Fifteenth-century agropastoral responses to a disequilibrial ecosystem in southeastern Botswana

For centuries, rural communities in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa have relied on dryland cereal cultivation and livestock production, combined according to the limitations of rainfall and soils. Traditional agropastoralism is characterized by its relatively simple technology and high labour demands, with small farming settlements spaced by social and environmental circumstance (Niamir, 1991). This lack of modernization, together with widespread evidence of land degradation, is responsible for the negative perception that has guided successive development plans and conservationist interventions over the last few decades (Leach and Mearns, 1996).