Abstract
Abstract Botswana baskets are both an emblematic cultural symbol and a popular tourist souvenir, made by women from natural materials and reflecting gendered experiences of work, creativity, and resource use. The expansion of their production for sale over the past 30 years has often led to concerns about strain on the natural resources used for weaving, but more recently, the ways in which women talk about how they access these materials has changed. Rather than framing resources as scarce and under threat from poor harvesting practices, increasing numbers of women describe shifts in use practices that reflect growing awareness of the need to protect and cultivate plants such as hyphaene petersiana, or mokola palm. This change reflects the importance of rethinking what constitutes community-based natural resource management to include not only formalized trusts, but informal networks through which women harvest and use forest resources. It also highlights the insights of political ecology in considering the ways in which power impacts natural resource use, while emphasizing the need to expand notions of knowledge to become more inclusive and grounded. Key Words: Gender, political ecology, community-based conservation, Botswana, craft
Highlights
How have womens' perceptions and experiences surrounding these essential natural resources changed over time, and what do these changes tell us about local resource use practices? In particular, how do women as the primary resource users access the materials they need, and how have these patterns shifted? What can women's ability or failure to access necessary resource tell us about environmental practices and the social networks in which they are enacted? To respond to these questions, the research engaged with women who make crafts from six village areas in Ngamiland, the northwestern-most region of Botswana where the majority of craftmakers reside. These women participate in nine differently organized producer groups, as well as private shops, a craft shop operated by the Botswana Council of Churches in Etsha 6, and BotswanaCraft
The primacy of Ngamiland in the craft industry has been attributed to market development initiatives such as Botswanacraft (Terry 2001); additional factors certainly include the availability of resources and cultural traditions regarding the uses of baskets or other crafts
Meeting with a conservationist overseeing a major development project in Botswana, they indicated that it was a foregone conclusion that resources were in peril and that degradation was widespread
Summary
These women participate in nine differently organized producer groups, as well as private shops, a craft shop operated by the Botswana Council of Churches in Etsha 6, and BotswanaCraft (a wholesale buyer based in the capital city of Gaborone) This range of groups reflects multiple ways of accessing the market as well as complex relationships with localized natural resources. The article first discusses women's access to natural resources in the context of current assessments of CBNRM in the region, which brings attention to the gendered focus on wildlife that is characteristic of much of what is considered to be community-based conservation It briefly describes the methodological approach of the study, followed by an overview of the importance of craft in the context of changing patterns of tourism in Botswana. It raises several additional issues regarding the use of resources, and offers some concluding thoughts on the importance of including women's perspectives of community-based conservation and thinking beyond wildlife
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