Water resources policy and administrative management

The Bathoen Dam Nature Sanctuary Management Trust (BDNSMT) possesses 275139hectares of land that covers beautiful forest landscape including Pharing caves and the Bathoen II Dam which was constructed by the community of Kanye under the inspiration of the great Kgosi Bathoen II in 1939 for irrigation purposes and birds conservation. The area is renowned for its beautiful landscape, typical of the Kanye area. Over the years, the area has recorded accelerated visits by individuals who come for recreational purposes and partying activities. However good these activities are, the area is losing its aesthetic value due to uncontrolled movements in which litter is thrown all over the place. The Trust has since realized that there is need to fence the land , construct an entry gate to control the flux of visitors. Camping sites will be constructed with a cultural village and a seminarycentre to meet expectations of visitors who frequently visit the place for various purposes. In this way, reasonable fees will be required for the visitations in which guided tours will be availed through designated resting and viewing sports with camping sites also availed. A cultural village will also be used as an opportunity for visitors to learn more about the history of the sanctuary and the Bangwaketse culture with different cultural cuisines prepared on requests.The cultural village will also house a curio/craft shop that will show-case the Bangwaketsehandi-work. A seminary centre will strategically be placed to offer nature-based gatherings for government, companies, families and marriage enrichment activities. In this way the revenues collected will be re-invented into maintaining environmental quality of the sanctuary and at the same time advertising the area as an eco-toursimcentre that will also serve as a gate-way to large-volume tourism areas within the country.

Botswana