The recent revival of debates concerning livestock development in Africa follows the
more widespread acceptance of paradigm shifts within rangeland science, and
maintaining pastoral mobility is now recognised as fundamental for the future survival of
pastoralism and sustainability of dryland environments. However, in southern Africa
communal pastoral drylands continue to be enclosed and dissected by large-scale barrier
fences designed to control livestock diseases, thus protecting lucrative livestock export
agreements. This interdisciplinary research examines the extent to which these veterinary
cordon fences have changed people’s access to, and effective management of, natural
resources in northern Botswana and how fence-restricted resource use by livestock,
wildlife and people has changed the natural environment.
Critical political ecology informed the approach, given its emphasis on socio-political
and historical influences on resource access, mobility and user relationships. This enabled
the biophysical effects of social changes to be investigated fully, thereby moving beyond
a tradition of discipline-based studies often resulting in severely repressive rangeland
policies. The research demonstrates how enclosure by veterinary cordon fences restricts
patterns of resource access and mobility within pastoral drylands, with serious
implications for both social and environmental sustainability. Enclosure increases the
vulnerability of people to risks and natural hazards, while resource access constraints and
pastoral adaptations to enclosure have favoured the increasing commercialisation of
livestock production, thus obstructing pathways into pastoralism. While widespread
environmental change in livestock areas cannot be attributed thus far to enclosure, the
curtailment of wild migratory herbivores at the wildlife–livestock interface has caused
some large-scale structural vegetation changes and there are indications that fence
induced sedentarisation could be accentuating existing degradation trends. Given these
changes, future rangeland policies in Africa should be aware of the social and
environmental impacts associated with export-led disease management infrastructure and
consider alternative, less intrusive, approaches to livestock development and disease
control in extensive pastoral drylands.