SNELVUUR

OIL EXPLORATION THREATENS OKAVANGO DELTA

The fate of one of Africa’s most valuable ecosystems may depend on results from wells being drilled deep into the bedrock beneath the Kalahari of northern Namibia and Botswana in the hunt for a petroleum reservoir. If the search by Canadian oil and gas company Recon-Africa is successful, the region could be irrevocably changed.

ReconAfrica holds exploration licences for an area of more than 25 000 km² in northeastern Namibia, and a further 9 900 km² across the border in Botswana. Beneath this land lies the Kavango Basin, a geological megastructure which the company’s experts conservatively estimate to contain 120 billion barrels of oil equivalent. To put the claimed