Adaptive or Anachronistic? Maintaining Indigenous Natural Resource Governance Systems in Northern Botswana

This chapter reviews the interactions between indigenous natural resource governance systems of the Basarwa/San ¹ communities of northern Botswana’s Okavango Delta, and external resource governance interests and discourses, including formal community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) initiatives. The chapter highlights the challenges facing local politically marginalized communities in maintaining their resource governance systems in the face of power imbalances and national-level debates over resource use.