This is the story of the guardians of the Okavango water system. These guardians have a monumental task: safeguard a remote, near pristine environment facing threats from all sides. This podcast follows what happens when worlds connect, and at times collide, with the common goal of protecting a place

Introducing Guardians of the River

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Join the adventure as the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness scientists and tribe members embark on an epic four-month expedition to follow a trickle of water 1,500-kilometers across Southern Africa. As their journey unfolds, they realize their real quest will take trust, a team, and an alliance with a legendary snake-like demon named Mukisi

Episode 1: Power to Protect

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A population of elephants in Angola lives in hiding, and only a few villages know their secret. But one big hint to their whereabouts stands tall in the main rotunda of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. If the NGOWP team can find them, these elephants might be the key to smoothening some of the human wildlife conflict in Southern Africa. 

Episode 2: Ghost Elephants of Lisima

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Due to civil conflicts, landmines, bad roads, and a decommissioned runway, a town is cut-off from the rest of Angola. As powers rise and fall, the town has guarded the rivers and lakes that run near it. Faced with the chance to reconnect their town to the rest of Angola, and even the world, what will they decide to do? And who will they trust as their partner?

Episode 3: One Thousand Voices of Tempue

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In some Angolan traditions, magic is not just something people sit around campfires and talk about late at night, it lives in customs and day-to-day life. Owls are believed to see death and snakes are agents of the devil. So what happens when a team of scientists and local Angolan guides embark on the largest wildlife survey in Angola’s recent history? And how will documenting local animal populations help protect the region? 

Episode 4: The Smallest Dragonfly

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The Okavango Delta is what happens when people pay attention to the environmental wealth of a place. It’s the world’s 1,000th UNESCO World Heritage site for the animals and its immeasurable feeling of wilderness, making it a major tourism destination. But not all residents have been included in its success. What starts with a hippo hunt continues with a journey through Botswana’s past to understand what makes a place a rightful home for a group of people, and who should benefit when that land reaps a profit?

Episode 5: The Edge of Home

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Koketso Mookodi, also known as Koki, is a Motswana who didn’t learn about the Okavango Delta until she found herself living there in her 20’s and being stalked by a female lion and working in a luxury tourism lodge. As her journey through the region unfolds, Koki realizes what kind of change is possible for the people of Botswana; and what Kerllen and the team can learn from the work in Angola.

Episode 6: Koki's Plan

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In Eastern Angola, a group of lakes might occupy some of the least visited corners of the planet. They feel like a world without industrial development, proof that humans can’t be so bad if there are still places like this. It’s so good, that maybe, the best thing to do to protect it is to stay out? For hundreds of years, the demon-like dragon Mukisi and its legends have guarded the lakes with great success. In this episode, we explore what outside attempts to protect this landscape will actually do.

Episode 7: The Land at the End of the World

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In the final episode of this season, we ask the biggest question of all; the one that persists beneath many of the world’s most pressing headlines and haunts us in the face of a global climate crisis. 

How do we protect our home? And Is this question in and of itself — impossible? Utopian? Patronizing? Neo-colonial? An answer emerging from a place seemingly frozen in time could be the key to our future.

Episode 8: The Runway

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This is the story of the guardians of the Okavango water system.
      These guardians have a monumental task: safeguard a remote, near
      pristine environment facing threats from all sides. This podcast
                follows what happens when worlds connect, and at times collide,
                with the common goal of protecting a place.

Guardians of the River Podcast