00:02UNESCO World Heritage Listed, Botswana's Okavango Delta is one of the planet's most pristine
00:09wetlands. It's home to more than a quarter of Africa's 400,000 elephants.
00:17Much like Lake Eyre Kaditanda or the Murray-Darling Basin, the Okavango Delta faces increasing
00:24challenges. Rivers all over the world are getting the same sort of pressures, over extraction,
00:31climate change, pollution. It's a tourism drawcard and the lifeblood of Botswana,
00:39Angola and Namibia who manage its resources. Like Australia's Murray-Darling Basin, this
00:45cross-border management creates challenges. So there are real parallels in terms of their
00:50understanding of water management in big river systems.
00:56Students and staff from Australia, Botswana, the UK and the US have been travelling here
01:01for years, surveying animals and birds, collecting data to help assess the health of the Okavango
01:07Delta. Since 2016 they've noted large variations in the size of flooding and the number of animals.
01:15I feel like I have learnt a lot and gained a lot of insight into larger scale management.
01:20It kind of makes me fall in love all over again with the art of wildlife research and conservation.
01:28The hope is that the students are able to take the knowledge they've learnt here and apply
01:33it to various projects back home.
01:35You really grow an appreciation for what you see and the environment and why it's important
01:40to protect it.
01:43Lessons from Africa, inspiring and informing the next generation of conservationists back
01:49home.
01:50We are committed to the knowledge that the, of these individuals who have young people
01:53who are, of these individuals who have seen and the students who are only
01:54And then those individuals like the children who are passing the world through the
01:54work, they will be able to take the observation of their knowledge of their life.
