This paper reviews the extent of compatibility between the current agricultural policy of rangeland enclosures and stated concerns for halting environmental degradation and safe guarding natural resources for sustainable and future development. It starts by assessing perceptions on the nature of the environmental problem of rangeland degradation, showing that in its physical qualities, this is a problem that is not yet fully understood in Botswana. The paper also argues that the problem has a social side to it in which human actors interact with each other as well as with the environment in a way that produces beneficiaries and losers. It further points out that policy makers like to see the poor as the major causes of the problem, when in fact the problem should be laid squarely at the feet of the big cattle ranchers and a development strategy that has encouraged them to put their short term interests for profit before those of the welfare of the poor as well as long term impact on the environment.
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