GIS resources from SDI Africa

The February 2009 issue of the Spatial Data Infrastructure - Africa Newsletter reports the new Land and Water Management Information System and portal for the SADC states, launch of the African Soil Information service (AfSIS), status of the Second Administrative Level Boundaries (SALB) project, the AfricaMap beta from the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, the Conservation GeoPortal, development of a South Africa Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Storage Atlas, and the usual useful list of training courses and meetings. You can find the newsletter online and a copy in the HOORC Library's current periodicals section.

Mining licences for CKGR

The issuing of mining exploration licenses granted by the Botswana government for work in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve has been featured in various news reports. See Mmegi, the South Africa Mail and Guardian and AFP, with more background from MineWeb.

Tourism for Tomorrow awards

Accommodation at Ol Donyo Wuas from the lodge's web site

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has announced the 2009 finalists in its Tourism for Tomorrow awards, aimed at recognising best practice in sustainable tourism within the travel and tourism industry worldwide. This year's finalists for the category include one African destination, Ol Donyo Wuas, Kenya, an eco-lodge just outside of Chyulu National Park in southern Kenya on communal land belonging to Maasai people, that has engaged the local communities bordering their lodge to become involved in the tourism infrastructure and have established a comprehensive financial structure that allows for meaningful contribution of tourism-generated resources to the local community bordering the park. The WTTC, an industry association, has been offering the awards for five years. In HOORC's Library, you can find Green places to stay and The hotel book : great escapes Africa.

African agriculture meeting

The High-Level Meeting on African Agriculture in the 21st Century - Meeting the Challenges, Making a Sustainable Green Revolution, convened from 9-10 February in Windhoek, Namibia, adopted a declaration in which participants called for support to help African farmers adapt to climate change. The ministerial meeting was an intersession meeting in preparation for the 17th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD 17), to be held in May 2009. The declaration called for help for small-scale farmers to better manage such risks as price, weather, climate and natural disasters to promote development of agricultural insurance markets and further enhance cooperation in areas such as biofuels, drylands agriculture and combating desertification. You can read more on the web site of the UN Division for Sustainable Development.

Okavango tourists at campfire

Travel jargon

Do you know the meaning targeted override? EMAN? Intute has alerted us to a web site that describes and tracks use of informal terminology in the travel industry, Traveljargon.org. The site provides a searchable A - Z listing of terminology and acronyms for business or leisure travel, airlines, hotels, car hire, conference and meetings, rail, cruising and tourism. The site is continually updated to provide concise definitions and users are invited to suggest amendments or enter new terms. You can find the resource online and, in HOORC's Library, A dictionary of travel and tourism terminology, Dictionary of hotels, tourism and catering management and Tourism signs & symbols : a status report & handbook.

Community veterinary clinics for livestock guarding dogs

Cheetah Conservation Botswana recently conducted the first in a proposed series of Community Veterinary Clinics as part of its developing Livestock Guarding Dog Programme. During the last week of January 2009, the organization teamed up with Maun Animal Welfare Society (MAWS) to stage a veterinary clinic for owners of domestic dogs in the Ghanzi District. Visiting Grootlagtle, Qabo, Kuke, as well as Ghanzi itself (which all border wildlife management areas), the objective was to trial and assess the potential for providing such mobile veterinary clinics for owners of guarding and herding dogs, as well as to other domestic dogs living within dispersed rural communities. The strategy is to help to control canine diseases, which can not only be passed to the more valuable guard dogs, but potentially into species such as the vulnerable African Wild Dog. You can read more about the clinic on the organization's web site.

Government notices of interest to the Okavango community

From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVII, no. 1, 9 January 2009

Republic of Botswana: Tender: Consultancy to develop management plan for Mosema Community Conservation Trust in partnership with Department of Forestry and Range Resources (second publication)
7
Republic of Botswana: Tender: Consultancy to develop management plan for Kawii Community Conservation Trust in partnership with Department of Forestry and Range Resources (second publication)
7
Ngamiland District Council: Integrated schedule of meetings, 2009
35

From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVII, no. 4, 16 January 2009

Road transport (Permits) Act: Road Transport Permits Regulations: application for road transport permits – “P” permits: Okavango Wilderness Safaris, Mobile Safari; Island Safari, Mobile Safari; Planet Wilderness, Mobile Safari; Exploration Services, Mobile Safari; Desert & Delta Safaris, Mobile Safari; Calypso Agencies, Mobile Safari.
89-91
Republic of Botswana: Tender: Provision of consultancy services for the systematic water quality monitoring of the Okavango Delta
96

From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVII, no. 9, 6 February 2009

Bill No. 3 of 2009: National Meteorological Service Bill, 2009, to provide for the establishment of the National Meteorological Service, to provide for its powers and functions and to provide for related matters
B.43-B.51

From the Botswana Government Gazette, Vol. XLVII, no. 10, 13 February 2009

Republic of Botswana: Tender: construction of the proposed regional veterinary office at Maun
535

Tender announcements and documents may also be found on the Government of Botswana web site. The entire issue of the Government Gazette may be read in HOORC’s Library.

GIS training for Tawana Land Board at HOORC

GIS trainer Kent Burger with Tawana Land Board participants

Surveyors from the Tawana Land Board have been at HOORC this week, participating in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) training. The course has been sponsored by BIOKAVANGO as part of a project to identify potential tourism locations in the Okavango Delta Ramsar Site.

In HOORC's Library you can find a range of books about using GIS, including Environmental land use planning and management by John Randolph and Spatial multicriteria decision making and analysis : a geographic information sciences approach edited by Jean-Claude Thill.

Conflict management in water disputes

ELDIS has alerted us to a new report from the International Water and Sanitation Centre,
Conflict mediation in the water and sanitation sector: and how to reach solutions. The publication describes water and sanitation conflicts and actors, options for conflict management and resolution and mediation methods, using case studies from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. References to useful publications about managing conflict, many of them available for free online, are included. The entire report is available online, and in HOORC's Library, you can find Paradigms in conflict : water resource management in Botswana by Larry A. Swatuk.

Transboundary parks

AllAfrica.com recently republished a story from The Namibian about the proliferation of transfrontier conservation areas in southern Africa. Based on an interview with the Peace Parks Foundation, the story reports that 14 of 22 transfrontier conservation areas have been identified in the region as most viable for development, and mentions the The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KaZa-TFCA) -- covering 280 000 square kilometres, including 22 protected areas -- among Namibia, Botswana, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe as unique because five countries are involved. You can read the article online, and in HOORC's library, you can read Peace parks : conservation and conflict resolution edited by Saleem H. Ali.

BIOKAVANGO fisheries stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder meeting sharing 2009 plan

BIOKAVANGO Project’s Fisheries Component held a half day’s meeting in Shakawe on the 30th of January 2009 to share the 2009 BIOKAVANGO Fisheries annual plan with stakeholders in the Okavango Fishery: Okavango Fishers Association Executive Committee, tour operators, DWNP - Fisheries Division, HOORC, Department of Water Affairs, Department of Tourism, Northwest District Council Dept. of Environmental Health, an independent researcher, Tawana Land Board, and a representative of the houseboat operators. The stakeholders welcomed the plan and agreed to work together to achieve the component’s outcome, which is “Biodiversity friendly management methods are inducted into fisheries production systems”. They also discussed in detail the 2009 first quarter plan of activities in which the formation of an Okavango Fisheries Management Committee (OFMC) was a key item. All stakeholders at the meeting agreed to the officialisation and its membership and to discuss in a different meeting, the key roles and responsibilities of the Committee.

Surveying blocked channels in the fisheries pilot site

Participants in the meeting also surveyed lagoons in the fisheries pilot site by aircraft and by boat to identify all lagoons important to both commercial and recreational fisheries, as well as to record and evaluate blockages from the main river channel. HOORC’s GIS Laboratory is producing maps of the observations to assist stakeholders to identify which lagoons have to be unblocked first and to assist in developing criteria for identification of fishing areas for fisheries management.

Diamond mining update

Mmegi has reported award of a contract by African Queen Mines, an exploratory resource company with diversified mineral properties in Southern Africa, to Botswana-based Discovery Drilling Africa for the first phase of a core-drilling programme on its Okavango diamond property. The Okavango property comprises three prospecting licences covering approximately 2592 km2 held by the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, PAM Botswana (Pty.) Ltd. It is situated on a recently recognised extension of the Archaean Congo Craton, which hosts numerous economic kimberlite and alluvial diamond deposits.

ABORNE conference call for papers

Ferry at Mohembo on the Okavango River's Botswana-Namibia border, from Anton Matthee's Flickr photostream

The African Borderlands Research Network (ABORNE), will hold its third annual meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, September 10 to 14, 2009, with the theme, How is Africa Transforming Border Studies? ABORNE is an interdisciplinary network of academic researchers and institutions in Europe, Africa and North America with members from all disciplines of the social sciences with an emphasis on anthropology and history. They share a long-term interest in all aspects of international borders and trans-boundary phenomena in Africa. The emphasis is largely on borderlands as physical spaces and social spheres, but the network is also concerned with regional flows of people and goods as well as economic processes that may be located at some distance from the geographical border. Deadline for submission of titles and abstracts is 30 April, 2009. You can find the call for papers online and, in HOORC's Library, you can read Tourism and borders : contemporary issues, policies, and international research, Re-creating Eden : land use, environment, and society in southern Angola and northern Namibia, and Democratic environments? conservation and development across Southern African borders.

Biodiversity resources

Latest posts about useful biodiversity resources on the IISD Linkages site include announcement of:

The Green Customs Guide to Multilateral Environmental Agreements -- a resource for customs and other border control officers to assist in monitoring and facilitating detection and prevention of illegal trade in environmentally sensitive commodities such as ozone depleting substances, toxic chemicals, hazardous waste, endangered species and living modified organisms.

The Liaison Group of Biodiversity-related Conventions' interactive CD-ROM about the applications of the Addis Ababa Principles and Guidelines (AAPG) for the Sustainable Use of Biodiversity, explaining the AAPG and their relevance in the context of each of the biodiversity related conventions. In addition to providing information on the applications of the AAPG, the CD contains the full text of the principles and guidelines, relevant decisions, recommendations and resolutions, background documents, as well as other materials, including links to relevant websites.

A new paper in the FAO's Legal Papers series, Principles For Developing Sustainable Wildlife Management Laws.

You can find all the resources online.

New in HOORC's Library: Seeing through Maps

The 2006 edition of Seeing through maps : many ways to see the world by Denis Wood, Ward L. Kaiser & Bob Abramms, is aimed at students who are learning to interpret geographic representations. The book shows the reader how to question map images and the messages they communicate. Useful appendices include a section about using map projections in human resource development and adult education, and a reference table of different map projections. You can find the book in HOORC's Library.

Tourism accommodation grading

Room at Planet Baobab from the Botswana Game Lodges site

The Palapye.com blog recently republished a story from the Sunday Standard about the Botswana Tourism Board's efforts to reconcile standards used in Botswana's licensing of hotels and other tourist accommodation with the more recent grading standards. You can find the story online and, in HOORC's Library, read the Board's List of graded tourist accommodation facilities and Botswana's Tourism Act.

What lies beneath? A case for sharing data: Massive Diamond Find Perplexes Jwaneng Planners

This a classic result of what happens when spatial data in a country is not shared, but is instead kept under lock and key in different government offices, private organisations.  Millions have been wasted on servicing land for residential development only to find that there are diamonds beneath as the Mmegi newspaper reports

Mmegi Mobile :: Massive Diamond Find Perplexes Jwaneng Planners

Global Water Partnership strategy

The Global Water Partnership (GWP) has announced a new strategy for the period 2009- 2013, focused on achievement of four goals:

Promotion of water as a key part of sustainable national development

Addressing of critical development challenges

Reinforcement of knowledge sharing and communications

Building a more effective network.

An evaluation of the GWP's programmes took place in early 2008. The new strategy is the result of a year of consultations. Botswana is a partner country in the GWP, which supports capacity building in Integrated Water Resources Management through WaterNet, and information sharing through the Southern Africa Water Information Network (SAWINET) and the Southern Africa Youth Water Action Team (SAYWAT). You can find the full text of the strategy online.

WHO drinking water guidelines update

Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality, Second Addendum to the 3rd Edition Volume 1 - Recommendations was released online by the World Health Organization (WHO) in December 2008. This addendum adds to and supersedes information in the third edition of the Guidelines. In response to feedback received, the second addendum includes more guidance on household water management, rainwater harvesting, vended water, temporary water supplies, and pesticides used for vector control in drinking-water sources. It also includes a series of new microbial and chemical fact sheets. Expanded fact sheets are included for key chemical risks such as arsenic, fluoride and nitrate/nitrite. You can find the main volume in HOORC's Library and the addendum online.

Upcoming international conferences

Two international conferences of interest to natural resources researchers have published calls for submissions of abstracts. The 10th International Congress of Ecology (INTECOL) with this year's theme, Ecology in a Changing Climate: Two Hemispheres One Globe will be held in Brisbane, Australia 16-21st August 2009. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 4 March 2009. You can find more on the conference website. The Fifth International Conference on River Basin Management including all aspects of Hydrology, Ecology, Environmental Management, Flood Plains and Wetlands will be held in Malta on 7 - 9 September 2009. You can find instructions on submitting abstracts on the conference website.

New in HOORC's Library: Living Farms

Living farms : encouraging sustainable smallholder agriculture in Southern Africa by Martin Whiteside, an accessible text about sustainable agriculture, is directed at community development workers, planners and policy makers and agricultural research and extension workers. Using examples from the southern African region, the book presents options for community organization and participation -- including approaches to CBNRM --, technologies for sustainability and issues related to markets. You can find the book in HOORC's Library.

KCS news

The December 2008 issue of the Kalahari Conservation Society (KCS)Newsletter has arrived in HOORC's Library, with articles about Botswana's ivory auction, the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Botswana's delegation to the migratory waterbirds conference in Madagascar, a regional seminar on climate change adaptation strategies, and KCS events. You can find the issue in the HOORC Library's current periodicals section.