Botswana

A short program on the Okavango Park
© Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Armand Amar, Hope Production, images Bruno Cusa

Aerial footage of Okavango National Park

The Okavango Delta is the second largest inland delta in the world (18,000 km2) after the Inner Niger Delta (40,000 km2 at its maximum extent in Mali). Located in northern Botswana , the region was once part of Lake Makgadikgadi, which disappeared about 10,000 years ago.
Today The Okavango has no sea mouth. It flows into the Kalahari Desert, irrigating 15,000 km2 of it.
The delta is home to a wide variety of animals that attract thousands of tourists each year, who come to go on safari at the area's camps and lodges.
It is the seasonal habitat of many species, including the African elephant, African buffalo, lechwe, topi, black wildebeest, hippopotamus, Nile crocodile, lion, cheetah, leopard, hyena, wild dog, greater kudu, sable antelope, black and white rhinoceroses, Nile monitor lizard, warthog, chacma dog, and impala. In the Kalahari Desert, lions and lionesses live in loose and scattered groups because their prey is small, rare, and wandering.
On the other hand, at the edge of the delta, the big cats are very close together and hierarchical. At the water's edge, they must unite to hunt large ruminants.
The delta is also home to more than 400 species of birds, including the African fish eagle, the royal crane and the sacred ibis. Waders and birds of prey reign over the people of the water, while the buphages, also called oxpeckers, arrogate the spines of large mammals as their airport.

Botswana is mostly flat, forming a rolling plateau. The Kalahari Desert is located in the southwest of the country. It is a hostile collection of rocky hills, drained salt marshes and thorny bushes.
The Limpopo River Basin is the main relief of the whole of southern Africa, and in particular of Botswana. At 581,730 km2, Botswana is the 45th largest country in the world (just after Ukraine). For comparison, it is about the same size as Madagascar.
Botswana is dominated by the Kalahari Desert, which covers almost 70% of the country's land area. Botswana has a variety of wildlife habitats, including the Okavango Delta, Kalahari Desert, grassland and savannah.

Okavango aerial footage

Helicopter filming with a Cineflex from Papa Sierra equipped with a long focal length lens. With all the Park's authorizations, with a pilot accustomed to these shots and respectful of the distances, the impact on the fauna is minimal. One of the rules is to always position yourself downwind of the groups of animals, the noise of the engine is greatly attenuated. We can see on the images that the animals pay no attention to our presence.