MINING RIGHTS THREATEN OKAVANGO DELTA

Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday February 17, 2014 17:12

 

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.

The National Geographic filmmaker, Steve Boys, who is about to release his much awaited film, Okavango, has penned a feature article concerned about mineral explorations in the Okavango and around the delta.

Late last year researchers in the Okavango Delta were surprised by a mineral exploring aircraft which flew over the surface of the delta 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 inside the delta.

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.

The Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources did not respond to The Monitor’s questions on mineral explorations in the Okavango Delta.