Pastoral care and environmental justice in Okavango water governance

Water insecurity creates questions of meaning, dignity and belonging alongside disputes over access and institutional responsibility. This article argues that pastoral care becomes inadequate when it helps people endure avoidable water-related suffering without attending to the conditions producing it. Focusing on Botswana’s Okavango setting, the analysis brings published research on household burdens, cultural recognition and community influence into conversation with Botho and contextual and intercultural pastoral theology. A purposive conceptual approach distinguishes contextual evidence, normative interpretation and proposed practice. Political Ecology clarifies power and access, while environmental justice provides criteria for evaluating care within governance. The Theory of Planned Behavior is used only to distinguish intention from practical opportunity. The article develops four connected requirements for pastoral participation: protected listening, meaningful influence, fair allocation of responsibilities and accountable accompaniment. It explains how creation care, lament and hope can inform these requirements without imposing Christian interpretation on public decisions. A hypothetical illustration shows how spiritual support, institutional engagement and voluntary advocacy might be connected while preserving residents’ authority over their accounts. The distinctive contribution is an account of pastoral responsibility that joins attention to suffering with scrutiny of representation and institutional response. Nevertheless, pastoral involvement is not presumed beneficial: religious pressure, additional unpaid care burdens and consultation without influence are grounds for criticism or withdrawal. The framework is a normative proposal for empirical examination, not a report of fieldwork or demonstrated outcomes.