�Wild about Botswana�
Correspondent | Friday January 8, 2016 12:22
One of the world’s unique ecosystems, the Okavango Delta, is located in Botswana and was inscribed as the 1000th UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014.
The Delta boasts robust populations of some of the world’s most endangered large mammals such as cheetah, white and black rhinoceros, wild dog and lion, all adapted to living in this wetland system. The Delta’s habitats are species rich with 1061 plants, 89 fish, 64 reptiles, 482 species of birds and 130 species of mammals.
The country offers excellent game viewing and birding both in the Delta and in all of the other forty-five or so protected areas. The Chobe Game Reserve is home to one of the largest herds of free-ranging elephants in the world and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve also offers good game viewing and some of the most remote and unspoiled wilderness in southern Africa.
Botswana also has one of the densest populations of large carnivores (lion, leopards, cheetah, brown and spotted hyena) in Africa. At approximately 3,000, Botswana has about 15% of Africa’s lions.
Last but not least of Botswana’s protected areas, its National Heritage and Cultural Heritage sites are managed by the Botswana National Museum through the Monuments and Relics Act of 2001. Botswana has over 2500 sites, of which more than 100 have been gazetted. The archaeological wealth of Botswana takes the visitor back to the stone ages.
The nine chapters take the reader on a journey of the history, development and current biodiversity status of Botswana’s various protected areas and provides the visitor with a beautiful insight into wildlife and historical tourism in a country bestowed with incredible fauna, flora, natural and cultural wealth and heritage.
Get your own copy of this beautiful hard cover coffee table book now!
About the author
Mike Brook is a Botswana citizen and first arrived in Botswana in 1980 fresh from a Geology degree at Newcastle – Upon – Tyne, UK to work as a bush diamond prospector. Since then he has spent over 30 years in an international career of water resources exploration, assessment, development and management. He has worked as a professional Hydrogeologist in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In 2007, Mike and his family left Dubai for a post with the Debswana Diamond Company and is currently a project manager, specializing in innovative water supply solutions.
This is the fourth book which he has written and published about Botswana; his first book, “Crocodile Pools Botswana – History and Biodiversity”, was published in 2011 and tells the story of a little known area just 20 minutes drive south from the Botswana capital and which is steeped in natural and military history and has a great diversity of fauna and flora.
The second book, launched in 2012, the first book ever to be published on the history of the Botswana Diamond Industry, “Botswana’s Diamonds – Prospecting to Jewellery”, covers all aspects of the diamond industry in Botswana, starting with early prospecting, evaluation, mining, sorting, valuation, polishing, cutting and Botswana Diamond Jewellery. The third book, “The Journey of Botswana’s Diamonds”, released in 2013, is a secondary school publication which describes the Botswana diamond pipeline, commissioned by the Diamond Trading Company Botswana. Mike lives in Notwane, just outside Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, with his Motswana wife, Agnes Dudu and his three children, Jennifer, Jeremy and Justin. Dudu runs Botswana’s first citizen owned quilting company.
*On sale now at Exclusive Books Riverwalk and BotswanaCraft