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Spatial planning to ensure future coexistence between wildlife and people

In north-western Botswana, the Okavango River flows for approximately 100 km, from the Namibian border, along what’s called the “panhandle” before reaching the Okavango Delta. The Okavango Panhandle area is home to around 35 000 people, who share space and resources with approximately 20 000 resident African elephants Loxodonta africana.

As a result, elephants often have to move through communal lands to travel from foraging areas to the river. Within these expanding communal lands, local people live, plant subsistence crops, herd livestock, gather resources, and walk to and from schools. This growing overlap of people and elephants can lead to an ever more frequent competition for natural resources, resulting in negative confrontations and impacts for both parties.

In 2013, the Ecoexist Trust (hereafter ‘Ecoexist’) was founded by a multidisciplinary team to support the lives and livelihoods of people who share space with elephants, while concomitantly taking into consideration the elephants’ needs and habitats. Ecoexist takes a holistic approach to its work: working with communities, government and the private sector to achieve its aims and promote coexistence.

This case study will focus on one of the most crucial aspects of Ecoexist’s holistic approach to support land use planning and guarantee that land for agriculture is not allocated to regions which elephants frequently use, ensuring elephants have free movement to access water and the resources they need from the Okavango Delta whilst minimising the ensuing impacts on subsistence farmers.

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