19 May 2024

Okavango Human Wildlife Foundation (OHWF) has been urged to enhance its efforts in raising awareness about conservation and natural resource management. 

This appeal came from Professor Joseph Mbaiwa, an expert in tourism studies from the Okavango Research Institute (ORI). 

While acknowledging OHWF’s support for victims of human-wildlife conflicts, Professor Mbaiwa emphasised the need for increased awareness initiatives.

He highlighted the prevalence of misinformation, particularly regarding claims that Botswana engages in the killing of elephants.

Professor Mbaiwa underlined OHWF’s role in dispelling such falsehoods and educating the public on the actual situation.

He noted that many individuals opposed hunting based on misconceptions, unaware of the elephant population size or the agricultural damage caused by these animals to subsistence farmers.

During the inauguration of a newly donated office by Camp Logic Company, Professor Mbaiwa stressed the significance of subsistence farming for local communities and the ongoing challenge of elephants encroaching on farmlands. 

Professor Mbaiwa also praised Botswana’s conservation policies and urged OHWF to collaborate with other conservation organizations to promote factual information. He suggested utilising a portion of the foundation’s funds to engage a public relations firm for advocating conservation efforts at both local and international levels.

Furthermore, he highlighted the ecological importance of the Okavango Delta as a valuable resource that demanded collective conservation efforts for sustainability. 

The foundation established December 2020 in Ngamiland District is expected to reduce the negative impact of human wildlife conflict, by ensuring that the conflict does not threaten the existence of wildlife and humans, through proactive measures.

It also aims to support and work closely with government, to alleviate human wildlife conflict in Botswana by creating awareness on human wildlife conflict among community members and other stakeholders, encourage active community participation on wildlife conservation, implement compensation programme on injuries caused by wild animals to reduce retaliatory killings of animals by the locals. 

Its founder, Mr Kenosi Kamina thanked Prof. Mbaiwa and district leaders for the support saying since the launch, they had been making it easy to drive their mandate.

He also thanked companies and individuals who contributed to their growth and success of the activities aimed to raise funds to assist the victims of human -wildlife conflict. 

Currently the foundation is organising the first edition of the marathon that would be held at the newly Okavango River Bridge in Mohembo on May 25 whose main objective is to raise funds to help support people with permanent injuries due to human wildlife conflict. ends