predators.

• Transparent Payment Mechanisms – ensure that money, when distributed, is

distributed in an open and transparent manner, and where appropriate, fairly
throughout the community. Where possible have a payment scheme that ensures that
every household gets the money directly.

• Community Outreach – ensure that the private sector agrees to continue outreach
programmes and projects over the life of the project. These should not just be a one
off PR exercise, but part of the ongoing enterprise and involve tourists / visitors.

7.1.2 Representation

Combined with the late inclusion of the private sector in the project, the failure to ensure the
representation of the private sector on the governance committee of the project was a major
flaw.

7.1.3 Selection of Appropriate Business Model

The right business model needs to be selected for the development of such projects. For
remote areas where access costs are very high the budget traveler and budget market is most
often eliminated. In these instances the low volume / high revenue products are the only
effective business model. That said, these products carry with them a particularly high set of
consumer expectations for which the communities’ capacity to provide must be evaluated to
inform the venture’s viability. A good idea with improbable implementation capacity is not an
appropriate business model.

7.2 CI had unrealistic expectations of the Gudigwa community

The community selected to illustrate CBNRM and show that a local community could run a
tourism enterprise was an extremely isolated one with virtually no exposure to Western
business paradigms or the tourism industry. The existing lack of capacity suggested that it
may have required a generation as opposed to a couple of years to enable the community to
accomplish the project’s objectives.

7.3 Inclusive stakeholder consultation required prior to project

being formalised
While CI felt that it had communicated with OWS on a regular basis regarding the proposed
design of the camp, OWS’ CEO claimed that he had not been directly informed of the
proposed project by CI and had instead learned of the project by hearsay and secondary
sources. This may be due partly to a breakdown in communication between OWS’ employees
on the ground and executives within the organisation who later stated that the camp design
was inappropriate for the type of clientele that it was trying to attract. This misunderstanding
put CI on a bad footing with its operator. The lesson to be learned here is to ensure that
effective communications and minuted meetings are held with the relevant decision makers
within the organisations. In addition CI’s concept of the project hinged on a village that was
essentially OWS’ landlord as well as their neighbor. OWS felt that, although they were not
part of this major decision, it had a considerable impact on their operations in the area.

Discussions with all stakeholders, particularly the private sector and tour operators that could
have been impacted by the tourism initiative, should have happened before the project
obtained the official go-ahead. Key stakeholders should have formed part of the decision-
making process for the project go-ahead prior to it becoming public knowledge.

Community perspective: The majority of respondents indicated that they were involved in the
planning of the camp through various community processes, such as the PRA, Community
Workshops for Product Development and various stakeholder meetings, some of which were
held at the Kgotla (customary court). Respondents, however, also noted that the current board
of the Gudigwa Camp stopped consulting with them and as a result they are now uninformed
about the progress of the camp project since CI left.

CI perspective: There was the need for an improved cultural and socio-economic assessment
prior to project design.

7.4 Model mismatch and unrealistic expectations

CI had unrealistic expectations regarding the community’s ability to manage a high-end
tourism operation in a short space of time. Since the community capacity was not being
developed fast enough and CI already had funds and donor commitments that needed to be
met, capacity was achieved by bringing on board various consultants who were able to
provide support for a number of activities. There was the need for permanent CI staff on site.
The ability of staff to effectively run a project from eight hours away was a major issue. CI
had difficulty in trying to deliver a product which was compatible with the standard of other
OWS camps with a community who had no prior experience in tourism operations.

The community was impatient as to when the lodge was going to open. During a community
meeting it was noted that there were conflicts and tensions between the community members
and CI staff on the ground. The community was upset that they were not already obtaining

direct benefits from the project at an early stage. CI staff had a Land Rover, while the
community had not received any means of transport. The need for a facilitator to iron out
some of these conflicts was recognized. While the community did not understand the time
constraints of the project, it was recognized that the project team needed to take the time to
hear their issues and address their concerns where possible. Due to the staff on the ground
being overextended, the requisite open communication channels between the community and
CI were compromised, and the community’s issues were not always adequately acknowledged
by CI.

OWS believes that one of the keys to success is to under-promise and over-deliver. This is
particularly true with the low volume/high revenue (high jobs - low impacts) model. While
this is a recognized business approach, it is unfortunately not always practiced by NGOs.
OWS felt that CI was responsible for raising community expectations in the early days of the
project’s inception and that it was almost impossible to recover from these expectations when
they could no longer be met.

7.5 Inadequate levels of experience/capacity to manage a

complex tourism product within community and NGO
According to OWS, the project implementers (the persons in charge at the site level) were
considered to have inadequate experience in the business world and inadequate capability to
manage or direct a project of this complex nature. While there was no absence of enthusiasm
for and commitment to the project and funds were effectively raised, experience in working
with such communities and experience in running the financial side of a business as well as
ecotourism expertise was lacking. A community member was contracted to lead the
community engagement component of the project; while this person was respected within the
community and was competent in basic business planning and training of the community and
spoke Setswana, there was still limited capacity within their combined expertise. The staff
members on site were also not receiving adequate support from the experts based in the head
office in Washington, DC.

OWS felt that once a project has been set up incorrectly, it is extremely hard to “rescue” it –
especially in such a demanding industry as tourism. It is often too late to bring in more
experienced people (e.g. private sector experts or consultants) at a later stage once the damage
has already been done. Experienced people need to be involved in guiding the project at the
onset/inception phase. Gudigwa did not receive the focused, experienced attention it required
and acquired a reputation of difficult management that proved difficult to overcome.
Consultants did not always fulfill the expectations of delivering the desired level of expertise
needed to guide a particular process.

OWS had concerns about handing over the running of the business to the community.
Although the community was involved in guide training and safaris, they were not being
taught how to run and own a business and how to work with the private sector. Commercial
operators found the Gudigwa community to be quite unprepared for running a tourism

operation, despite the fact that they had received a great deal of training and skill building. Put
bluntly, they were perceived as remote rural villagers with little or no previous contact or
experience with the business world, who had been thrown into a commercial business
environment. The necessary skills required could not be gained in the short time period
available; sometimes it takes decades to instill such skills in a relatively uneducated
community that has been isolated from the rest of the world for an extended period.

It was thought that too much unconditional control and power was put in the hands of this
unsophisticated community, in that the BCCT was left to administer the project without the
necessary skills to do so. Skills transfer and training takes time to be assimilated and
internalized, particularly by a community that has not had a great deal of exposure. The
community could thus not be expected to successfully administer this type of project
sustainably without a benevolent private-sector partner. A strong partnership between the
local community and a private-sector partner was considered to be crucial to achieving a
successful business operation, as illustrated by numerous other successful community tourism
projects. However, this was never implemented, nor was it ever even discussed as a
possibility. The private sector partner was never treated as an equal by the community and
was even excluded from the community’s advisory board.

Since considerable aid was flowing into this community without any conditions, a culture of
having to earn money was not instilled. The communities were used to government handouts
and knew nothing about productivity versus revenue, so when NGO money came pouring in,
it further entrenched this trait.

Accounting and marketing problems were identified: the project costs and business costs were
confused, and spending on different donor accounts were mixed up. There were no
calculations of expenditure and income. This aspect of operational management was primarily
the responsibility of CI-Botswana. An external accountant was then brought in to assist in
rectifying the situation.

7.6 Ongoing inclusive stakeholder consultation was necessary

throughout the project
The tourism operator was not consulted on the original design of the camp and proposed
accommodation units. It was thus unable to verify whether the proposed design was in line
with market requirements and was subsequently unhappy to discover that various
inappropriate ideas were going ahead without their consent or approval - some of which were
considered entirely unsuitable for the proposed target market. There needed to be a much
closer relationship and ongoing communication between the responsible NGO and the tourism
operator which would be responsible for marketing and selling the product, particularly when
decisions affected the product in question.

7.7 Conflict amongst project stakeholders

The three project stakeholders, CI, the community and OWS, did not always agree, which
stalled decision-making and resulted in conflict. These conflicts could have benefited from
external intervention in order to be resolved as they arose. Some of the issues are outlined
below:

• OWS was the owner of the concession to the southwest of the Gudigwa area that
belonged to OCT, of which Gudigwa was one of five member villages. A number of
previous community developments had taken place at Seronga (a larger community)
and Gudigwa felt that it had been marginalized and had not benefited from any of
OWS’ previous developments. The community was thus doubtful of how it would
benefit from a partnership with OWS.

• There were hunting concessions near OWS operations that sometimes conflicted with
OWS’ concession activities, which centered on non-consumptive wildlife viewing.
However, there was a strong hunting lobby and the chief allies were the community
members who hunted. OWS was keen to lease one of the community’s concessions,
and Gudigwa was thus mistrustful of OWS’ intentions with regard to the tourism
project. There was a perceived need to sensitize the private sector partner to the
community’s historical issue of mistrust for OWS.

• One of CI’s key staff had also turned against OWS’ ideas and was against a long-term
agreement with OWS.

• Despite a breakdown in communication between the project manager and the

community, CI kept this manager on and a consultant was hired to re-establish
communication between CI and the community.

• A problem that sometimes emerges from a small amount of training is the belief
among recipients in such training that they now have sufficient expertise to make the
experts redundant. In this instance the trainees believed they now had the expertise to
run what was essentially a global business when, in reality, they were nowhere near
capable. This arrogant attitude created problems among the stakeholders.

• The Gudigwa community believed that the expatriates were a liability and not an
asset. This caused constant friction and misunderstanding with the day-to-day
managers of projects who were brought in later on.

• The advisors to these communities, in the form of various government departments or

NGO staff, are often by their very nature distrustful of private enterprise, and advise
as such. This was perceived to be a key problem at Gudigwa. Most of the project
stakeholders (including CI’s staff) were negatively attuned to the private sector, yet
the project demanded private sector disciplines to ensure that it was sustainable and

profitable and that money earned was well accounted for and responsibly spent within
the community.

• The NGO and government stakeholders of such projects often lack real experience of
running successful and sustainable business operations, and are thus ill-placed to
advise on setting up such businesses. There was no perception of the business or
administrative skills that are required by an inexperienced community or the young
NGO staff responsible on the ground to run a sustainable global business.

7.8 Poor business practices

A number of poor business practices were identified by OWS as well as community members
and are touched on below:

• Corruption emerged as a serious problem within the community, and aid and
assistance were not correctly or equitably distributed. The clans and elders had power
and greater access to resources, causing concern among those within the community
who were not in power. Community projects need to take this into account and
effective systems need to be put in place to ensure that money does get paid equitably
throughout the community. If there are no checks and balances, the poorest of the
community don’t get any benefit. An adequate cultural and socio-economic context
analysis was needed prior to project design.

• Staff recruitment for this commercial operation was carried out inappropriately in a
number of instances, although some employees were recruited by means of an open
interview process. Staff were usually selected by their peers and relatives (within the
community) and not by the private-sector management. In a number of instances, the
employee often didn’t actually want the work and would have been happier at home.
There is no incentive or motivation as these workers can exist without work anyway
and the job functions as sheltered employment. As previously stated, the normal
business environment and work ethic was completely foreign to this group of people.

• Discipline is critical in a well-organized business – and in particular in safari camps

and lodges that deal with international guests. The Gudigwa community did not
understand the effort required to get guests to this camp and were not aware of the
service delivery required to keep them coming. Tourism is one of the most
competitive industries in the world. Just about every country in the world wants
tourists, and communities have to compete with every country and against every
lodge within their country for business. Tour operators, travel agents and the tourists
themselves very quickly stop marketing, promoting or visiting a place if they
personally experience (or hear of) poor service during a visit.

• During the community perspectives data gathering the community agreed that if they
were to restart Gudigwa Camp, they would hire professional staff from different

villages and towns to ensure the project got a good pool of skilled people who could
produce the profit needed to develop Gudigwa village. Group members who were
interviewed also indicated that staff should work harder and have less strikes.

• Community members learned that they need to guard against social values competing
with business values. They believed that if the camp was run on strong business
values, its success would be guaranteed. Gudigwa community ran the camp as a social
enterprise and compromised business values, which led to the collapse of the camp.

• Sustainable business principles should be used to build adaptive business strategies

based on existing local human capacity of the community. This would have allowed
the experience of the people to grow with the business.

• Sometimes democratic values took precedence over running of the camp and led to
bad practices of hiring staff based on equality, as opposed to competence and skills
levels. When hiring staff, particular care was taken to ensure each family had a
member recruited. The skill of the candidate was not necessarily considered; hence
the focus was on equality of families in their participation as opposed to quality of
staff recruited (skill base). This too undermined business values. The numerical
strength of the staff would often override rational management decisions, for example
when assistant managers teamed up with local staff against the expatriates.

7.9 Camp management

The Gudigwa community provided a number of suggestions on how camp management could
have been improved, these included the following:

• Decrease overhead by buying cheaper vehicles, employing fewer staff and reducing
managers from three to one for a 16-bed camp.

• Increase the number of trackers as opposed to managers.

• Ensure management takes full responsibility for the camp and not the BCCT Board.

• Have management report directly to the EMC and not the BCCT Board.

• The community also recognized the need to make time to evaluate the running of the
project on a regular basis, to ensure a better-managed project in the future.

• A quarter of community respondents argued that the community would have to accept
that it had contributed to managers fleeing the camp, and thus they would have to
improve future relations with camp managers.

• The BCCT Board needed to take direct responsibility for the Trust and not get
involved in day-to-day activities at the Camp.

• The Board needed to provide timely feedback to the community on all major
development proposals and give regular updates on camp progress.

• The Board would have to take stringent action against staff and community members
who tarnished the image of Gudigwa Camp.

• The Enterprise Management Committee (EMC) should have taken immediate action
whenever there were problems in the camp.

• CI should have placed staff on site at Gudigwa Camp to supervise activities at the
camp and to ensure camp staff developed good working relations.

7.10 Marketing of the camp could have been improved

Community perspectives

• Community members felt that the tourism sector which Gudigwa was trying to
address was inconsistent with the capacity of the community. They suggested the
need to alter the tourism segment target market from high-paying clients to cheaper
clientele who are ready to receive a developing product that grows with the
community, staff and manager’s capacity to run the camp.

• A clause that allowed the Gudigwa Camp to be marketed by more than one company
should have been included in the marketing agreement with OWS.

OWS’ perspective

Wilderness Safaris is one of the most powerful travel marketing companies in southern Africa.
OWS spared no expense to promote and ensure the success of Gudigwa. Initially there was
huge enthusiasm from the travel agents and tour operators that OWS sold the Gudigwa
experience to.

However, two things worked against Gudigwa:

• Cultural villages – A large number of “cultural villages” have been developed and
exist across Africa, particularly East Africa. More often than not, these are highly
commercialized operations with little cultural learning or input. These businesses tend
to negatively cloud the market’s perceptions of cultural visits. Gudigwa needed a
number of years of consistently delivering great experiences to break down the
resistance of the cynical travel agents, operators and the market as a whole. The
project was not operating long enough to be able to break out of this stigma.

• Product Delivery – When word got out to agents and tour operators that the
experiences were inconsistent or “acceptable” at best and substandard at worst at
Gudigwa, most agents stopped encouraging sales.

7.11 Poor financial management and reporting controls

From CI’s perspective, CI-Botswana needed more effective financial controls and reporting.
Financial record keeping was very poor at the project, and it was difficult to track financial
management once the key staff members were no longer employed by CI on the project. This,
to a large extent, explains the lack of financial information in this report.

7.12 CI’s exit from the project viewed as premature by Gudigwa

community
Community projects in Botswana are viewed as medium-to-long term and it is generally
thought that, once engaged, this engagement may last for five-to-ten years before the project
becomes stable and the original implementing agent can exit. It has been expressed by some
stakeholders that CI made a fundamental error by pulling out of the project prematurely (after
seven years of involvement). The project was initially designed to assist the community with
income generation, using their traditional skills and knowledge as San and not as a showcase
tourism project for CI in the Okavango. However, BigFoot Safaris, which subsequently took
over this camp, saw this as the appropriate time for CI to pass the project on to a private
operator and viewed what CI had accomplished in the time available as commendable
(personal communication with Kgoberego Nkawana of BigFoot Safaris).

8 Conclusions
Ecotourism has the potential to provide a myriad of benefits for biodiversity conservation and
communities. In order to ensure these benefits, government and parks, communities and the
private sector all need to work together to create a strong and secure structure and this needs
to be guided by an NGO framework. Although CI has successfully used ecotourism as a tool
to accomplish conservation and community development objectives in numerous operations
around the globe this was not widely recognized as the outcome for its seven year engagement
in the Gudigwa Cultural Village tourism initiative in northern Botswana. The venture was not
regarded as a success in terms of establishing a viable, sustainable and profitable community
based tourism enterprise during the time that CI was involved. A critical review of the project
has shed light on how certain activities could have been approached differently. Formal
interviews and informal discussions held with stakeholders from the Gudigwa community, CI
and Wilderness Safaris as well as some independent project participants (such as researchers)
all contributed towards providing a comprehensive overview of the project activities that took
place.

Some of the specific lessons learned from the Gudigwa experience include the following:

• Appropriate partnerships are the critical building block to ensuring success of

any tourism venture. Good partnerships draw on strengths to complement each
others'weaknesses. CI was not focusing on its strength, which is biodiversity

conservation, instead it was engaging in an activity outside its core competency, in a

remote location with minimal professional assistance and in a highly competitive
industry. The private sector was not adequately utilized to do what it does best,
namely manage and advertise a tourism enterprise. CI’s expectations of the
community’s ability to implement the low volume/high revenue tourism model
advocated by Wilderness Safaris were inappropriate given the time frame and the
capacity of the community.

• Unless the private sector drives a tourism product’s development the venture
will be doomed to failure since tourism is a very competitive industry. High-end
tourism enterprises are extremely competitive business ventures dealing with clients
who have very high expectations. CI thought that focused training could quickly
convert hunter-gatherer pastoralists into high-end lodge operators working in a
commercial business environment. The necessary skills could not be gained in such a
short period of time in a community that has been isolated from the rest of the world
for so long.

• Management according to strict business principles is crucial to the success of a

tourism development. Lodge Management should have been the responsibility of a
high-end tourism operator. In the case of Gudigwa, Wilderness Safaris was only
involved in marketing the product while the community, through various management
structures and together with CI, collaborated to operate this tourism venture. Neither
CI nor the Gudigwa communities were experts in business development, financial
management of tourism enterprises or high-end service delivery. As a consequence
the operation lacked solid business principles, and staff recruitment and financial
management were not carried out in accordance with basic good business practice.

• Stakeholder expectations need to be managed on an ongoing basis throughout

any development project through consistent, inclusive consultation and
communication. Both CI and the community had unrealistic expectations of what
could be accomplished in a short space of time. The community expected to obtain
profits within the first couple of years of operation of the camp and when these were
not forthcoming it led to ructions and misunderstandings. The reality is that tourism
operations typically take three to five years to break even.

• Conflict resolution needs to form part of the consultation process as problems

amongst stakeholders arise. As in any business, the personalities of the partners that
combine their skills together to establish the business are critical to its success. It
appears that there were problematic relationships between various project
stakeholders at different times. It is possible that a more aggressive approach to
conflict resolution should have been taken earlier in the project cycle to address
miscommunication and issues.

• Communities need to realise material benefits from business ventures early on in

any new venture. This can be accomplished by developing contracts with the private
sector which build this into the development model.

The lessons learned from the Gudigwa experiences are being disseminated to other similar CI
projects globally as part of our learning initiative.

Embracing these lessons learned, and building on the explosive growth of the tourism and
ecotourism industries over the past 15 years, CI has altered its strategy to focus more attention
on the private sector. By focusing on the Tourism Value Chain and assuming the role of a
facilitator as opposed to that of a participant, CI is attempting to utilise market forces and
market players to address many of the challenges associated with tourism operations in areas
of high biodiversity and poverty. Fortunately, this change in approach coincides with a
heightened awareness within the tourism industry of the threats and challenges tourism creates
in areas of high biodiversity and scenic beauty, and an increasingly environmentally
aware/concerned traveling public. CI now has the opportunity to achieve the five goals
outlined by Katrina Brandon in her 1996 paper with the willing and active support of the
broader tourism market.

Gudigwa is still in operation under the management of BigFoot Safaris and time alone will tell
if this enterprise will succeed or fail.

The authors would like to thank all those who contributed to this project and the subsequent
documentation of its successes and failures.

9 Reference List
Balmford, A. and Whitten, T. (2003). Who Should Pay for Tropical Conservation and How should the
Costs be Met? oryx 37 (2). pp238-250.

Brandon, K. (1996). Ecotourism and Conservation: A Review of Key Issues (Environment

Department Paper no. 33 033). Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.

Central Statistics Office, (CSO). (2002). 2001 Population and Housing Census: Population of Towns,
Villages and Associated Localities. Gaborone: Government Printer.

Conservation International-Botswana. (1999). Gudigwa Participatory Rural Appraisal Report. Maun.

Dixon, J.A. and Sherman, P.B. (1990). Economics of Protected Areas: A New Look at Benefits and
Costs. Washington D.C.: Island Press.

IUCN/UNEP/WWF. (1980). World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for

Sustainable Development. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN/UNEP/WWF.

Mbaiwa, J.E. (1999). Prospects for Sustainable Wildlife Resource Utilization and Management in
Botswana: A Case Study of East Ngamiland District. (M.Sc. Thesis, Department of
Environmental Science, University of Botswana, Gaborone, 1999).

Mbaiwa, J. E. and Rantsudu, M. (2003). The Socio-Economic Baseline Survey of the Bukakhwe
Cultural Conservation Trust of Gudigwa, Botswana. Maun: Harry Oppenheimer
Okavango Research Centre and Conservation International.

Nthomang, K. (2005). Relentless Colonialism: the Case of the Remote Area Development Programme
(RADP) and the Basarwa in Botswana. Journal of Modern African Studies 42 (3). 415-
435.

Rozemeijer, N. and Van der Jagt, C. (2000). Community Based Natural Resource Management in
Botswana: How Community Based is Community Based Natural Resource Management
in Botswana? Occasional Paper Series. Gaborone: IUCN/SNV CBNRM Support
Programme.

Saugestad, S. (2001). The Inconvenient Indigenous: Remote Area Development in Botswana, Donor
Assistance and the First People of the Kalahari. Nordic Africa Institute.

Silberbauer, G. (1965). Report to the Government of the Bechuanaland Protectorate on the Bushmen
Survey. Gaborone: Government Printer.

Suzman, J. (2001). An Introduction to the Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern
Africa. Windhoek: Legal Assistance Centre.

Taylor, M. (2000). Life, land and power: Contesting development in northern Botswana. (PhD thesis,
University of Edinburgh, 2000).

Taylor, M. (2002). Mapping the land in Gudigwa: a history of Bughakwe territoriality. Botswana
Journal of African Studies 15 (2). Pula: United Nations Development Programme.

Tlou, T. (1985). History of Ngamiland: 1750 - 1906 The Formation of an African State. Gaborone:
Macmillan Publishing Company.

Wells, M.P. (1992). Biodiversity Conservation, affluence and poverty: mismatched costs and benefits
and efforts to remedy them. Ambio 21. 237-243.

www.wilderness-safaris.com (2008). Wilderness Safaris, South Africa.

Gudigwa Cultural Village – An historical overview of a community eco-cultural tourism initiative in northern Botswana
© 2008 Conservation International

Photo credits:
Cover: © Michael Poliza
p 30: © Molefe Rantsudu
Other: © CI
Southern Africa Wilderness and Transfrontier Conservation Program,
Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Private
Bag X7, Claremont, 7735, South Africa. Tel: +27 (0)21 7998896, Fax: +27 (0)21
7975960, Email: [email protected], www.conservation.org

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