Botswana: Country Information

Almost every safari experience you have ever dreamed about can come true in Botswana. You can fly, drive, walk with Bushmen, glide past Hippos in a dug-out canoe, horse ride or wade through the delta on the back of an Elephant. You can even swim in it (if you dare!).

Privacy and wilderness are synonymous with a Botswana safari as most lodges only accommodate 8 to 20 guests. If you choose your camp carefully, you may see very few other tourists and plenty of game. Arriving by light aircraft at your lodge adds to the exclusivity and excitement of your Botswana's safari.

Commitment To Conservation

Botswana's growth has been carefully managed and its tourism industry has cultivated a reputation for quality not quantity. Its official 'low impact, high cost' policy ensures conservation of its natural habitat and high standards of accommodation and services.

Botswana has set aside nearly 40% of its total land surface for conservation in national parks, game reserves and management areas known as private reserves or concessions. This is an amazing commitment and is rewarded by visitors from all over the world coming to experience the 'best all-round safari destination in the world'.

Okavango Delta

Botswana's jewel is the Okavango Delta - an oasis of winding channels, open flood plains, lily-pad lagoons, small islands and rich pastures. This all literally floats on a saturated sea of sand with water levels that rise and fall with the seasons. As channels fill up, they carve out new routes which means the landscape is always changing.

Maps therefore have to use safari lodges as permanent landmarks. There is so much game here in the Okavango Delta, that there will always be something to witness like Lion feeding on a kill, a Leopard up a tree and plenty of Elephant, Antelope and birds of prey.

Cruise The Chobe River

In the far north-eastern corner of Botswana the Chobe River cuts a green swathe through the land and provides the best boat-based animal watching in Africa.
There are literally hundreds of Elephant, Hippo and Crocodile and plenty of Lion and other predators, all of which can be seen from the comfort of a cruising riverboat.
Giant Fish Eagle remain perched on a branch as you drift by and one metre long monitor Lizards waddle along the bank. Everywhere you look there is something to see and photograph. This really is the most astonishing animal-filled safari experience.

Makgadikgadi Pans

In complete contrast to Chobe are the dry cracked salt pans of Makgadikgadi, which are transformed into a birder's paradise after the rains.
The real adventurer will love the remoteness and silence of this flat expanse.
Several camps including Jack's Camp and Makgadikgadi Camp are situated here amongst swaying palm trees and guests head off to explore the glistening salt pans on quad bikes.

Kalahari Desert

During a Botswana vacation, try and include a visit to the Kalahari Desert for a fascinating contrast to the watery bush safari of the Okavango and Chobe. The Kalahari should not really be called a desert as it receives more rainfall than a 'real' desert and supports lots of game. The only people who really know how to survive in the Kalahari are the Bushmen(San people). There are very few pure Bushmen around and fewer still living a traditional hunter gatherer life, but lodges like Deception Valley Lodge and Intu Afrika (on the Namibian side of the Kalahari), create opportunities for visitors to interact with Bushmen communities.

Visit Botswana

Botswana is one of Africa's great success stories. The country is about the size of Texas and is landlocked between South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The nearest coast is more than 600km (375 miles) away to the east in Mozambique. At independence from Britain in 1966, it was a sparsely populated impoverished nation with only 8km (5 miles) of tarred road. Now it has over 3,200km (2,000 miles) of good roads and diamonds have made it one of Africa's wealthiest countries. It is also probably the safest and most peaceful of all African countries, and has a thriving modern democracy.

Although the rainy season is generally from October to April, there is great variation in the time of its arrival and departure, in the quantity of rain that falls and in its distribution. The amount of rainfall decreases from the north-east of the country to the south-west, and as it does so its variability increases.

Thus the north-east might expect 600mm of rain with a variability of about 30%, whilst the drier south-west will receive, on average, only 200mm, with a variability of about 80%. Rain tends to fall in short, sometimes violent thundershowers. Although rain may first fall in September, the greatest amounts fall in the months of December, January and February. It is important to note that, at any time of year, it does not normally rain on more than 2 consecutive days.

Safari Regions of Botswana:

• Okavango Delta and Moremi Wildlife Reserve
• Chobe
• Linyanti
• Savuti
• Selinda and Kwando
• Kalahari
• Mashatu and the Tuli Block
• Makgadikgadi Pans

Access :

There are good roads to Botswana from South Africa (via Gabarone), Namibia and Zimbabwe (via Kasane). The capital, Gaborone, and the towns of Maun (the Okavango and Moremi gateway), and Kasane (gateway to the Chobe National Park), are well served by air.

National Parks and Game Reserves in Botswana - The Background

Game Reserves and National Parks were originally set up to preserve areas considered to be of national and international conservation value. Nowadays vast tracts of Africa comprising the areas of several European countries are given over to wildlife and nature conservation. Botswana boasts one of the highest percentages of land area given over to conservation, at 17% of the total.

To be effective these areas must work closely with the local communities. In other areas park authorities and people living adjacent to protected areas have come into conflict. This often occurred when local people were suddenly denied ancient hunting, fishing or grazing rights, access to ancestral burial sites, or when tourist revenue was accumulated by foreign companies with nothing finding its way back to the local communities.

In Botswana much work has been done to include local people in the benefits that tourism, managed in a sensitive and sustainable way, can bring to an area. In Ngamiland, that part of the country in which the Okavango Delta falls, land is communally owned by the Batawana tribe, and is leased to concessionaires. The Batawana first established the independent state of Ngamiland in 1795 after splitting away from the centrally located Bangwato tribe.

The land on which Camp Moremi stands is leased from the Tawana Land Board on a contract that is valid until 2012. Hence, no tourism operator owns or has complete control over the land on which their operation is based, so ensuring controlled management of the country's heritage.

Concessions and lodge sites are put out to tender, and a rigorous process of evaluation is conducted by an independent panel of experts who do not know the identity of the tenderers. Recommendations are then made to the relevant Land Boards, quasi-tribal committees of elected officials, which make the final decisions on allocation.

Rentals are offered as part of the tender, and successful tenderers are required to match the highest rental offered. The system is designed to attract the most competent operators, and to ensure that the local communities, and the nation as a whole, benefit from the dedication of some of the country's most valuable natural assets to tourism.

Concession rental is paid to the Land Boards; a resource royalty of 4% of total turnover is paid to local government agencies; a 10% sales tax on accommodation receipts, and 25% income tax, is paid to central government; a P1-00 per bednight training levy goes to the Tourism Department, and game reserve entry fees of P70 per person per day also go to central government coffers.

As well as this each company pays high annual fees for each vehicle, aircraft and boat used within the Park. As of 1st April 2000 Park Fees have more than doubled, thus reinforcing the government's stance on tourism. Desert and Delta camps provide more than one thousand local people with employment and training. At Camp Moremi guides have had many years of experience and training within the local area, so providing the guests with a rich and unique insight into the Delta environment.

History in Brief:

The semi-nomadic San people were Botswana's earliest inhabitants. Bantu-speaking tribes from the north moved into the area before the first millennium, and European missionaries arrived in the mid-19th century.

In 1885, to counter Boer expansion from South Africa and Ndebele incursions led by Mzilikazi from the north, Bechuanaland came under British protection. By 1895, Rhodes' British South Africa Company hoped to annex Bechuanaland, prompting 3 Batswana chiefs to persuade Queen Victoria to keep their land under British control.

The British administered the Bechauanaland Protectorate until 1966 when it granted the Batswana full independence under the leadership of Sir Seretse Khama. Diamonds were discovered in 1967, which brought rapid growth to Botswana.

Today, the country boasts an enviable record of democracy and human rights, healthy foreign reserves and is considered one of Africa's economic success stories.