Luxury safari company, Wilderness, has recently installed six boreholes at five villages around its areas of operation in the north-west of Botswana.
These communities now have access to clean, running water for domestic and agricultural use.
“Our borehole project is progressing very well, and the six new boreholes were successfully drilled and all are producing good water yields,” said Moalosi Lebekwe, Wilderness Botswana Stakeholder Manager.
In addition to the Shokomokwa borehole, which was drilled in October last year, the next step will be for all the boreholes to be connected to pumps securing water rights, before handing over the boreholes to the communities.
Two of the six will be connected to solar pumps and four to hand pumps.
The successful installation of the boreholes is a momentous milestone, given the difficulty to get to this point. All six boreholes average 90m in depth, and getting the drilling rig, trucks and supplies to each borehole site entailed massive costs and distance on difficult roads, both gravel, and poor tar, and through dense vegetation.
The provision of water means more than just access to a critical resource for these community members. Through the work of Wilderness’s partnership with Ecoexist, bringing water closer to people allows them to avoid walking long distances on foot, which should decrease the conflict between people and elephants in these parts.
Wilderness Group Impact Manager, Vincent Shacks, said the extraordinary efforts of all to try and help these communities could not be overestimated. “The provision of water is more than just access to a critical resource for these community members. Knowing there will be potable water for settlements, and an increasing number of beneficiaries from last year, effectively means reduced human-wildlife conflict.”
This project has been implemented in partnership with Ecoexist, Franklin Wells of the World, private donors, Orezone Drilling, the Okavango Sub-District Council, farmers’ committees, and Village Development Committees of the villages where the boreholes have been drilled.
