The Okavango Delta has been included under the National Geographic Society’s Preserving Legacies climate adaptation program to safeguard its vibrant culture and biodiversity from escalating threats.
The program safeguards the world’s natural and cultural heritage against the impacts of climate change. It focuses on empowering local communities and community leaders to collaborate and develop climate action skills, tools and solutions to protect their sites, creating a future for our past.
The program is led by National Geographic explorer, Victoria Herrmann and it is funded by the National Geographic Society and aims to visualise how climate change may affect natural and cultural heritage sites around the world. Each year, hundreds of cultural places and practices apply to join this cohort-based program, but only 12 are selected.
In a Press Release dated 10th April 2025, National Geographic Society through the Preserving Legacies announced the addition of 12 cultural heritage sites to its climate adaptation program, which empowers communities worldwide to safeguard their heritage from the impacts of climate change, including among them the Okavango Delta.
It states that this year’s expansion marks a significant step forward, as the program scales its reach to address the accelerating threats climate change poses to global heritage.
National Geographic Explorer and Executive Director of Preserving Legacies, Victoria Herrmann has said that the twelve sites in their 2025 cohort show that there are community champions on every continent leading climate adaptation, safeguarding heritage, and redefining resilience to build a more just and thriving future.
He stated that through their global community of action later this year, they will give every local change maker the training, tools, and connections to equitably adapt their community’s heritage places and practices from the impacts of climate change.
“Reading daily headlines on dire climate disasters, it is easy to feel helpless and hopeless, to feel that as just one person you cannot implement climate solutions that protect the places, practices, and landscapes that make up our shared human legacy. But Preserving Legacies proves that you are never alone,” said Herrmann.
National Geographic Society Chief Science and Innovation Officer, Ian Miller noted that it is exciting to see the sheer diversity of sites in the 2025 Preserving Legacies cohort ranging from natural to cultural heritage. He said that the participation of these teams at these sites helps bring the project one step closer to building a global community of practice.
“National Geographic Explorer Victoria Herrmann is leading this ambitious effort to advance and share knowledge in order to protect our cultural heritage and embodies our mission to use the power of science, exploration, education and storytelling to illuminate and protect the wonder of our world,” he said.
