the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

The Okavango Delta is surrounded by Kalahari Desert savannah, and is recognized
as one of the world's largest inland deltas (Ross, 1987). However, not all of the 13
000 square kilometres is a flooded 'swamp'. The Delta fluctuates in size as a result
of a complex relationship involving an annual flood from Angola and local rainfall
events. In the current climate regime, and during the driest time of the yearly cycle,
the perennially flooded part of the Delta will amount to only an estimated 6 000
square kilometers. At the height of the flood as much as 13 000 square kilometers
may be inundated, and there is geomorphologic evidence which suggests that in the
past, the Delta may have been as large as 22 000 square kilometers
(http://www.places.co.za).
The Okavango Delta is the last surviving remnant of the great Lake Makgadikgadi,
whose waters and swamps once covered much of the middle Kalahari. It is also
closely connected with the Kwando-Linyanti-Chobe swamps and river systems to the
northeast. It is thought that in the past the Okavango, Chobe, Kwando and upper
Zambezi waterways flowed as one massive river across the middle Kalahari, to join
the Limpopo River and then flow to the Indian Ocean. The flow of this river was later
impeded by tectonic movements in the earth's crust causing a damming back of the
giant river which resulted in the formation of a series of huge and complex swamps
(Ross, 1987). As the Okavango River left the humid highlands of southern Angola,
and entered the arid, extreme flatness of the Kalahari, it slowed and deposited its
sediment load (http://www.icun.org ...html ; Ross, 1987; Hitchcock, 2000). As a
result, channels became blocked and the water sought other courses, continuing to
drop its sediments wherever it traveled. Over time, around two million tons of sand
and debris were deposited over the Kalahari, creating the characteristic fan shape of
the Delta. The Okavango's waters still cut paths through these deposits, and drop
their sand load, causing the channels to continue changing direction (Ross, 1987).
Two parallel faults now determine the direction in which the Okavango River enters
the Kalahari Basin, in an area in the northern part of the Delta called the Panhandle
(Ross, 1987; Hitchcock, 2000). Here there is still enough of an elevation change that
the water fans out for only fourteen kilometers. This area contains immense 'islands'
of densely packed papyrus and reeds. On either side of the Panhandle, Kalahari
Desert savannah extends for hundreds of kilometres. Further south the narrow
Panhandle gives way to the Delta, which spreads out for over a hundred kilometres
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