Seen from space,
high above Africa, the Okavango Delta resembles a gigantic starburst
blossom pressed onto the landscape of Northern Botswana, its stem
angling southeastward from the Namibian border, its petals of silvery
water splayed out for a hundred miles across the Kalahari Basin. It is
one of the planet’s great wetlands, a vast splash of life-nurturing
channels and lagoons and seasonal ponds amid a severely dry region of
the continent.
This delta doesn’t open to the sea. Contained entirely within the basin, it comes to a halt along a southeastern perimeter and disappears into the deep Kalahari sands. It can be thought of as the world’s largest oasis, a wet refuge supporting elephants, hippos, crocodiles, and wild dogs; lechwe and sitatungas and other wetland antelopes; warthogs and buffalo, lions and zebras, and birdlife of wondrous diversity and abundance—not to mention a tourism industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually. But from high in space, you won’t see the hippos on their day beds. You won’t see the wild dogs hunkered in shade beneath thorn scrub or the glad expressions on the faces of visitors and local entrepreneurs. Another thing you won’t see is the source of all that water.
Take away that liquid gift, rendered by Angola to Botswana each year, and the Okavango Delta would cease to exist. It would become something else, and that something would not include hippos, sitatungas, or African fish eagles. If Southern Africa were a vast golf course, Okavango with the faucets closed would be one of its sand traps.
Changes now occurring or foreseeable in southeastern Angola—in land use, water diversion, population density, and commerce—make this dark prospect a real possibility. That’s why the Cuito and Cubango Rivers, two remote waterways, have quietly attained high interest in certain circles.
That’s why an international group of scientists, government officials, resource planners, and hardy young explorers, brought together by a fervent South African conservation biologist named Steve Boyes, with support from the National Geographic Society, has embarked on a grand effort of exploration, data gathering, and conservation advocacy called the Okavango Wilderness Project.
These collaborators recognize that the well-being and future of the Okavango Delta is at stake—and that the well-being and future of southeastern Angola, a hard landscape, a poor cousin to glorious Okavango, is at stake too.
Read The Whole Article Here : https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/11/africa-expedition-conservation-okavango-delta-cuito/
This delta doesn’t open to the sea. Contained entirely within the basin, it comes to a halt along a southeastern perimeter and disappears into the deep Kalahari sands. It can be thought of as the world’s largest oasis, a wet refuge supporting elephants, hippos, crocodiles, and wild dogs; lechwe and sitatungas and other wetland antelopes; warthogs and buffalo, lions and zebras, and birdlife of wondrous diversity and abundance—not to mention a tourism industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually. But from high in space, you won’t see the hippos on their day beds. You won’t see the wild dogs hunkered in shade beneath thorn scrub or the glad expressions on the faces of visitors and local entrepreneurs. Another thing you won’t see is the source of all that water.
The water comes almost entirely from Angola, Botswana’s complicated
neighbor, two countries away. It begins in the moist highlands of
Angola’s rainy center and flows toward the country’s southeast, quickly
in one major drainage, the Cubango, and more slowly in another, the
Cuito, where it pools into source lakes; percolates slowly through
grassy floodplains, peat deposits, and underlying sand; and seeps into
tributaries.
The Cuito and Cubango Rivers converge at the southern
Angolan border, forming a bigger river, the Okavango, which flows across
the Caprivi Strip, a narrow band of Namibia, and into Botswana. On
average, 2.5 trillion gallons of water a year flows in.
Take away that liquid gift, rendered by Angola to Botswana each year, and the Okavango Delta would cease to exist. It would become something else, and that something would not include hippos, sitatungas, or African fish eagles. If Southern Africa were a vast golf course, Okavango with the faucets closed would be one of its sand traps.
Changes now occurring or foreseeable in southeastern Angola—in land use, water diversion, population density, and commerce—make this dark prospect a real possibility. That’s why the Cuito and Cubango Rivers, two remote waterways, have quietly attained high interest in certain circles.
That’s why an international group of scientists, government officials, resource planners, and hardy young explorers, brought together by a fervent South African conservation biologist named Steve Boyes, with support from the National Geographic Society, has embarked on a grand effort of exploration, data gathering, and conservation advocacy called the Okavango Wilderness Project.
These collaborators recognize that the well-being and future of the Okavango Delta is at stake—and that the well-being and future of southeastern Angola, a hard landscape, a poor cousin to glorious Okavango, is at stake too.
Read The Whole Article Here : https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/11/africa-expedition-conservation-okavango-delta-cuito/
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