This thesis examines how global environmental crisis narratives and discourses have influenced
environmental policy and practice in conservation programmes for the Okavango Delta, Botswana.
In particular, it highlights the contested nature of biodiversity conservation and the embedded
power relations in the framing, definition and crafting of solutions to the problem of biodiversity
degradation at local, national and international levels. The thesis therefore examines, based on
these framings, the consequences of global environmental agreements, such as the Ramsar
Convention and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, for local livelihoods in terms of
access to and control over local environmental resources in the Okavango Delta.
Using a political ecological conceptual lens and related literature on common pool resource
management and community-based natural resource management, this thesis traces the changing
perceptions, narratives and discourses relating to the Okavango Delta over time, and assesses how
these have shaped changes in policy for the Delta’s use and management. It specifically analyses
the implementation of international programmes and their role in facilitating these changes.
Through an in-depth study of dynamic human-environment interactions around fisheries and other
wetland resources, this thesis shows how international interventions have not only increased
conflicts but also facilitated the strict regulation of these resources. The thesis therefore analyses
how framing these and other common pool resources as being of ‘international significance’ alters
control over them and affects the livelihood security of the local people that depend on these
resources. It concludes that such restrictive conservation policies and management approaches have
led to a transfer of control over wetland resources from local subsistence users to other, more
powerful, commercial interests, especially those in the international tourism industry.