Crowning the Jewel of the Kalahari
Mbongeni Mguni | Friday July 4, 2014 07:00
The high-powered delegation has waited four years for this moment – the vote by 21 members of the World Heritage Committee to decide the Okavango Delta’s listing as a World Heritage Site.
All the groundwork, the consultations with 36 Delta villages and councillors, the workshops with various ministries, the tete a tetes with Namibia and Angola, the submission of a dossier and the Committee’s five-day evaluation mission last October, have all led to this moment.
“We were seated from 0900hrs on Friday (June 22) hoping to get the listing heard and the session ended at 1900hrs without any opportunity,” Khama says.
“Phorano (museum, monuments and art gallery director, Gaogakwe) tried to negotiate an earlier slot for us on Saturday and we again sat from 0900hrs until 1900hrs and the listing still did not come up.”
But the Jewel of the Kalahari – as Khama has nicknamed the Okavango Delta – would have its time in the sun.
“The listing came up at 1800hrs on Sunday and what was interesting was that all the potential heritage sites shown before were mainly buildings, and the Delta was perhaps the only natural site,” he recalls.
“When it came up and we fully realised how the Delta captured the wildlife and the pristine environment, we could only feel very proud.
“It is customary that at the end of the announcement of the listing, the countries that supported you will come and congratulate you. For us, the number of people who came to congratulate us was absolutely phenomenal; it was emotional and it was moving and it was fantastic.
“We were the only listing in that 38th session where the chairman of the session came to congratulate.”
The 16,000 square kilometre Delta, which supports 150 species of mammals, over 500 species of birds, 90 species of fish, as well as plants, reptiles, invertebrates and amphibians, is indeed a jewel in the desert.
The listing will give Botswana access to international conservation and management support, including funding, to preserve the Okavango Delta as pristine, while also adding lustre to its marketing for the benefit of concession holders, communities and the national economy.
“A plan is being put in place for the nation to benefit from the listing, which includes issues such as marketing,” Khama says.
“We have to consider other options that will allow Batswana easy and affordable access to be able to visit the Delta. The lodges up there can be quite expensive, but there are areas with bigger facilities, which offer excursions into the Delta and are family oriented.
“I have always been very big on making it available to everyone, but also, it being pristine, there’s need for a deliberate balance especially in light of the listing.
“The Delta is an education on how a person behaves when they get there, because they cannot bring their party from the town! You go there with the mind of it being education on nature and what it has to offer.”
As the large tourism operators in the area and beyond formulate their plans to generate publicity (and revenue) around the new listing, communities have not been left behind in the good news coming from Doha.
Khama says the Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) and the provisions of international support filtering through because of listing, are some of the major avenues for the community to benefit.
“You have 72 CBNRMs in there housing villages or settlements, and all of these have concessions paying a royalty for the community’s benefit,” Khama says.
“What we will be looking at is to educate them and help them understand the benefits of listing and how that has been made possible.
“They are not at the tail where they don’t know what’s happening in the body. “That’s where the management and training provided through the listing comes in and they will learn to look after the Delta.
“We are also there to help and guide as well.”
As much as the listing places a stricter obligation on Botswana to preserve the Delta, the events at Doha, Qatar two weeks ago are an affirmation that Botswana can count on the whole world in its efforts to care for the Jewel of the Kalahari.