MINING RIGHTS THREATEN OKAVANGO DELTA

Fourty-one Mineral Licenses Issued in The Delta An astonishing 41 mineral licenses have been granted in the Okavango Delta. Of these, more than 11 encroaching into the heart of the delta and its immediate environs, raising fears that the mining activities might disturb the ecology.
The Delta is a home to diversity of animal and plants species. The rest of the licenses are in what is termed the buffer zone, just before the Delta, something critics say should not have been allowed to happen due to the sensitivity of the environment which is used by the Okavango wildlife. The Okavango Delta is being prepared for listing as a World Heritage site, but with so much mining activities that include exploration of oil, diamond, uranium and base metals, some believe it is only a matter of time before government issues mining licenses just like they did in the CKGR, where diamond mining is taking place.
Within the Delta, mining companies Zhong Gan, Gcwhihaba Resources, Cambow, New Hana have found evidence of diamonds and base metals. In fact the area around the Okavango Delta have 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, base metals are vast. As the Delta reaches Ngami, oil explorations take place, along with base metals, coal bed methane and diamonds explorations. Botswana’s poor management of the Okavango Delta has attracted the interest of the international community after bloggers and a National Geographic filmmaker recently exposed mineral explorations inside the Delta and around it.
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