16 Oct 2017

The deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism from Namibia, Mr Thomas Nambahu has hailed Botswana for its continuous commitment towards promoting conservation.

He hailed the government during a courtesy call to the Batawana Tribal Authority traditional leaders as the member states of the Gaborone Declaration Sustainability in Africa (GDSA) converged in Maun to celebrate their fifth anniversary.

The main objective of the visit was to introduce the member countries of the Gaborone Declaration Sustainability in Africa and to brief the traditional leaders about the history of the declaration and its objectives.

However, Mr Nambahu stated that the country and its communities had worked tremendously in protecting the environment and ensuring that it contributed meaningfully to development.

The deputy minister appreciated efforts by the Ngamiland communities in protecting the natural resources citing the Okavango Delta which he said would benefit the coming generation and the entire world.

He said what the communities did was not only for the benefit of their country but for humanity.

He explained that the delta was described as the Ramsar Site in the world under the Wetlands Convention and that it is the 1000th World Heritage Site hence the need to look after it and ensure it benefited the communitity in a sustainable manner.

Mr Nambahu encouraged the communities to continue guarding the environment against issues of poaching and any illegal practices that might affect them negatively.

He advised the community to join hands with the traditional leadership and other stakeholders whom he said played a key role in ensuring conservation at all cost.

He also appreciated good initiatives by the government aimed at promoting environmental conservation amongst the communities and wished other governments could visit Botswana and copy the best practices as far as conservation was concerned.

The deputy minister said Botswana had shown Africa that indeed conservation was possible. For his part, the Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism, Mr Tshekedi Khama said they found it fit to pay a courtesy call to the kgotla and share GDSA objectives so that they could become part of the initiative.

He explained that GDSA was an idea of President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama upon looking at conservation as an economic development and saw the need to engage other head of states.

He said the intention of the declaration was to balance economic viability of natural resources so that the nations could derive more from the resources.

Mr Khama recalled that they once came up with an initiative to derive water from the Okavango River and Batawana did not accept the idea and commended them for their decision noting that today the river could be dried up.

He said they made a wise decision as today they were experiencing a massive amount of wealth of tourism because of their decision.

He said the country was currently making better profits out of tourism and stated that in an effort to promote tourism and ensure sustainability, they wanted to control the number of lodges in the delta.

He said since they were experiencing effects of climate change and they did not want this  to affect tourism.

Earlier on, Batawana regent Kgosi Kealetile Moremi welcomed the delegation and briefed them about the kgotla structure and its functions.

She also informed them that Batawana believed in environmental conservation and sustainability as they inherited it from their fore fathers who established the Moremi Game Reserve. ENDS