Promoting long term conservation of the Okavango River Basin

In this article, ORI researchers, Dr. Murray-Hudson and Professor Piotr Wolski, maintain that cultural and ecological boundaries frequently follow watersheds. A classical example, the Okavango basin, which bisect river basins that transgress cultural linkages and divide ecological systems. This river links many ethnic groups of river and wetland-dwelling people. According to the authors, long term conservation of this ecosystem calls for the management of these resources within cultural and ecological frameworks and not within the artificial administrative boundaries imposed by political contracts and conveniences of the past. Organisations like OKACOM have been set up to come up with objectives to allow the development of basin-wide strategies for development and then assimilate these within the national and local planning. The full article is available in the 2010 Botswana National Commission for Unesco publication in the ORI Library.