The world’s largest inland delta
Botswana
In Botswana’s vast Okavango Delta, it was especially important to build community support for a comprehensive water management plan. Community meetings were backed by a series of pilot projects, to address priority issues such as clearing weeds from navigation channels to improve transportation and fishing, increasing cultural tourism and managing waste to protect water quality. Community activists successfully pushed to incorporate gender, poverty and HIV/AIDS components as well.
Botswana’s Okavango Delta is one of the largest remaining inland wetland ecosystems in the world, as well as a Ramsar Site (a wetland of international importance). The delta’s rich biological diversity and myriad of land and water habitats are major attractions for international tourists. Along its outer margins are both wildlife management areas and villages, where fishing and agriculture form the major livelihoods.