Okavango Delta – Jewel of the Kalahari: "Politics and Pressures in Paradise"
 
The Okavango River flows from the highlands of Angola and into northern Botswana, forming one of the world’s largest inland deltas before its waters disappear into the sands of the Kalahari Desert. Dr Karen Ross (Wilderness Foundation, South Africa; The WILD Foundation) presents an overview of one of the most spectacular wild areas in Africa, based on her 20 years of field-work in the Delta, plus on her current, ongoing policy work to avert the increasing threats to this area. Threats include cattle fences built to comply with lucrative EU beef trade agreements, diamond mining (Botswana is the global leader in diamond exports) as well as the possibility of upstream water diversion.

Central Asia – Policy, Politics and Species Extinction: "The Saiga Antelope and political change in post-Soviet Central Asia and Russia"
 
More than 1 million saiga antelopes used to roam the Central Asian steppes until the early 1990s – today barely 70,000 individuals remain. The story of this unusual ice age species is one of extreme political change within the former Soviet Union, resulting in terrible impacts on wild species. Dr Aline Kuhl (Convention on Migratory Species, Germany; Saiga Conservation Alliance, Central Asia) takes you on a journey of the wide and open steppes and tells the saiga story. She will present a roadmap for action, based on her three years living with the Central Asian people while trying to chart a course for this endangered species amidst the shifting sands of politics, non-sustainable development, and local community needs.