Page 24 - Discover Botswana 2021

Above: As the seasonal floodwaters arrive in Botswana from Angola via Namibia the waters slow down and fan out, forming the characteristic ‘Delta’ shape. As the waters slow down, they deposit their load of sand and sediments forming these spectacular sand bar patterns and creating critical habitat for unique wetland specialist species such as African Skimmers to nest and raise their young. Image: Kai Collins
In 2020 the Okavango Delta Expedition had to be cancelled for the first time in 11 years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions. Our local team led by Koketso Mookodi and Kai Collins did, however, manage to carry out several important field trips, to secure crucial research data for our long-term biodiversity and environmental monitoring programmes. According to the Convention for Biological Diversity signed in 1993: “The Ecosystems Approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way”. This paradigm shift is still happening almost 30 years later, and fundamentally recognises that people, with their cultural diversity and traditional knowledge systems, are an integral component of all ecosystems. It is crucial that local communities are allowed, and indeed encouraged, to conserve and benefit from the ecosystem models that support them. There is no doubt that the future of conservation is local.
Dr Steve Boyes is the Founder and Project Leader of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project and Chairman of the Botswana Wild Bird Trust
For more information visit www.natgeo.org/okavango
DR STEVE BOYES
Conservationist, National Geographic Fellow, and TED Senior Fellow, Dr Steve Boyes has dedicated his life to preserving Africa’s wilderness areas and the species that depend upon them. A native of South Africa, he founded the Cape Parrot Project with support from National Geographic, and is the scientific director of the Wild Bird Trust. In 2015, Steve launched what has become the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project to promote broader protection for the Okavango Delta’s watershed and its wildlife. Steve’s work takes him all over Africa, studying wildlife rehabilitation and biodiversity, fighting the wild-caught bird trade, and planting thousands of trees in forest restoration projects.
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