15 Jun 2022

 Boro 2 Mokoro Station is a gold mine for Okavango Kopano Mokoro Community Trust (OKMCT) bringing in on over P1 million annually for the Trust. 

This was revealed by OKMCT Manager, Mr Seikaneng Moepedi on Tuesday at the floods welcome ceremony in Boro. Mr Moepedi said the Station was the most lucrative of the five stations due to its proximity to Maun. 

Mr Moepedi said water was a very critical not just for tourism purposes, but also for livestock. 

He said Boro River inflow brought back life as locals from Kiri, Xhaxhaba and Boro harvested reeds, Tswii and caught fish. 

Mr Moepedi said with the tourism sector having been resuscitated after COVID-19, he expected Boro 2 Station to attract many tourists and return to injecting income from boat and mokoro trips, as well as mobile and camping safaris. 

He revealed that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the trust’s income dropped miserably as it was only able to make P300 000 in 2020 and P500 000 in 2021, from all the five stations. 

The manager said Boro River presented a lot of potential for them to diversify and look into other activities that could generate income like poling competitions, and games such as volleyball and tug of war in water. 

He said this year, OKMCT would intensify their income generating avenues in the NG32 to enjoy the opportunities that rivers in the concession presented. 

Mr Moepedi said most Batswana were not familiar with the Okavango Delta, hence the Trust wanted to make its concession more accessible to enable them to drive to Boro and experience the Delta. 

He further called on Batswana to visit places like Boro to unearth business available opportunities. 

Kgosi Motswagole Mokgwathi of Boro settlement expressed joy over the inflow, noting that it was a beautiful sight to behold after many months of drought. 

He said due to evolving wild animal migration patterns and change of river flows, they had spotted an increased presence of elephants in Boro over the past years, which was uncommon before 1996. 

Kgosi Mokgwathi revealed that after  2000, Boro started to witness large numbers of elephants as they migrated eastward to Maun. 

He said government’s initiative of Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) to conserve the environment to benefit local communities brought diversity as locals ventured into business and upskilled themselves to become tourist guides. 

He highlighted that nowadays there were a lot of supervised activities in Boro such mokoro rides, fishing and game viewing. 

OKMCT is a trust operating in the settlements of Ditshiping, Boro, Daunara, Morutsha, Xharaxau and Xhaxhaba in the Okavango Delta to promote sustainable utilisation of natural resources in the area, by offering tourism products and services. ENDS