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Caption: Botswana, a conservation success story #ConservationStory
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Caption: Botswana is a dream destination for any wildlife enthusiast, and that’s putting it mildly
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Caption: Let me paint a picture.
You are sailing along on the magnificent Chobe River with a sundowner when an elephant decides to swim by right beside your boat, his family stay on the shore eating, drinking, socialising. In the distance lions roar and birds dart in an out of the water. This is not an exaggeration, but merely a slow evening.
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Caption: There are between 150,000 and 207,000 elephants in Botswana – most of them in the north. They make up about a third of the entire African population of elephants
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Caption: Botswana is often considered to be the gold standard for wildlife conservation, with almost no poaching and hunting.
So how did they achieve this?
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Caption: A stable government, a strong conservation agenda and minimum corruption certainly helps.
And most importantly, wildlife-based tourism is thriving particularly in Chobe National Park and Okavango Delta – two of Africa’s great wildlife tourism destinations
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Caption: Local support for conservation has been key to Botswana’s success in avoiding the catastrophic levels of poaching experienced in East Africa, Mozambique and Zambia.
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Caption: A mokoro ride through the Okavango Delta with a local wildlife guide who doubles up as a mokoro navigator!
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Caption: However lately some disturbing reports are marring Botswana’s incredible record. Poaching is rearing its ugly head and incursions into areas such as Chobe by poachers from Zambia and Namibia are on the rise.
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Caption: There have also been several cases of mass poisoning in the Chobe region, which wipe out lions, elephants and even vultures indicating that local communities may be involved with these plans.
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Caption: A key reason for this is assumed to be the hunting ban of 2014. Although welcome by most NGOs and wildlife lovers, the local communities with livestock, or who supplement meagre rural incomes through hunting or the sale of hunting concessions, feel aggrieved by such a ban.
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Caption: These aggravations can’t be ignored. The loss of community support and benefits to rural people from sustainable conservation is a downward spiral which could potentially be extremely damaging in the long run. The government needs to provide viable alternatives (to hunting) fast.
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Caption: Alternatives could include a bigger push towards wildlife tourism, but such initiatives take time to germinate.
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Caption: This goes to show that conservation is rarely a simple story. The human wildlife coexistence & conflict is a complex issue no universal solution.
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Caption: Botswana however continues to pioneer in wildlife conservation; currently working to establish and protect wildlife corridors that link Botswana, Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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Caption: This massive protected area will contain corridors linking countries and habitats to enable elephants, buffalo & other wildlife to disperse & repopulate in areas hit hard by poaching.
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Caption: Wildlife knows no boundaries. The need of the hour is to move beyond a few safe pockets for our wildlife.
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Caption: The Botswana model can be modified and replicated in other countries to help them develop a strong and consolidated conservation agenda. And that's where organisations such as @AWF_Official have such a critical role to play.
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Caption: Let's hope that more countries follow Botswana in championing the cause of our magnificent species. The world is watching.
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Caption: To find out more about how @AWF_Official tackles these very real issues of human wildlife conflict check out www.awf.org
More stories of conservation success can be found at www.awf.org/Conservation-Story
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Caption: All photos taken by Poulomee Basu at Chobe National Park and Okavango Delta
www.flickr.com/photos/poulomee
www.instagram.com/poulomee_basu_photography
#ConservationStory #wild #wildlife #wildlifephotography #ecotourism #conservation #nature #africa #photography #nature #botswana
