ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the impacts of the wildlife-based tourism industry and the policies that drive it in the Okavango region. Tourism in the northern parts of the country has impacts on the livelihoods of local people resulting in the dispossession and displacement of local communities from their original homes to give way to tourism development. The attempt to reduce Botswana's economic reliance on diamond mining through wildlife-based tourism, the Okavango Delta (OD) rich flora and fauna has been marketed within affluent consumer markets by state agencies and private tour operators alike, as a pristine and undisturbed wilderness destination. The Fauna Wildlife Act of 1961, for example, led to the establishment of the Moremi Game Reserve (MGR) as a protected area encompassing about 4,610 km2 of choice, resource-rich wetland in the heart of the OD. In 1989, the OD was formally divided into Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) and Controlled Hunting Areas (CHAs).
