Experiencing a Botswana Safari is one of the most beautiful things to do in Africa.

The country offers some of the best Big 5 Safari experiences and the sunsets you will witness here wil seem unreal.

Where is Botswana?

Situated in the heart of the Kalahari Desert, Botswana is a landlocked country in the central part of southern Africa.

More than 80% of the country is defined by the Kalahari Sand deposit, but despite this Botswana boasts the pristine wetlands of the Okavango Delta, the Linyanti swamp and the Chobe River.

Botswana lies at latitudes 17° and 27°S; and longitude 20° and 30°E.

Straddling the Tropic of Capricorn ensures Botswana has a moderate climate of hot wet summers and warm winter days with cold nights.

The country is very flat and ranges in altitude between 750 and 1100 meters above sea level.

Botswana is bordered in the South by South Africa, with many immigration checkpoints linking the two countries.

In the West the country is bordered by Namibia, in the East by Zimbabwe and in the North by the Caprivi Strip of Namibia.

The only geological feature of note that forms a part of a border with a neighbouring country is the Linyanti/Chobe River system in the North on the border with Namibia.

Tourism in Botswana.

The Botswana safari industry today is built on photographic tourism but for many years the country was the haunt of trophy hunters.

The massive growth in photographic tourism has precipitated the end of the hunting industry, with an announcement by the tourism minister that hunting would be stopped in the country as of 2014.

The National Parks and Game Reserves of Botswana provided the most unadulterated wilderness in Africa and safari connoisseurs began to see the attractions of this new safari frontier.

In the 1980’s a smattering of rustic safari camps sprang up but a Botswana safari was still very much a tented camping experience.

This began to change in the 1990’s with photographic safari companies tendering for the hunting concessions and soon more and more lodges sprang up – and they began to resemble the luxury lodges of South Africa.

Today, like elsewhere in Africa, the Botswana safari is a lodge-based affair – with mobile camping safaris becoming the exception rather than the rule.

Over the years trophy hunting in Botswana has been squeezed into smaller and smaller pockets and the announcement by the Botswana Government that hunting is to be stopped altogether in 2014 will open up new concession areas for photographic tourism.

Sound tourism policies will ensure that the industry remains strong into the future. (Source: www.botswana.co.za )

Sustainable Tourism in Botswana.

Nowadays vast tracts of Africa comprising the areas of several European countries are given over to wildlife and nature conservation.

Botswana boasts one of the highest percentages of land area given over to conservation, at 17% of the total.

To be effective these areas must work closely with the local communities.

In other areas park authorities and people living adjacent to protected areas have come into conflict. This often occurred when local people were suddenly denied ancient hunting, fishing or grazing rights, access to ancestral burial sites, or when tourist revenue was accumulated by foreign companies with nothing finding its way back to the local communities.

In Botswana much work has been done to include local people in the benefits that tourism, managed in a sensitive and sustainable way, can bring to an area.

In Ngamiland, that part of the country in which the Okavango Delta falls, land is communally owned by the Batawana tribe, and is leased to concessionaires.

The Batawana first established the independent state of Ngamiland in 1795 after splitting away from the centrally located Bangwato tribe.

The land on which Camp Moremi stands is leased from the Tawana Land Board on a contract that is valid until 2012.

Hence, no tourism operator owns or has complete control over the land on which their operation is based, so ensuring controlled management of the country’s heritage.

Concessions and lodge sites are put out to tender, and a rigorous process of evaluation is conducted by an independent panel of experts who do not know the identity of the tenderers. Recommendations are then made to the relevant Land Boards, quasi-tribal committees of elected officials, which make the final decisions on allocation.

Rentals are offered as part of the tender, and successful tenderers are required to match the highest rental offered.

The system is designed to attract the most competent operators, and to ensure that the local communities, and the nation as a whole, benefit from the dedication of some of the country’s most valuable natural assets to tourism.

Concession rental is paid to the Land Boards; a resource royalty of 4% of total turnover is paid to local government agencies; a 10% sales tax on accommodation receipts, and 25% income tax, is paid to central government; a P1-00 per bed night training levy goes to the Tourism Department, and game reserve entry fees of P70 per person per day also go to central government coffers.

As well as this each company pays high annual fees for each vehicle, aircraft and boat used within the Park.

As of 1st April 2000 Park Fees have more than doubled, thus reinforcing the government’s stance on tourism.

Desert and Delta camps provide more than one thousand local people with employment and training.

At Camp Moremi guides have had many years of experience and training within the local area, so providing the guests with a rich and unique insight into the Delta environment.