Page 18 - Discover Botswana 25th Edition - 2025

18 www.discoverbotswanathebook.biz
Previous pages: A mating pair of lions along the Chobe briefly show affection during a rigorous
four days of copulating. Botswana is critical habitat for lions and boasts one of the largest
single populations in Africa.
Facing page: With plummeting rhino numbers, Botswana could still hold the key that could
lead to healthier populations across the continent. To see rhinos in the wild, is a much sought
after subject for many wildlife photographers.
Africa, well known today for its incredible diversity of life and the
exotic creatures that have coexisted with the people here since the
dawn of time itself, has become a much sought after destination
for nature lovers. The concept of safari only recently found a place
in the international travel scene. The word itself, from the Swahili
word meaning to travel well, has become the common name used to
describe one’s journey into one of Africa’s last remaining wildernesses.
Hunter gatherer communities living in relative harmony with their environment, as
well as later cultures, were shaped by the very land with which they shared the wildlife
over eons. Africa a hundred years ago was simply a lot wilder than what we see today,
and with the advent of the colonial period and its subsequent impact on the people and
the wildlife here, biodiversity slowly started to decline and vanish over large swaths of
the continent. The demand for ivory, rhino horn and crocodile skins ushered in a new
era of onslaught, but it also started a new era of protection in the form of game reserves
and national parks. The race to save Africa’s iconic species was on.
Leading the race here in Botswana, the Moremi Game Reserve was established
in 1963, entering the history books as being one of the first reserves created by
indigenous people, and named after Chief Moremi III of the BaTawana tribe. At the
time there were notable concerns about the decline of wildlife due to overhunting and
cattle encroachment on the tribe’s ancestral lands. Today, and with a long history of
protection, the Moremi Game Reserve covers some 5000 square kilometers, forming the
core protection of the Okavango Delta.
Botswana’s relatively small population in that period meant that large areas of
land still had intact populations of wild animals. Here, a small but locally well-known
fly, the Tsetse fly, would play a crucial role in preserving the wildlife. As a carrier of
sleeping sickness, the fly deterred livestock farmers from encroaching on this enormous
biodiverse area, effectively creating a natural barrier that allowed the wildlife to thrive.
One of the first large scale commercial uses of Botswana’s vast population of wildlife
was the hunting of crocodile for its skin, starting in the mid-20th century. Eventually,
overhunting severely depleted the crocodile population especially in the Okavango
Delta. Thankfully, later conservation efforts would ultimately halt their decline. Then
another significant event took place in 1977, when Kenya imposed a comprehensive
ban on trophy hunting.