Okavango Delta listed among top ten safari destinations
Isaac Pinielo | Friday June 19, 2015 15:03
The Okavango was placed the third best place, just below Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and MalaMala Game Reserve in South Africa, which took the first and second positions respectively.
Commenting on the rankings, Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) chief executive officer, Thabo Brian Dithebe, said for the Okavango Delta to be listed among the continent’s top ten destinations for a safari holiday is another remarkable milestone for Botswana.
“We should celebrate this achievement as it appreciates the value of this unique unspoiled destination, which hosts wildlife and a number of safari operators,” he said.
Dithebe also said it should be noted that different associations, organisations and companies across the world have previously and still continue to conduct these rankings. He indicated that it is important for BTO to hold onto its mandate and explore all the possible available avenues to execute their strategies in order for the country’s destinations to continue being recognised and appreciated by the world, and stakeholders in the tourism industry.
Dithebe noted that it was not the first time that the Okavango Delta had won an award as a pristine safari destination, adding that achievement positions the Delta in a favourable position as a destination of choice for most people around the world. A UK publication, the Guardian, recently quoted Steve Boyes, the National Geographic explorer and renowned bird expert, as saying: “The Okavango Delta is the largest, most important Ramsar site in the world – one of the last, great wetland wildernesses on the planet.”
By ‘Ramsar’, the explorer was understood to be referring to the international Ramsar treaty for the protection of the world’s wetlands.
Described as a unique pulsing wetland, the Okavango Delta is praised as a ‘wildlife paradise of waterways’. It covers between six and 15 000 square kilometres of Kalahari Desert in northern Botswana, and owes its existence to the Okavango River, which flows from the Angolan highlands, across Namibia’s Caprivi Strip and into the harsh Kalahari Desert.