(Posted 03rd October 2023)
By Jeffrey Barbee/Laurel Neme, National Geographic via African Elephant News / Save the Elephants
The Okavango Delta took center stage at UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee annual meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in September, with the committee expressing its “utmost” concern for the potential risk of oil and gas exploration to this protected wetland.
The Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to the largest group of endangered African savanna elephants on the continent, as well as endangered African wild dogs, cheetah, and threatened birds such as the slaty egret. The ecosystem is part of the broader Okavango watershed that supports hundreds of thousands of people across Angola, Namibia, and Botswana.
Canadian company Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica)’s exploration for oil and gas in the region “may pose significant risks to the interconnected water system and the ecosystem,” the committee said. The company currently has rights to prospect for oil across 13,200 square miles of the watershed and has so far drilled three wells in Namibia. As of June 2023, its drilling operations have been paused in Namibia.
New research supports this concern. An October 2023 study in the journal Physics and Chemistry of the Earth suggests the risk of pollution to the Okavango Delta and its watershed from ReconAfrica’s drilling could be high. Though it could take between three and nearly 24 years for contaminated groundwater from oil lease areas to reach the delta, in a worst-case scenario, it could be as little as four days.
Committee members, which represent 195 countries, also noted the series of 10 articles published by National Geographic about ReconAfrica’s activities, including how it allegedly did not adequately consult with local communities, initially failed to secure all legally required water and land permits, initially drilled inside the Kapinga Kamwalye Conservancy, and bulldozed roads through protected areas without all proper permissions. (Learn how people are working to protect the Okavango.)
Because only the Okavango Delta is protected as part of the wider Okavango ecosystem, the committee suggested enlarging the World Heritage site to include the entire watershed, encouraging Botswana, Angola, and Namibia “to continue their cooperation for the potential transboundary extension of the property.”
There is already growing support.
In the first-ever statement on the proposed expansion, Filipe Silvino de Pina Zau, Angola’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, told National Geographic that Angola encourages the countries “to accelerate their commitments in expanding the Okavango Delta to include the Angolan component of the Cubango Basin and its important source lakes.”
“This process,” he said, “will help ensure the conservation of this ecosystem, encourage the establishment of other environmental conservation areas in this important landscape and promote tourism and ecotourism.”
Thato Raphaka, the permanent secretary in Botswana’s Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, told National Geographic that “Botswana is buoyed by the collective discussions with Namibia and Angola” to extend the World Heritage Site to include the river basin upstream.
That, Raphaka says, “will help secure a bright future for this interconnected ecosystem that unites us all.”
A wonder without borders
The Okavango watershed is an interconnected system. Rain accumulates in the Angolan highlands, eventually flowing down into the main channel of the Okavango River in Namibia before spilling out across the Kalahari sands of northern Botswana.
This water creates the verdant oasis that is the Okavango Delta, a lifeline for people and animals at the height of the area’s long dry season. (Watch the trailer for the film Into the Okavango.)
This inland delta cannot flush dangerous chemicals to the ocean, so toxins “from oil and gas extraction operations may become permanent long-term pollutants,” says study co-author Surina Esterhuyse, a geohydrologist at South Africa’s University of the Free State.
Protecting this watershed is becoming even more important in the face of climate change, as this region has faced persistent and severe drought that will likely worsen in coming years.
The committee also adopted a resolution that the Okavango ecosystem needs more protection, noting that there were donors ready to fund the necessary studies to support the expansion of the site.
A shared resource
For more than 50 years, the UNESCO World Heritage Convention has given individual countries the legal backing to help enforce conservation of more than a thousand natural and cultural resources worldwide.
To formalize the expansion of the Okavango World Heritage Site, the member countries must complete a formal application process, and then the 21-nation committee must vote on that application at the annual meeting, which will occur in 2024. (Also read: “Is World Heritage status enough to save endangered sites?”)
It is now up to the three countries, along with UNESCO and other partners, to hammer out a plan they can all agree upon to extend the site, present it to the committee, and have it legally adopted.
Joseph “Jay” Haikera, a farmer and tour guide from Gumare, Botswana, in the western part of the Okavango Delta, is excited by the prospect of extending protection for this wetland that he and his family depend upon for survival, he told National Geographic in June.
“If we join these three countries together,” he says, it will be “possible to safeguard the wonders and joys of our shared resource.”
