Saving the Okavango Delta

Forest and Bird, Issue 268, 1 May 1993, Page 7

Saving the Okavango Delta

THE MOST dangerous animal in Africa is not the lion or crocodile, but the unsustainably farmed cow. The development of intensive beef farming in Botswana is threatening one of the world’s great remaining wetlands, the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana, the point at which the third largest river in southern Africa pours into the Kalahari Desert creating a 15,000-square-kilometre

network of channels, reedbeds, hippo pools and flood plains. A miracle of plant and animal life, the delta is home to over 540 bird, 164 mammal, 157 reptile, 80 fish and 3,000 plant species. With Botswana’s cattle population at the limit of the land’s capability to support it, a lobby of ranchers is using a promise of EEC funding to force the government to allow grazing in the water-rich arable lands of the delta. The pressure

on the wildlife and water resource of the delta is immense. However, the delta’s rich web of life is only a mirage as far as successful cattle ranching is concerned. The delta channels are continually shifting, leaving behind infertile soils

and grasses unpalatable to livestock. The limited ability of the delta to sustain bulk grazers would soon be exhausted by the ranchers’ large herds. The tsetse fly has kept cattle out of the delta up till now. But the success of an FAOsponsored pesticide onslaught has already allowed ranchers to encroach into the northern part of the delta. Also, if the delta is to be opened for grazing, veterinary cordon fences will be needed

to prevent contact between the foot-and-mouth-carrying buffalo of the delta and the domestic cattle. Due to seasonal flooding there is a constant movement of native species and it is expected that thousands of large animals would perish as the 25-tonne-breaking-strain fences cut across their migration routes. The Okavango Wildlife Society is recommending the removal of all cattle fences, that the delta become a world heritage site and that Botswana become a signatory to the Ramsar Convention. Source: Okavango Wildlife Society/ Earth First