Ecoexist Trust is a non-profit organisation supporting communities living alongside wildlife by implementing strategies to help mitigate human-elephant conflict in the eastern Okavango Panhandle. Botswana is home to over 130,000 elephants, the largest contiguous free-ranging population on the Earth. This means that interactions between people and elephants are becoming more frequent, and conflict incidents are increasing as more land is converted to arable farming and the elephant range expands.
A humbling and special experience, the Ecoexist team guides guests on a village tour, where you can partake in activities to learn about their elephant-aware economy, an initiative — including crafts, elephant dung paper, products from local beekeepers and a farming cooperative, and agricultural products like millet which is supplied to the Okavango brewery in Maun — to help tip the cost-benefit imbalance of living with elephants. Guests spend quality time with the communities and visit key elephant corridors. It’s an extremely educational and authentic experience, where you get to directly see the impact of donations on the ground.
It being in its beginning stages, the tour can be personalised accordingly, with exciting add-ons underway such as a sleep-out on a viewing platform on one of the main elephant pathways. Please contact our exploration team to learn more about Ecoexist and how we can include this experience in a larger itinerary.