Okavango Delta Management Plan - Ramsar Convention on Wetlands

The direct use values generated by the <strong>Ramsar</strong> Site also have a wider impact on Botswana’s
economy through the multiplier effect. Thus, for example, tourist accommodation facilities
in the <strong>Delta</strong> spend money on food and supplies from the agricultural and manufacturing
sectors elsewhere in Botswana, and these second-round backward-linked expenditures
contribute further gross value added to the national economy. A modified social accounting
matrix (SAM) model of the Botswana economy was used (ODMP – Economic Valuation
Report, 2006) to determine that for every P1.00 that direct uses contribute to the gross
national product, another P1.50 in gross national product contribution is generated in the
wider economy through demand created in backward linkages. Thus, the <strong>Ramsar</strong> Site has a
total annual (direct and indirect) impact on the gross national product amounting to P1.2
billion, or 2.6% of the total national gross national product. Eighty one percent of this total
impact is contributed by the wetland.
The multiplier effect is higher for the formal tourism sector activities than for household
agriculture and natural resource use. However, policies aimed at reducing the fairly high
import component of tourism linkages, might increase the multiplier effects further.
The <strong>Ramsar</strong> Site contributes to livelihoods of its people through profits (both cash and inkind)
from agricultural and natural resource use, through wages and salaries in the
tourism sector and from rentals and royalties in the tourism sector. Poor households in the
study area benefit from profits amounting to P99 million, from wages and salaries
amounting to P102 million, and from rentals and royalties amounting to an estimated P25
million (ODMP – Economic Valuation Report, 2006). The wetland contributes less than 3%
of profits, but nearly all the wages and royalty benefits. Of the direct contribution made to
the gross national product by the <strong>Ramsar</strong> Site (P472 million per annum), 31% accrues to
low income elements of society. In the total (both direct and indirect) contribution made to
the gross national product by the <strong>Ramsar</strong> Site, this figure is lower, being some 18%.
Botswana has a natural resource accounting programme and in this framework, the
<strong>Ramsar</strong> Site and the wetland were treated as natural assets within land or ecosystem
accounts. The direct use values measured in this study represent the production or flow
accounts. The asset or stock value of the <strong>Delta</strong>, measured as the present value in 2005
prices, of the expected future flow of resource rents from the <strong>Delta</strong>, was estimated at P3.9
billion for the <strong>Ramsar</strong> Site and P3.4 billion for the wetland.
In a preliminary qualitative analysis, the economic valuation study examined the likely
effects of three future land use options on the direct use values. These involved the
currently proposed land use plan (ODMP – Land Use and <strong>Management</strong> <strong>Plan</strong>, 2005), a
second option where the emphasis was put on the expansion of agricultural lands, and a
third option where the emphasis was put on protection of the natural assets of the <strong>Delta</strong>.
In this preliminary scenario analysis, the currently proposed land use plan, which gives
emphasis to complementary land use and wise use of the resources, emerged as the most
economically efficient, contributing the greatest amount of national product. The plan thus
appears optimal for the <strong>Ramsar</strong> Site. The likely effects of external factors, involving water
extraction plans and climate change predictions were tested in two further scenarios. These
factors, particularly climate change, will reduce the value of the <strong>Ramsar</strong> Site. Therefore
attention should be given in planning to any possible ways of ameliorating these effects.
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