#Okavango Delta

[pangeen]

“ Towards the Sun “ // Solly Levi

[sitting-on-me-bum]

"I see you.", Okavango Delta, Botswana

Photographer: Tomasz Szpila

Nature TTL Photographer of the Year

[afrotumble]

Okavango sunsets 😎

[qantyliiump]

(via GIPHY)

[nkp1981]

"Elephant In Okavango Delta" photographed by Solly Levi

[janameerman]

[kaelula-sungwis]

Lioness Walking by Heike Rosenbaum Via Flickr: Shinde Concession, Okavango Delta Botswana, Africa Thank you all for visiting and your kind comments, awards and faves - I appreciate them all.

[logi1974]

Das Okavango Delta gehört zu den erstaunlichsten Landschaften im südlichen Afrika. Das Gebiet besitzt eine reiche und einzigartige Biodiversität: etwa 500 Vogelarten, 128 verschiedene Säugetierarten, ca. 150 Reptilien- und Amphibienarten leben innerhalb und um das Okavango-Delta.

The Okavango Delta is one of the most amazing landscapes in southern Africa. The area has a rich and unique biodiversity: around 500 bird species, 128 different mammal species, and around 150 species of reptiles and amphibians live within and around the Okavango Delta.

[bigcatslions]

Photography Andy Biggs

Male Lion, walking in the floodplain of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, Africa

[kristianrangelvallari]

Traffic here is peaceful and well coordinated... executing skill, navigators parade ability and beautiful synchronization...

Okavango Delta, Botswana (Africa)

[rjzimmerman]

This potential oil field can lead to massive drilling and environmental destruction. Think other areas in Africa, parts of South America, places in the US west, fracking in Pennsylvania, the Alberta tar sands, Alaska that have been significantly harmed or devastated by drilling, oil production, processing and transportation. But here, in the Okavango Delta, live wildlife that we all desperately want to protect (except for rich, white westerners who want to hunt them).

And this raises a question that has been bugging the shit out of me for years, and which I have posted here on Tumblr for years. Why is it that these oil companies who rape the Earth and its inhabitants, botanical and non-botanical, are headquartered, or were founded in, or whose primary operations are located in countries that were part of the old British Commonwealth? Think: UK, USA, Australia, Canada. What kind of fucking nation-based DNA was passed on to us by those rich old British lords and dukes and kings and queens who lived in castles and liked blowing bugles and killing fox?

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

The first Andreas Mawano Limbundi and his family knew of oil exploration in their village in northeast Namibia was as they watched a drilling site being set up about 200 meters from their homestead late last year. Their village — 90 minutes along a potholed dirt road from the town of Rundu on the Namibia-Angola border — was peaceful, with the sounds of birdsong and the wind rustling the tree leaves. Since January 2021, however, that quiet has been shattered by 24-hour drilling. The family has no idea if they will have to leave their home and, if so, whether they will be compensated. They’re also angry that they were not consulted, and skeptical that they will benefit from permanent jobs despite having to live with the test well on their doorstep.

The rig belongs to ReconAfrica, an oil and gas company headquartered in Canada, currently drilling three test wells in the sedimentary Kavango Basin of Namibia. The company has a license for an area of 9,800 square miles, plus an adjacent area in neighboring Botswana — 13,250 square miles in total. According to a 2019 investor presentation obtained by National Geographic, the company’s goal is to drill hundreds of wells under a 25-year production license. Geochemist and ReconAfrica shareholder Daniel Jarvie estimated the basin has the potential to produce as much as 120 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which would make it one of the biggest global oil finds in recent years.

But ReconAfrica’s plans are touching off mounting questions and opposition. The regions of Kavango East and Kavango West are home to 200,000 people — including the indigenous San — making a living from farming, fishing, and tourism. A network of rigs, pipelines, and roads would sprawl across an environmentally sensitive, semi-arid region that is home to Africa’s largest remaining population of savanna elephants as well as numerous threatened or endangered wildlife species. In addition, the drilling — which may involve hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — also would encompass or border national parks and wildlife conservancies, and could threaten waterways that local communities rely on and that eventually flow into the renowned Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

[fenrislorsrai]

20211026.191518_041514i by mylesm00re Via Flickr: Southern White-faced Owl

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Marc Stickler has captured impressive images of nature in the African savannah.

Okavango Delta in Botswana

© Marc Stickler

[afrotumble]

Elephants in Okavango Delta, Botswana.

[lottesadventures]

Okavango Delta 🌸

[zoo-packys]

In this picture from the Okavango Delta, we see a mighty packy rising out from the waterhole & looking curiously at the camera person.

Photo found here.