​An expedition team, organised by the local community trust “Xwiskurusa”, Kalahari Wildlands Trust and CCB, set off on the 12th May to begin our baseline natural and cultural resource review in a section of the Western Kalahari Conservation Corridor. The expedition team’s goal was to catalogue the natural diversity of plants and animals in the most isolated sections of this wildlife corridor and to report back on important natural and cultural landmarks and sites of interest. This vast landscape links the famed Central Kalahari Game Reserve in the center of Botswana with the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the south-west and is home to some of Botswana’s most biodiverse wild areas as well as Botswana’s first people – the Kalahari San Bushmen. 
 
The expedition team consisted of seven community members with nine donkeys, including local trackers and an elder, Mr. Motsamai Pele who has a deep understanding of the land around where they were to explore. The expedition got off to a rocky start, with several of the donkeys going missing the morning they were due to set off, but thankfully after half a day of searching they were found and returned to their starting point near !Xeretebe cattlepost, south-east of East Hanahai. CCB staff provided the survey team with their food supplies and set off to bury a total of 400 litres (105 gallons) of water at strategic points along their route, the same technique as those used for over a century for expeditions across the Kalahari. Thankfully their knowledge of the bush food in the region was also on show, with the team feeding on indigenous plants such as the wild coffee bean (“bohemia”) and the Gemsbok melons to help sustain them in the bush. 
 
The team set off in large anti-clockwise arcs, making several loops around !N/wagoroo and !Kcgai. They reported that surveying was slower and more treacherous than they expected with uneven terrain making it dangerous at times for the trackers and the donkeys. They focused their investigations around several natural waterholes and salt licks in the area and saw a bevy of wildlife tracks including elephant, kudu, warthog, gemsbok, leopard and cheetah. The team summitted a 150-meter (500-foot)-high sand dune which allowed them a beautiful and uninterrupted view of the otherwise flat, expansive Kalahari landscape. They also came upon an isolated historical San camp which was identified by one of the participants who had grown up there. 
 
The trackers noted that there was significant encroachment of livestock into the wildlife areas and that larger wildlife species avoided the areas closer to livestock and people. It is possible that this could be due to a natural avoidance of livestock for reasons relating to disease, but it is more likely that it is a learned avoidance of people brought upon by poaching. During the survey, the team discovered horse tracks and followed them to discover a poachers’ camp that had recently been vacated. Regular surveys that we have planned in this area will help us to continue to monitor poaching in this wildlife corridor and we will provide our findings to local authorities to aid in anti-poaching efforts. 
 
The team were very proud of what they achieved and there was notably high team spirit by the end of the expedition. Their discoveries will help guide developments in cultural and ecotourism in the area and help build sustainable veld-harvesting efforts within the communities. We are greatly appreciative to the expedition team, including Rre Sefhako from Kalahari Wildlands Trust, for navigating the incredibly vast and isolated landscape and avoiding the various dangers (lions, elephants, snakes, aardvark holes etc.) in the name of community based conservation and development! 

​We love it when our work inspires others around us. It is then that we get to experience not only the fruit of our own work, but we get to watch as our impacts grow exponentially through the hearts and minds of others. This is how we felt when the headteachers at Kalkfontein Primary School came to us after being inspired during one of our bush camps. You may remember from our report early in 2020 that, upon their request, we had donated two goats from our demonstration farm, so they could start up their own livestock farm within their school? Our staff have visited the school several times since then and we are happy to report from the latest visit that they are well on their way to building their very own school demonstration. 
 
Livestock is an integral part of Botswana’s culture and economy and yet, with the effects of climate change causing disruptions to the region’s weather patterns, it is becoming increasingly challenging to farm sustainably. Seeing the success and dedication of the Kalkfontein teachers and students to build this demonstration farm, CCB has agreed to partner with them to deliver farming-specific education activities for the school. This will be an amalgamation of the work we have done previously with farmers and school children. Lessons usually reserved for farmers, such as sustainable grazing practices, herd health and effective depredation mitigation to minimize human-wildlife conflict will now be given to the school students on a regular basis in a format suited for primary-aged children. We also hope that their herd will grow to a considerable size, at which point we will be able to provide them with a livestock guarding dog. This will showcase the amazing work that these dogs do at protecting their herds from carnivores, and will further reinforce the life lesson that prevention (in this case, of human-wildlife conflict) is always better than a cure. 
 
After each visit to the school, our staff are so excited about what this new demonstration farm and partnership will bring. Together, we look forward to building students who’s farming knowledge will reverse the trend of habitat degeneration in this beautiful country, in favour of healthy rangelands for its livestock, its wildlife and its people. 

​There has been a bevy of activity recently with our Learn to Play Community Playgroup in Kacgae. In early January, the “mamas” who run the programme travelled to Botswana’s capital city of Gaborone to receive refresher training focused on holistic mindful play. The mamas are due to receive more training soon – a 5-day course in food preparation, so they are equipped with the skills necessary to safely and effectively prepare food for the children at the playgroup each day. This is an exciting development, as it will help provide nutritious food for the kids, which in turn helps their bodies and minds to grow. It will also improve attendance at the playgroup and provides an extra source of income and training for the mamas themselves. 
 
Last month, the children received a donation of knitted ponchos and beanies from the Learn to Play team in Gaborone, which will help keep the children warm during the frigid winter months. They also received a donation of tables and chairs so that they no longer had to sit on the cold concrete floor during their playgroup sessions. Despite being located in the heart of the Kalahari Desert, the temperatures often drop below freezing in the town of Kacgae. The chairs and these winter woolies will help keep their small bodies warm and allow them to come to the playgroup even on those particularly cold and windy days. 
 
After a long and arduous process, we have recently received the compliance certification which licenses our playgroup as an official early-childhood learning facility. This is the first community playgroup under Learn to Play’s nationwide playgroup roll-out that has received such accreditation and we are incredibly proud that the council has honoured us so. All in all, the playgroup continues to be an exciting addition to our activities within the Kacgae community – providing jobs for mothers and learning opportunities for youngsters that they did not have before. We are so thankful to our partners at Learn to Play for working with us to make this playgroup a reality. The smiles on the children’s faces make it all worthwhile. Wouldn’t you agree? 

We often refer to the paradoxical anomaly that our field staff rarely see cheetahs. Despite cheetahs being a threatened species with only an estimated 7,000 left on the planet, our field site in the Ghanzi District is home to one of the densest populations in the world. You would, therefore, expect to see them regularly. However, when not actively tracking them or catching them for research, our staff probably see cheetahs on average twice a year. It’s definitely an occasion to celebrate when we do! In fact, our team were over the moon last month when they found cheetah tracks 400m from the front gate of our farm – and that was just a footprint! 
 
Cheetahs survive in this farming area so effectively for a reason. Whether it’s the thick bush hiding them from prying eyes, their secretive nature adapted after years of persecution or a combination of both – these cats survive because they avoid humans. And we are both proud of this and lament it at the same time (because who doesn’t want to see cheetahs all the time?). 
 
As a result, when it comes to catching cheetahs to place research collars on them, everyone on our team gets a little excited. Because it is one of those rare times that you not only get to see a cheetah, but you get up close enough to feel their fur, see their heartbeat and marvel at their amazing physicality. That is, if you’re lucky enough to catch one. Our research team has been undergoing cheetah trapping on and off for the last year in a bid to fit 7 Vectronics Lite tracking collars on cheetahs near the Namibian border to assess transboundary movements, home range utilization and analyse the connectivity between Namibia and Botswana - the two countries that are home to half of the world’s cheetahs. Despite 48 trapping days we have only successfully caught three cheetahs, one of which died of natural causes only three weeks after he was collared. This may not sound like a lot of trapping effort, but you have to consider that these traps are being set in extremely isolated areas and each trap needs to be monitored in person every day early in the morning so that any cheetah caught is not left in the cage for long. This whole process takes up almost every waking hour of our entire research team during trapping events. Because there is no available veterinarian located in the nearby town of Ghanzi, this further limits the times that we are able to collar cheetahs. 
 
When we do catch and collar a cheetah it is reason to celebrate. And we are happy to report that on 12th April our team caught a beautiful male cheetah at Dqae Qare Game Farm just north of Ghanzi town. He was a big boy – weighing in at 60kg and the estimated 4-year-old cat was reported to be in excellent health. With the help of our veterinarian Erik Verreynne, we fitted a GPS satellite collar which will record his location every two hours for over nine months. We were excited to see that he travelled an impressive 15 kilometers (9 miles) in the 10 hours following his release. From the two collars currently in the field, we have seen that they can move great distances in one day but will settle in areas where there is plentiful wild prey species, such as well-stocked game farms. We are hoping that this male will venture over the Namibian border and give us more insight into how cheetahs are negotiating the international border and the protected and non-protected lands that surround it. 

We are thankful to Erik for his vet expertise and to our supporters for making this research possible.