continuing pastoralism of the tribes makes massive 

 barriers such as the Makgadikgadi fence, the con- 

 tainment method of choice in Botswana. The Di- 

 rector of the Department of Wildlife and National 

 Parks, which commissioned the Makgadikgadi 

 fence, did not return repeated requests for comment. 



In fact, the original call for the Makgadikgadi fence 

 came not from the government or from the beef 

 barons, but from local villagers. What triggered their 

 demand was the drying up of the Boteti River. The 

 Boteti was once a wide watercourse that took its life 

 from the great Okavango River and gave life, in turn, 

 to tall acacia and fig trees and to succulent grasses 

 along its banks. The western edge of Makgadikgadi 

 Park closely follows the channel of the Boteti, a 

 boundary that made good sense when the Boteti was 

 still an oasis. That way, when the animals in the salt 

 pans of Makgadikgadi Park headed west in the dry 

 season, their destination remained accessible. But in 

 1992 a brutal drought hit the region, and the Boteti, 

 after waning to a chain of puddles, ceased flowing 

 altogether. To this day, the riverbed remains dry. 

 When the Boteti dried up, a natural barrier also 



disappeared. The villagers' cattle could now cross the 

 riverbed to graze in the park, and lions, hyenas, and 

 wild dogs could sneak into the sandy village lands 

 and feast on scrawny, slow-moving cows. The live- 

 stock losses brought the issue to its boiling point. 



"I wish we could kill wildlife when it kills live- 

 stock, instead of getting little compensation from the 

 government," said one cattle farmer. Another noted 

 that the government's compensation for crop dam- 

 age was less than the cost of transportation to pick it 

 up. A third farmer pointed out that to the villagers, 

 tourism brought no benefit. 



The villagers brought their complaints to the kgot- 

 las, Botswana's traditional community councils. El- 

 ders of the councils went to the legislature and, in 

 1995, proposed a single fence between the park and 

 the villagers' lands. Botswana's department of wild- 

 life then hired a consultant who proposed that the 

 fence mostly follow the west bank of the Boteti where 

 most of the predator attacks had taken place. The pro- 

 posal also included gates in the fence, so that livestock 

 could scrounge for the water now beneath the Boteti 

 riverbed. But after further discussions between the 

 department of wildlife and the local communities, 



Herds of elephants and zebras gather around one of two water holes they can reach from the 

 east side of the Makgadikgadi fence. The owner of one safari camp pumped water into this hole 

 for the animals every day during the most recent dry season. 



June 2006 NATURAL HISTORY 



51 



