Monkagedi Gaotlhobogwe
13 November 2009
The P10 million Tsodilo Community Initiative Project is to be launched on November 19 at Tsodilo by the Minister of Wildlife, Environment and Tourism, Kitso Mokaila.
The project is sponsored by the Diamond Trust and entails the construction of an administrative centre, staff accommodation, drift fence, drilling and installation of boreholes, development of community campsites to be leased to investors and cultural activities by the community.
According to the ministry's spokesman, Archibald Ngakayagae, the project is an initiative by the Letloa Trust, which is part of the Kuru Family of Organisations and the Trust for Okavango cultural and Development Initiatives (ToCaDI). It is meant to facilitate the implementation of the Tsodilo Integrated Management Plan. The project is envisaged to improve the Tsodilo World Heritage Site as a tourism area, as well as to create employment opportunities and income generating activities for the community to alleviate poverty.
The Workshop will be followed by a stakeholders' workshop on November 20 at Shakawe.The purpose of the workshop at Shakawe is to brief authorities on the Tsodilo Integrated Management Plan, the Tsodilo Core Area Plan, and the Tsodilo community initiatives project.
The P10 million donation was announced in 2007 by De Beers and Debswana and was received by Nxisa Nxao, for the Letloa Trust, a non-governmental organization (NGOs) that runs a number of community projects at Tsodilo in the North West District or Ngamiland.
Some of the money will be used to implement the Tsodilo Hills Integrated Management Plan, which was adopted in 2001 to enhance the value of Tsodilo, a World Heritage Site.
The plan seeks to integrate Tsodilo communities into the management process to ensure suitable and complementary activities in a buffer zone so the area may become an important component of the Ngamiland economy.
Debswana is also involved in similar projects such as the funding of the Okavango Research and the Cheetah Conservation projects. When speaking at the launch of the P10 million funding of Tsodilo back in 2007, the then Letloa Board of Trustees' vice chairperson Nxisa Nxao described the day of the launch as a special one.
"Tsodilo Hills is Botswana's only World Heritage Site," she said then. "It is a truly magnificent natural gallery of over 4,000 rock paintings drawn thousands and thousands of years ago".
"When we talk of Tsodilo, we are referring to the 4,800 hectares core area, home to the famous male, female, and child hills and a surrounding buffer area of 70, 400 hectares where Ju/'hoansi and Hambukushu communities live off subsistence agriculture. "We want to ensure that the community becomes integral in the management of the area by becoming part of the decision making process.
The spiritual connection of past and present communities to Tsodilo is to be recognised and integrated into the visitor experience," she said.
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