Botswana: Community-Based Natural Resource Management

Faculty and Staff

Stewart Chirova, Academic Director
Stewart Chirova, a Zimbabwe national, received a bachelor's degree in agriculture from the University of Zimbabwe and a master of science and MPS in horticulture and environmental management from Cornell University. He has worked as a research associate at both the University of Zimbabwe and Cornell, where his research efforts were focused on sustainable agriculture, integrated pest management, watershed management, and geographic information systems. He has also taught courses at Zimbabwe's Ministry of Education. Additionally, he served as a coordinator in the International Students and Scholars program office at Cornell. Mr. Chirova has been the academic director of SIT's Botswana program since 2001.

Matthews "Matts" Motshome, Program Assistant and Language Training Coordinator
Program assistant and language training coordinator Mathews "Matts" Motshome has worked with SIT for 10 years. He also has worked for the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) and has taught Setswana and English classes to Swedish volunteers coming to Botswana. He is a certified school teacher and has taught classes in Botswana and Sweden. He left government work in 1985 and joined the U.S Peace Corps where he was the language and cross culture coordinator and teacher. Matts is from a village called Ramotswa, thirty-two kilometers southeast of Gaborone.

Banki Tlaselo, Homestay Coordinator
Originally from Ramotswa, Banki Tlaselo has coordinated homestays for SIT and Peace Corps programs for many years. Additionally, Banki is the coordinator for The Experiment in International Living, World Learning's dynamic summer program for high school students. Banki has taught Setswana and English to volunteers coming to Botswana. Banki's sister, Kgosi Mosadi, is the first paramount female chief (Kgosi). Her ascent to this position was a historic event in Botswana as women previously had not been allowed to assume chieftaincy.

Naledi Tsiang, Student Services Coordinator 
Naledi is the program's student services coordinator and assists with day-to-day logistics. Naledi previously worked as a nature guide at Mokolodi Nature Reserve. Her duties at the reserve included providing guided walks and game drives, tracking giraffes and rhinos, and teaching students, youth, and adults about environmental education and conservation.

Academics and lecturers for this program include:

Ditiro Benson Moalafhi (B.Sc., PDGE, M.Phil.)
Ditiro Benson Moalafhi has been a lecturer in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Botswana since September 2006. He was initially with the Department of Water Affairs at Gaborone for three years. His major research interests involve hydrologic and water resources systems, modelling, and climate change. He is a member of the Botswana Chapter of Global Water Partnership executive committee; the Botswana IWRM/Water Efficiency Plans Project Steering Committee; the UNDP/GEF National Steering Committee; and the Botswana Rainwater Harvesting and Utilisation Association (BORHUA). He is also a member of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS) and the Secretary of the Local Organising Committee for the IASTED (International Association of Science and Technology for Development) Conference in Botswana.

Tabo Mubyana-John, Ph.D.
Dr. Mubyana-John (B.Sc, Zambia; M.Sc. Ghent, Belgium, and Ph.D. Dr. Saskatchewan, Canada) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Botswana.  She teaches environmental microbiology to undergraduate students and microbial ecology and soil microbiology in the M.Sc. program. Her main research focuses on soil microbiology. Her research interests include microbial plant interaction and microbial nutrient cycling. Dr. Mubyana-John's studies have focused mostly on microbial nutrient cycling in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.    Her most recent publications include:
  • A preliminary study of fungi associated with saltpans in Botswana and their anti-microbial properties. Bioremediation, Biodiversity and Bioavailability 3(2), 61-71 2009@ Global Science Books
  • The effects of soil cover on soil respiration and microbial population in the Mopane (Colophospermum mopane) woodland of north western Botswana. Dynamic Soil, Dynamic Plant 2 (2), 61-68 2008 @ Global Science Books
  • Fire and its influence on microbial community structure and soil biochemical properties in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.  Scientific Research and Essays Vol. 2 (2), pp. 047-054, 2007. Also available online at: http://www.academicjournals.org/SRE

Tapologo Maundeni, Ph.D.
Dr. Tapologo Maundeni is a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Work at the University of Botswana. She holds a MSW from the University of Wisconsin Madison and a Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow. She is currently the executive secretary of OSSREA-Botswana chapter. She has published extensively on issues such as child and family welfare, gender and development, as well as HIV and AIDS. She has also presented numerous research papers in local, national, and international conferences.

Dr. Maundeni chairs the research sub-committee of the University of Botswana's Gender Policy and Programme Committee. Previously, she was head of the Social Work Department at the University of Botswana and also assistant editor of PULA-the Botswana Journal of African Studies. Dr. Maundeni continues to serve as a reviewer of manuscripts submitted for publication in various internationally renowned journals. She has served as a consultant for international and national organizations such as UNICEF, UNDP, and DIFD. Her areas of expertise include: child and family welfare, human rights, gender and development, as well as HIV and AIDS.

Patricia M. Makepe, Ph.D.
Patricia Makepe is a senior lecturer and researcher in the Department of Economics at the University of Botswana where she has worked as an academic for the past ten years. She is a skilled micro-economist, agricultural economist, and resource economist. Dr. Makepe earned her doctoral degree in agricultural economics in 2003 from Michigan State University. Her areas of expertise and academic interests lie in the broad areas of agriculture, natural resources, and rural development. Her work emphasizes a micro-econometric approach to development policy analysis at both the micro and sectoral levels. She has done work using cost benefit analysis to appraise proposed and existing agricultural projects and poverty and social impact analysis to assess the pro-poorness of proposed policy interventions.   In addition to her published works, which include articles in journals, book chapters, and a book, Dr. Makepe has worked with various organizations such as the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) producing the Botswana Agricultural Sector Performance Report for 2007 and for the UNDP/UNEP on the Poverty Environment Initiative, which will mainstream poverty and the environment into national planning processes. She is also the Network Country Partner for ResearchICTsAfrica (RIA!). Dr. Makepe has been a member of the Citizen Entrepreneurship Development Agency (CEDA), a development finance institution in Botswana, since June 2008.  

Dr. Mpaphi Casper Bonyongo
Dr. Bonyongo is a senior research scholar in ecology with over ten years of experience in ecological research mainly conducted in northern Botswana. His current research on the ecology of large herbivores in the Okavango Delta generates useful information on the seasonal patterns of habitat use, habitat use overlaps, diversity of habitat in relation to animal size, resource partitioning among sympatric species, species-packing and species diversity, biomass density, and trends in population of large herbivores.  Dr. Bonyongo is currently co-supervising four Ph.D. students registered at the University of Bristol in the UK, three M.Phil. students of which two are registered in South African universities and one registered at the University of Botswana. Dr. Bonyongo has supervised over ten undergraduate research projects over the past five years. He heads the Ecosystems Management Unit and coordinates the HOORC M.Phil./Ph.D. program. He has coordinated and chaired several sub-committees of the HOORC Executive, the Policy Review and Staff Welfare Committee being the most notable.   Dr. Bonyongo's recent research and publications include:

  • Mabiletswane P.  Siele. Tabo Mubyana-John.  Mpaphi C. Bonyongo (2008).  The effects of soil cover on soil respiration and microbial populations in the Mopane (Colophospermum mopane) woodland of Northern  Botswana, Dynamic Soils, Dynamic Plants (accepted)
  • Brooks C, Bonyongo M C and Harris S (2008).  The paradigm of collar weight: Improved standards are required to support the emergence of the GPS collar (Journal of wildlife Management;72 (2) 527-534
  • Mpaphi C. Bonyongo, Stephen Harris (2007).  Grazers species-packing in the Okavang Delta, Botswana (African Journal of Ecology, 45;527-534)
  • Bommel, F.P.J., Heitkonig, I.M.A., Epema, G.F., Bonyongo, M.C., Ringrose, S.M., Veenendaal, E., (2006). 'Remotely sensed habitat indicators for predicting distribution of impala (Aepyceros melampus) in the Okavango Delta, Botswana' in its current form for publication in the Journal of Tropical Ecology, Journal of Tropical Ecology, 22:101-110