Integration of Rural Inhabitants of Neighbouring Game Reserves by Developing Employable Skills for Mutual Benefit

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-906-3_6How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Rural communities; economic challenges; social challenges; environmental challenges; focus group interviews; local knowledge and skills

Abstract

The Northern Tuli Game Reserve (Notugre) and the wider Bobirwa district area are home to well-known private game reserves in Botswana. These game reserves require employees for various activities, including tourism and hospitality, as well as wildlife management and conservation. Although villagers are poverty-stricken, they are not adequately integrated into these game reserves and the wider area. Hence, the research aims to ascertain why villagers and employers (game reserves) are not integrated and how they can be integrated for mutual benefit. Hence, the purpose of the research is to identify a mechanism for integrating rural communities into the Notugre and wider area for mutual benefit in the village participatory development process. The why and how questions mentioned above are answered through an inductive analysis of qualitative data collected from ten focus group interviews, in which 61 representatives from nine villages surrounding Notugre and the broader area of the Bobirwa district participated. The analysis revealed a mismatch between the local knowledge and skills of villagers and employers in Notugre and the wider Bobirwa district area. These findings shed light on stakeholders, especially rural communities, employers (game reserves), and the government, to take positive actions to bridge the local knowledge and skills gap of villagers, integrating them into Notugre and the broader area of Bobirwa district for mutual benefits.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Shantha Indrajith Hikkaduwa Liyanage
AU  - Ivy Rose Mathew
AU  - Samuel Chingoiro
AU  - Olivia Nthoi
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/12
TI  - Integration of Rural Inhabitants of Neighbouring Game Reserves by Developing Employable Skills for Mutual Benefit
BT  - Proceedings of Botho University International Research Conference (BUIRC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 89
EP  - 105
SN  - 3005-155X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-906-3_6
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-906-3_6
ID  - Liyanage2025
ER  -