THERE can be few places on earth quite as alluring, and as mysterious, as the Okavango Delta. Smack bang in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, it is reliant on rainfall in the distant Angolan highlands for its annual flood, and a huge amount of water – an estimated 11 cubic kilometres (11 000 000 000 000 litres) – flows into the Delta.
And it doesn’t flow out.
Scientists estimate that 60 percent of the water is consumed through absorption and then evaporation – transpiration – by plants, 36 percent through surface evaporation, 2 percent percolates down and into the aquifer system, and 2 percent flows into Lake Ngami. It is a wildlife wonderland, supporting some 200 000 mammals, and 71 known species of fish.
One day when I grow up, I want to paddle the entire length of the Delta in a canoe, camping on the islands, exploring the myriad channels.
I have never spent extensive time in the Delta, and have instead dipped in and out of its fringes, exploring the Panhandle, and once did a thrilling helicopter overflight from Maun to Shakawe en route to join an elephant collaring team in Namibia’s Khaudum Game Reserve.
It was an extraordinary flight with an extraordinary pilot, Botswanan game capture specialist Barney O’Hara, in his bright yellow Hughes 500. We had to clear customs in Shakawe, and Barney put the chopper down in the parking lot, then strolled into the customs office as if this was a perfectly normal practice. The customs officials also didn’t seem fazed, as if this sort of thing happened every day (which, given that this is Botswana where people hop into planes and choppers the same way we do into our cars, is entirely possible).
The beauty of that flight was that Barney knows the Delta backwards, and he took us on a route that showed us all its most beautiful areas, over herds of elephant and buffalo, hundreds of lechwe, and skeins of flamingos and pelicans skimming along below us.
The Delta is an ever-changing scientific laboratory. But there are alarming reports that, as has so often happened in the past, it is again under serious threat from, yes, the usual suspect, miners.
According to a recent report in one of Botswana’s leading newswpapers, The Monitor, “an astonishing 41 mineral licences have been granted in the Okavango Delta. Of these, more than 11 encroach into the heart of the delta and its immediate environs, raising fears that the mining activities might disturb the ecology”.
The Monitor reported that “the Delta is being prepared for listing as a World Heritage site, but with so much mining activity that includes exploration of oil, diamond, uranium and base metals, some believe it is only a matter of time before government issues mining licences just like they did in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where diamond mining is taking place.
“Within the Delta, mining companies Zhong Gan, Gcwhihaba Resources, Cambow and New Hana have found evidence of diamonds and base metals. In fact the area around the Okavango Delta has been found to be rich in metals, all the way from the Panhandle and the Chobe National Park, down to the end of the Delta… (near) Ngami, oil explorations take place, along with base metals, coal bed methane and diamond explorations.”
The article went on to report that “last year researchers in the Delta were surprised by a mineral exploring aircraft which flew over… with its mineral exploration tools visible to the researchers who would later pen a tell-all in a blog that has alerted the international community to mining activities…
“On three occasions, between September 12-15, 2013, the 2013 Okavango Wetland Bird Survey expedition team witnessed a Spectrem2000 fixed wing aircraft flying very low over one of the remotest wilderness areas in southern Africa with magnetometers and sensors deployed. They suspect this was a secretive mission to explore minerals in the Delta without being detected.”
Botswanan president, Ian Khama, is known to be passionate about wildlife and the environment, and is a fierce protector of the country’s natural assets. But he is facing a general election in October, and human/widlife conflict, and pressure to vastly expand mining and gas exploration is mounting on him.
For the sake of one of Africa’s greatest wild places, the Okavango Delta, my fervent hope is that he holds firm and does not cave in to the developers, as so many other African presidents have done.