The Botswana government is erecting a fence to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease from South Africa, raising fears of environmental impacts.
Cattle slake their thirst at a watering hole near the Molopo River. Local farmers are worried that they will lose easy access to water due to the new animal disease cordon.
Further evidence of the plan to push ahead with the new barrier emerged last month when the Botswana Ministry of Agriculture posted an alert on its Facebook page, confirming that the government was “considering erecting a cordon fence along the 2,000km border between Botswana and South Africa to guard against trans-boundary animal diseases like Foot and Mouth”.
Recent amendments to Botswana’s laws require mandatory environmental impact assessment studies for any veterinary disease control fences longer than 20km, with an assessment of the environmental impacts of all projects that could have transboundary impacts, including fencing projects longer than 15km.
Noting that there is already a barbed wire fence between the two countries, he said rural residents stood to lose access to vital natural resources integral to their livelihoods due to the erection of an additional cordon on the Botswana side of the international boundary. He raised the example of an elderly neighbour in his home village of Mokatako, who would now be compelled to walk her livestock almost 5km daily to access the nearest watering point since access to the Molopo River was being closed off.
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