From a perspective of wildlife, Botswana has always been a haven & a migratory track for vast numbers of animals & birds. In the mid –1800’s through the next century, it gained in reputation as a hunters paradise. Poaching also was rampant across Botswana’s borders from Angola & Zambia particularly. Many species were hunted to the brink of extinction. Hunting continued until Independence when a complete about turn changed the focus to protectionism.

Seretse Khama’s son (Ian) is the unsung hero of conservation & environmental protection. When he took over as head of Botswana’s military, he positioned troops on the borders to secure Botswana from poaching. Game concentrations multiplied practically overnight & many people now owe their careers & jobs to his actions.

Accordingly, Botswana abandoned high volume, high impact, low yield tourism & focused on the high yield low impact traveler. Today, wildlife & tourism employs approximately 50% of all the people who live in northern Botswana & the country has focused on delivering the finest possible authentic wildlife experiences.

This really transpired through one of the most far reaching & sensible land management programs ever conceived. Much of the country’s best wildlife land is outside of its National Parks & Reserves & the land has been resurveyed over the past 10 years, divided into massive private reserves, leased out to safari companies or rural communities. Within these areas, animals roam freely & to get to them, requires driving in 4 x 4 vehicles over rough often impassable terrain, or flying into private safari camps. Well over 30 % of Botswana is set aside for wildlife & eco-system conservation.

Botswana is home to the mysterious Okavango Delta, the only true inland waterway in the world that disappears underground. Fanning out like a huge hand & fingers from the hill country in the northwest to the flat, parched lands of the Kalahari, the Okavango is a lifeblood source to animals, reptiles & birds alike. Fueled by the annual rains that fall in Angola, the Okavango is a contradiction unto itself, in that not one drop of the 27000 million litres of water than reach the Kalahari, ever leaves there. Instead, it is devoured into the Delta & either evaporates or simply disappears underground into the Makgadikgadi Pans.

The Okavango is home to a huge diversity of animals & birds, having all the Big 5, large quantities of antelope species, herd grazers such as zebra, giraffe, wildebeest & primates - the monkeys & baboon troops. It is also one of the world’s best paradises for birds with a multitude of indigenous & migratory species. From small colourful characters such as the various species of bee-eaters, to a huge variety of waterfowl, storks, waders & soaring raptors, - nineteen species of eagles, owls & vultures.

Each year the Okavango awaits the waters which come down river as a result of rains in Angola which four months latter fill the all but dry channels that swell to become lagoons who in turn, become slow moving inland lakes. And as the waters run over the sandy bottomed riverbed, they filter through the papyrus reeds & marsh grasses & the purity of the water gets to a point of being crystal clear.

On the eastern most fringe of the Okavango, Moremi Game Reserve, famous for its beauty & diversity of wildlife (including herds of elephant, buffalo) the predators - lions leopard are plentiful. This area has a host of habitats, offering floodplain, wetland, reed beds, mopane forest & dry savannah woodlands.

In the north of the country, another famous area is the Linyanti - part of the Chobe National Park. Here during the dry season, concentrations of game are so vast that you can see up to 3000 buffalo at one time, with a pride of lion 20 strong, following patiently along behind waiting for the right moment to cull out stragglers, the weak & sick & the unprotected young. This is one of natures’ processes, time has perfected.

Chobe itself is right in the north of the country and famous for an abundance of game in a relatively small area. The magnificence of the place is matched only by the diversity of landscape & wildlife, ranging from the water dwellers – hippo, crocodile & the aquatic birds - to lion, cheetah, leopard, antelope of all kinds, zebra, buffalo & giraffe. Most of all Chobe is famous for its elephant herds who make their way there during the dry season to drink. Herds of 300 elephants are a common sight.

The best way to appreciate Botswana, bearing in mind it is a quality environment & they make no excuses for their focus on pursuing a policy of “fewer is better”, is by heading for a private safari camp or a series of camps in the different areas. You will quickly understand why we have determined that if there truly is an Eden in Africa, it lies in Botswana – a truly last bastion of vast unspoiled wilderness.