Botswana Ecoexist

The Ecoexist team works in the eastern Okavango Panhandle. Shaped like the handle of a frying pan, the Panhandle is where the Okavango River enters Botswana before dispersing across the fan of the Okavango Delta. In this area of just over 8,000 square kilometres, there are around 15,000 people and 15,000 elephants, and they sometimes come into conflict with each other, and there have been deaths on both sides.

At certain times of the year, elephants in the region move southward and east from seasonal waters in the pans near Namibia to the waters of the Okavango Delta. Along the way, they pass through villages and settlements of the Panhandle, using distinct pathways remembered and followed by elephants for generations.

The elephants’ movements coincide with the annual harvest of crops. During this time, for several months each year, people and elephants often cross paths, doing their best to stay out of each other’s way. Yet competition does exist for certain resources, and conflicts are inevitable. Elephants will raid and trample crops, and people will clear land for new farms on or near elephant pathways.

The Ecoexist team aims to reduce conflict and foster coexistence between elephants and people. In areas of heightened competition for access to water, food, and space, they have been finding and facilitating solutions that work for both species as part of a holistic approach.

This approach includes:

Gathering data on elephant populations and movements, and other social, ecological, and economic data to analyze the causes and consequences of human-elephant conflicts.

Using that data to develop strategies for coexistence including land use zoning, and ways to harvest early to avoid crop raiding.

Empowering farmers with practical, affordable, and effective tools to deter crop-raiding and reduce conflicts with elephants.

Creating an elephant economy by facilitating private sector support for elephant-friendly, elephant-themed commerce in the Panhandle.

Through tourism and microenterprise development, they create ways for elephants to signify benefits for people, not just danger and loss.

For example:

They set up the Life with Elephants Tour in the traditional Hambukushu village of Eretsha. During this tour, guests get to experience different aspects of village life, visit the local school and a typical farmer household, sit down and talk with the village elders about what it’s like to live there and live with elephants, and then the village gets to showcase their traditional songs and dances. Some of you have already been on this tour, so thank you for helping to benefit this village through this.

Ecoexist is also supporting the development of various elephant-themed community craft enterprises such as those below:

The Kapatura Creative Arts Group is a small business enterprise with ten shareholders from the Kaputura community. The business aims to produce good quality elephant dung paper and other elephant-aware products, make their craft products on-site. They now have a small shop selling products to visitors.

The Yikote Basket Weavers Cooperative – makes baskets decorated with pictures of elephants. The colours used are taken from tree roots and bark that are pushed over by elephants and boiled to create these natural colours. By buying these products, visitors are encouraging the elephant economy and supporting these communities who live with elephants.

Finally, Ecoexist is supporting the development of beekeeping projects as part of the elephant economy they are creating. Recently they helped support the formation of the Diyoveya BeeKeeping Cooperative, which currently has nine members from four different villages – Beetsha, Eretsha, Gunotsoga and Seronga. The members have undergone beekeeping training, received beekeeping equipment, and each member has at least three hives. The group has decided to register as a cooperative and has chosen the name “Diyoveya”, which is Simbukushu for “an abundance of elephants”. The first honey harvest occurred last month and was sold in Maun for P1920.

Ecoexist is bringing benefits to people for living alongside elephants and making coexistence possible.

If you would like to support their work, you can do so through our Royal African Foundation or by coming on safari and visiting them in Botswana!

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