“When the rains stopped, and the crops failed, the real problems began,” an elderly man in Boro village told us. “That’s how conflict starts, when people can no longer survive and compete for the little that is there.”
The village of Boro sits on the edge of the Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and climate-sensitive wetland in northwestern Botswana. The Boro River, once a dependable source of water for livestock and tourism, has been largely dry for five years, while unpredictable rainfall and prolonged drought have contributed to water shortages, crop failures, and declining grazing. Climate change, therefore, is making droughts like the one declared in 2024 more frequent and severe.
These changes reflect the growing climate pressures facing Botswana, where increasingly variable rainfall and prolonged dry periods threaten livelihoods and access to natural resources. Our study, published in September 2026 in Conflict, Security & Development, based on fieldwork conducted between July and September 2023, examined how climate change reshapes local peace and conflict dynamics and how communities like Boro actively respond to these shifts through formal and informal peacebuilding practices. The study drew on interviews and focus group discussions with 63 respondents in Boro and Maun, including farmers and herders, young people, traditional leaders, and government officials. It found that climate pressures had not tipped into violence and that the peace was maintained largely by the community’s own efforts rather than by state-led interventions.
The study also highlighted that disputes were not simply about diminishing resources. They were also shaped by longstanding grievances over land, conservation, and who gets to decide. Although based on a single village, the findings point to dynamics likely to be relevant to other climate-affected communities in southern Africa. Three lessons emerge: climate stress exposes and deepens existing grievances; local agency plays a central role in containing tensions; and weak formal institutions limit what communities can achieve on their own.
- Climate Stress Exposes Existing Grievances
In Boro, competition over resources has brought disagreements about access and ownership into sharper focus. A privately drilled borehole, for example, became the subject of a dispute over who had the right to use its water. “Some say it’s private, others say we all need water,” an elderly woman told us. “It is tearing the community apart.”
The community also described tensions over grazing and restrictions on access to wildlife areas, where some had resorted to cutting vegetation illegally to keep their livestock alive during severe droughts. A young man complained that herders from drier villages arrive in the dry season and compete with locals for pasture and tourism jobs. Climate change, then, does not cause conflict on its own. It magnifies pressures whose outcome is shaped by governance. Where people feel excluded from decisions or regard access rules as unjust, climate stress deepens existing grievances and erodes trust.
- Local Agency Keeps the Peace
Despite these tensions, residents described ways of resolving disputes before they escalated into violence. Traditional leaders, including the chief and ward headmen, intervened in disagreements over water, land and encroachment. “When people started fighting over water and land, the chief and elders stepped in,” an elderly man recalled. “They listened to everyone and helped us find common ground. Without them, things could have gotten worse.”
Households have also adapted to changing conditions. Some elderly women reported planting crops that mature more quickly and require less rainfall, while others diversified their livelihoods by harvesting thatching grass and making handicrafts. “Even with small fields, we can still get something to eat and avoid quarrels with neighbours over land,” one woman said.
These responses show that peacebuilding is not confined to mediating disputes. It also involves protecting livelihoods, adapting to environmental pressures and finding practical ways to reduce competition. In Boro, these efforts depend on trusted local leaders, the willingness of community members to negotiate, and everyday acts of restraint.
- Weak Structures Leave Communities Carrying the Load
However, local efforts have limits. Traditional leaders can mediate a dispute, but they cannot change national land-use rules, open restricted wildlife areas to grazing or pay for crops destroyed by elephants. Those powers sit with the Tawana Land Board and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, which communities described as distant and slow to respond. “Decisions about our land are made without involving us,” an elderly resident said. “It makes us feel ignored and excluded.”
Officials we interviewed acknowledged that water and forage shortages were pushing wildlife closer to the village. Where losses went uncompensated, some villagers organised night patrols to chase elephants away, at times putting them at odds with conservation laws. When formal institutions are weak, frustration with the state can become a source of tension in its own right. Climate adaptation must therefore strengthen these structures and make them answerable to the communities they serve. Measures that improve water access or support livelihoods will be difficult to sustain if they leave unresolved disagreements about who can use resources, under what conditions and with whose consent.
Community representatives, traditional leaders, land and conservation authorities, and community trusts could work together to agree on clear rules for resource access during drought, covering seasonal grazing, water use, and compensation for wildlife losses. Giving chiefs existing peacemaking roles a formal footing, through local climate-peace committees, would build on what already works. Young people and elders should take part together.
What Boro teaches us
The experience of Boro offers a lesson for communities facing similar pressures: climate change can intensify competition, but the path from scarcity to conflict is shaped by social relationships and the governance of natural resources. As climate change intensifies, Boro’s residents have shown that communities can keep the peace under severe climate stress. Their efforts, however, cannot resolve the structural problems that restrict access to resources and exclude communities from decisions.
Supporting peace in a changing climate means strengthening local initiatives while making resource governance more inclusive and responsive. Communities can mediate disputes and adapt their livelihoods, but lasting peace also requires fair rules for resource access, meaningful participation in decision-making, and institutions that respond to local needs.
Keywords: Botswana, Boro, Okavango Delta, Boro River, climate change, environmental peacebuilding, peace, conflict, conflict resolution, drought
| Dr. Malatsi Seleka holds a PhD in Africa Studies (Peace and Conflict Studies). His work examines sustainable development, peacebuilding, and community resilience in Southern Africa, with interests in conflict transformation, natural resource governance, indigenous knowledge, political ecology and climate resilience. |
| Maduo Mpolokang is an environmental practitioner at Aqualogic Pty Ltd and an active researcher with an MSc in Environmental Science. His professional and research interests span climate change, nature-based tourism, community development, and environmental sustainability management. He actively publishes in reputable academic outlets contributing to scholarly discussions and knowledge development in environmental science and sustainability. His work reflects a commitment to bridging research and practice to support sustainable environmental management and resilient communities. |
