Wild Bird Trust

12/10/2026

In the villages of eastern Angola, when an elder speaks, the room fills with listening.

For the Nganguela peoples of the Lisima landscape, this oral tradition carries knowledge of the land, medicinal plants, wildlife, culture and community life. A grandmother teaching a granddaughter the medicinal use of a root. A hunter teaching a boy which trees the bees prefer. A traditional leader, like a Soba or a Regedor, resolving a dispute with a proverb the whole village already knows by heart.

Orality is Africa’s oldest classroom. And in Lisima, it has kept a landscape and its people’s way of life intact for millennia. Yet for decades, this rich system of learning existed largely apart from formal education. Decades of civil war left the region without teachers, schools or printed books.

In 2023, Fundação Lisima launched the Knowledge programme to help bridge this gap, bringing traditional knowledge and formal education together without one replacing the other. Guided by Kerllen Costa’s Ñgala Okola philosophy, the programme creates opportunities for people to learn to read and write while keeping the knowledge and identity already held within communities at the heart of learning.

The Knowledge programme is supported through Okavango Eternal, a partnership between the National Geographic Society and De Beers Group.




📷 Paulo Perestrelo Photography

09/10/2026

Nkashi Trails is an initiative that supports local communities to develop and lead their own mokoro tourism experiences.

Becoming a guide in the Okavango Delta takes more than formal training and certification. It also requires a deep connection to, curiosity about, and understanding of the Delta. Our Nkashi Trails trainees are local residents who already carry generations of knowledge about the landscape, wildlife, traditions and ways of life.

The field-based training creates an exchange of knowledge, bringing together trainees from communities including the Hambukushu, Wayeyi and Basarwa. As they develop their professional guiding skills, they also learn from one another by sharing their different cultural and environmental perspectives.

Nkashi Trails is developed and delivered in partnership with the Royal African Foundation, with support from Royal African Safaris.




📷 Prince Sokologang

09/10/2026

Becoming a professional guide takes much more than knowing the landscape. Over the past few months, our Nkashi Trails trainees have been building on the knowledge they already carry by developing the practical and professional skills needed to guide visitors through the Delta.

Training has covered everything from wildlife and bird identification to guiding etiquette, guest communication, bush walks and game drives.

The next step is putting that knowledge to the test. Trainees have been preparing for their Botswana Wildlife Training Institute examinations, an important step towards becoming licensed professional polers and guides.

For those who qualify, the next phase will include further training and internships as they continue developing as professional polers and guides.

Nkashi Trails is developed and delivered in partnership with the Royal African Foundation, with support from Royal African Safaris.




📷 Prince Sokologang

06/10/2026

Angola’s National Biodiversity Plan, PLANABIO 2026–2030 (formerly NBSAP), has been approved, marking an important step forward for conservation in Angola.

The Plan will guide public policies and actions for the conservation and sustainable use of Angola’s biodiversity over the next five years. It aligns with Angola’s commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the objectives of Angola’s National Development Plan 2023–2027.

For the Angolan Highlands, an important part of PLANABIO is its focus on Water Tower conservation, including actions focused on the restoration and protection of the Cubango, Cuito and Cuando river basins. These water-generating landscapes support ecosystems and communities in Angola and across the wider region.

PLANABIO also recognises Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs) as a way to expand conservation beyond Angola’s formally protected areas.




📷 Kostadin Luchansky

29/09/2026

For more than a decade, Dr Steve Boyes and the Wild Bird Trust have worked across the Cubango-Okavango Basin, driven by a vision to understand and protect this connected river system through scientific exploration, research and partnerships.

From its source waters in the Angolan Highlands, the river flows through Angola as the Cubango, through Namibia as the Kavango, and onwards into Botswana’s Okavango Delta. The health of each part of this system is closely connected to what happens elsewhere in the Basin.

Okavango Eternal has supported and helped expand this work since the partnership between National Geographic Society and De Beers Group began five years ago. Last week, they marked its renewal for another five years at an event during New York Climate Week, bringing together leaders from across the Basin, including H.E. President Duma Gideon Boko of Botswana and ministers from Angola, Botswana and Namibia.

Our work across the Basin is implemented through Fundação Lisima in Angola, the Kavango Wilderness Project in Namibia and Nkashi BW in Botswana. Each organisation works within its own national and community context, while contributing to the protection of the Basin as one connected system.

Over the next five years, the Okavango Eternal partnership will continue to support our work across science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge, conservation-linked livelihoods and storytelling. Protecting the Cubango-Okavango Basin depends on collaboration across the countries, landscapes and communities connected by its waters.

📷 IMG 1 Clarissa Villondo/National Geographic, IMG 2 Tucunare Lopez, IMG 3-5 Prince Sokologang, IMG 6 Thalefang Charles, IMG 7 Monthusi Monkhanda, IMG 8 Laone Chombo, IMG 9 Victoria Marques, IMG 10 Vandilson Almeida

18/09/2026

As part of our work to better understand fire across the Lisima landscape, we established a peatland fire observatory, a dedicated site where we can study the effects of fire and monitor the peatland’s recovery over time. Our team carried out a controlled burn and collected peat samples before and after the fire, at different depths and from both burned and unburned areas. Even days later, temperatures in the peat remained 10°C higher than before the burn.

These samples are now helping us investigate how fire affects the peat and the microbial communities within it, including microbes involved in carbon cycling and methane production. The research will create the first microbial dataset for Angolan peatlands, helping us understand post-fire carbon cycling and the longer-term effects of fire on these ecosystems.

Understanding what happens both above and below ground helps us build a clearer picture of how fire affects different parts of the Lisima landscape, and use that knowledge alongside local experience to inform how fire is managed in the future.

This project was co-designed with Professor Sally Archibald of Wits University, who continues to support the research. We’re also grateful to The HALO Trust for their support throughout this work.

11/09/2026

We were proud to host the Angolan premiere of the National Geographic documentary, Ghost Elephants. The screening was attended by various government representatives, including the Minister of Environment, the Governor of Moxico Province, and other important partners.

Much of Ghost Elephants unfolds in the Lisima landscape. The film tells the remarkable story of an elusive population of elephants that has survived deep in the Angolan Highlands. Their story is closely connected to this place and to the knowledge of the people who have lived alongside them.

It was a special moment to share this film in Angola with many of those who work to understand and protect this remarkable landscape.




📷 Vandilson Almeida

08/09/2026

Deep in the Angolan Highlands lives an elusive population of elephants that has remained largely hidden from the outside world.

The ghost elephants of Lisima move mostly at night and are deeply wary of people. While they have remained elusive, local communities have long known of their presence.

Ghost Elephants, a National Geographic documentary directed by Werner Herzog, follows lead Dr Steve Boyes, Lisima's Kerllen Costa, expert trackers and local guides on a quest to find them and uncover how they have survived unseen for so long.

Filmed in the Lisima landscape, the documentary tells the story of these remarkable elephants and the people working to understand and protect them.

Ghost Elephants is available to stream on Disney+ and on Nat Geo Wild, DStv Channel 182. Check your local TV guide for upcoming screenings.

04/09/2026

Into the Okavango is now free to watch on YouTube.

Released in 2018, the National Geographic documentary follows the first major expedition of the Okavango Wilderness Project, led by Wild Bird Trust, on a four-month journey across Angola, Namibia and Botswana.

That expedition became a defining chapter for and in the work that has continued across the Basin in the years since, including through Lisima, Nkashi BW Trust, Kavango Wilderness Project and The Wilderness Project.

Watch the full documentary for free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw9MnoC28ZQ

01/09/2026

New collaborative research by Wild Bird Trust, the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, Fundação Lisima and The Nature Conservancy has revealed that peatlands in the Angolan Highlands are at least four times larger than previously estimated.

Understanding the extent of these vast, carbon-rich peatlands is crucial to safeguarding rivers, communities and wildlife across the wider region.

Read more about the findings below. 👇
https://news.nationalgeographic.org/new-study-peatlands-in-the-angolan-highlands-are-at-least-four-times-larger-than-previously-estimated/

De Beers Group

Led by researchers from the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, this effort to map carbon-rich peatlands is crucial to safeguarding rivers, communities and wildlife across seven African countries