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Climatic change related extreme events such as droughts negatively affect local communities in the semi-arid savanna ecosystems. This study mainly records and analyses local knowledge on the use of edible indigenous woody plant species by local communities during drought periods, as a coping strategy, in southeast lowveld of Zimbabwe. Secondary data on utilization of edible indigenous woody plants were gathered from literature sources focusing mainly on the southeast lowveld parts of Zimbabwe and covering the period 2000–2019. Quantitative ethnobotanical data analysis involved computing the frequency of citation (FC), relative frequency of citation (RFC) and family importance value (FIV) to determine the local significance of indigenous woody plant species. A total of 23 species from 12 families were recorded as being used during drought periods with key species including baobab (Adansonia digitata), bird plum (Tamarindus indica), corky-monkey orange (Strychnos cocculoides) and black monkey orange (Strychnos madagascariensis). Major use categories were food, medicine, and livestock feed. The study findings points to the need for embracing indigenous woody plants as a buffer against drought in semi-arid parts of the savanna. Future projects should focus on developing innovative strategies such as value addition and promoting sustainable use and restoration of non-wood forest products as part of livelihood diversification under drought situations.

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a concept that was introduced in southern Africa back in the 1980s with the dual aim of biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction in communities endowed with natural resources. Community-based tourism (CBT), one of the major forms of CBNRM, depends on natural resources, particularly wildlife, and weather and climatic conditions. However, natural resources are under threat from climatic changes and other anthropogenic and natural disturbances. This calls for the need to interrogate the extent to which CBNRM initiatives mainstream climate change in their agenda. The main aim of this article is to assess the extent to which the climate change agenda has been mainstreamed into the policy framework of Botswana's CBNRM program. The specific objectives are to (1) document the impacts of climate change on CBNRM-related initiatives in Botswana; (2) determine the relationship between climate parameters (temperature and rainfall), extreme events (drought and extreme heat), and visitor trends in Botswana and the Okavango Delta; (3) establish a historical correlation between evolution of climate change policy and CBNRM policy and vice versa, policy initiatives, programs, strategies, and projects in Botswana; (4) explore the extent to which international, regional, national, and local climate policies mainstream CBNRM and tourism issues and vice versa; and (5) explore the challenges and opportunities related to climate change and CBNRM, with a particular focus on adaptation and mitigation initiatives. This study mostly used qualitative approaches (desktop review of policy documents and scholarly articles) as well as secondary quantitative data (time-series data) to explore the evolution of CBNRM in Botswana, providing an overview of its structure, policy initiatives, programs, and projects and how these correspond with climate change issues. A scoping review was conducted to identify relevant studies on the impacts of climate change on CBNRM initiatives published between 1992 and 2023. A total of 50 articles were identified to answer the following research question: What evidence is available regarding the impacts of climate change on CBNRM initiatives? The article further looks at how climate change–related extreme events, particularly drought, has affected tourism performance over the years. The article then zeros down on the effects of climate change on CBNRM initiatives and the challenges, threats, and opportunities, as well as the mitigation and adaptation strategies adopted by the CBNRM projects in Botswana. The findings indicate that climate change–induced events, particularly drought, have affected nature-based tourism products in Botswana. However, it was revealed that although there is no statistically significant correlation between drought and tourism performance, evidence from the literature reveals that drought has impacted tourism in Botswana. The findings from policy analysis indicate that the climate change agenda is woven into more recent key legal and policy documents on CBNRM, on one hand, while the climate change policy documents also include components that speak to CBNRM, on the other. This implies that the tourism sector can leverage these provisions to strengthen climate resilience through transformative adaptation and mitigation action.

The Rio+20 outcomes document, the Future We Want, enshrines green economy as one of the platforms to attain sustainable development and calls for measures that seek to address climate change and biodiversity management. This paper audits climate change policies from selected east and southern African countries to determine the extent to which climate change legislation mainstreams biodiversity and wildlife management. A scan of international, continental, regional and national climate change policies was conducted to assess whether they include biodiversity and/or wildlife management issues. The key finding is that many climate change policy–related documents, particularly the National Adaptation Programme of Actions (NAPAs), address threats to biodiversity and wildlife resources. However, international policies like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol do not address the matter under deliberation. Regional climate change policies such as the East African Community, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and African Union address biodiversity and/or wildlife issues whilst the Southern African Development Community region does not have a stand-alone policy for climate change. Progressive countries like Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia have recently put in place detailed NAPAs which are mainstream responsive strategies intended to address climate change adaptation in the wildlife sector. Keywords: mainstreaming, biodiversity, wildlife, climate change policy, east and southern Africa