The founding objective of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, a partnership between the Wild Bird Trust and the National Geographic Society, is to explore and survey the least-known, most inaccessible parts of the Okavango River Basin spanning the countries of Angola, Namibia and Botswana in Southern Africa. The Okavango Delta, located in northern Botswana, is one of the largest freshwater wetlands in Southern Africa, it falls within the larger Okavango River Basin which spans the countries of Angola, Namibia and Botswana and is the main source of water for a million people, and one of Africa’s richest places for biodiversity—home to over half of the remaining elephants on the planet, as well as populations of lions, leopards, wild dogs, buffaloes, giraffes, hippos, and rhinos. The Okavango-Zambezi Water Tower, which begins in Angola, is the primary water source for the Okavango Delta. This region’s vast landscape of lakes, peatlands, miombo woodlands, and rivers provides sanctuary for a high concentration of biodiversity. Protecting this water tower—known by the Luchaze people as Lisima Iya Mwono, or “Source of Life”—is fundamental to the future of the Okavango, Kwando, and Zambezi rivers.

Through exhaustive consultation, workshops and symposiums with relevant stakeholders, experts and institutions, the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project and its partners devised a hydrological monitoring plan that records water discharge, water quality and climate at several strategic locations throughout the Okavango Basin. The Okavango delta would not exist without this steady recharge of water, yet in the face of economic development and climate change, water flows require careful monitoring in order to predict adverse changes in the hydrological functioning of these rivers – and ultimately the continued livelihoods of people and wildlife downstream.