Hitchcock and Babchuk recount the history of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) of Botswana and draw on nearly two decades of interview data with its native inhabitants in an effort to evaluate their future prospects for survival and well-being inside the reserve.

The local people are of San and Bakgalgadi ethnicities and practice mixed livelihood strategies that include hunting and gathering. Their lands were declared a conservation area in 1961; it is the second largest on the African continent and one of the few that includes a human population. In the 1980s, the government began to encourage the local people to move out based on unfounded claims that they were over-hunting wild animals. Numerous NGOs collaborated to form a Negotiating Team committed to working with the Botswana government to find alternatives, but in 1997 and 2002, local people were removed from their ancestral lands and relocated to peripheral settlements. Families were split apart, some people were not granted the compensation that they had been promised and the integrated development and conservation schemes meant to provide livelihoods for the settlers were beset with problems. Many considered the relocation to be a human rights violation and in response, with the assistance of international lawyers the people of the Central Kalahari filed a lawsuit that became the longest and most expensive case in the history of Botswana.

On December 13, 2006 the case concluded with the people of the Central Kalahari gaining the right to return to inhabit their ancestral territories. They were allowed to hunt and gather, provided that they obtain hunting licenses. The government's implementation of the ruling denies them all services (e.g., schools, boreholes, health posts) and prohibits domestic animals inside the reserve. Furthermore, resettlement into the reserve is only approved for the 189 surviving individuals specified at the outset of litigation.

That these ethnic groups have become increasingly less dependent on traditional livelihoods is universally recognized. At the time of their eviction from the CKGR, they were relying on government provided services (especially food and water supply) and non-traditional forms of hunting. The authors analyze data on mobility, land use, territoriality, foraging, farming, and socioeconomic organization in order to assess the feasibility of returning to a traditional lifestyle that has been largely lost by younger generations. They conclude that though the constraints are severe, the returnees will be able to sustain themselves. A combination of traditional knowledge still held by some of the returnees and access to this kind of information from people living in the peripheral settlements will contribute to their survival and avoidance of conflicts over resources and spaces within the reserve.

Discussions continue over whether another court case should be filed to push for provision of water and fair hunting rights (inhabitants have not been granted the permits they were promised and there are reports of incarceration and torture of hunters). Another outstanding issue is whether private diamond companies operating inside the park should share benefits with the people of the Central Kalahari. The Negotiating Team continues to work with locals to define and propose possible solutions to the Botswana government.

Prepared by Megan Glore