Elephants of Botswana

The arrival of floods in our camp and seeing how much distance the water covers of the dry desert has left me wondering how much the Delta is worth.

It has brought life to a desert, some would say a miracle in itself and can we put a price on that?.

The arrival of so much fresh, water giving water into the Okavango Delta led me to question how much the Okavango Delta is worth. Economists may well have an answer to that, if they took on board the revenue it brings in from tourism, the  jobs that it creates, and calculates how many people it supports and what it would cost the government to support if it was not there.  But is worth really just down to money?

Let’s look at the role of the Okavango Delta.

Its support a lot of species including the elephants, purification of the water biologically as the water seeps through the deep Kalahari sands and the reeds that clean the water at no cost. Here, no man-made machinery is needed to purify the water it is a natural endowment. So the question that I pose to our lovely blog readers is in monetary terms how much is the Okavango Delta?

The role that the Okavango Delta plays is priceless when I look at the abundant species it supports. Botswana as a country benefiting immensely from the Okavango Delta, it has supported people adjacent to it for many years. Elephants have benefited from the vast land of delta and it supports a high biodiversity. Medicinal plants that Delta provides help local communities, palatable fruits of delta, oh the list is endless. How much is this Delta worth?

For me it is priceless, and that is why I have dedicated my life it to. But is it safe? No. Conservation is not a business, it does not give a return in monetary terms but it does give – it gives the knowledge that wilderness, such as the Okavango Delta, which are the lungs of the world are safe….. how much is that worth to you?

Dear All,

It was a busy, hot and sunny weekend at the waterfront in Bristol. I was coming back and forth to the stall as I was on BBC Radio Bristol & Somerset on the Saturday morning and then gave a talk on Elephant Conservation on the Sunday afternoon, thankfully I had two postgradate students from the University kindly dontate their time and helped out. I really could not have done it without them.

The radio interview went well (so my dad said!!!) although their was some misunderstanding and they asked me about elephant converstation not conservation, thankfully I know a little about the latter and managed to wing it!!

The talk on Sunday went well, and I had lots of postive feedback. I wanted to integrate some of the things an elephant researcher gets up to as well as get across the hard hitting facts of elephant conservation and I think I achieved that. A few friends turned up to give me moral support, which was great – I really appreciated their friendly faces in the crowd. By the end of Sunday I was finished – I am still recovering now to be honest.

Hopefully there will be more people joining the Elephant supporters family soon.

Best Kate