How we’re saving one of Earth’s last wild places

Visible from space,

the Okavango Delta is Africa's largest
remaining intact wetland wilderness.

This shining delta in landlocked Botswana
is the jewel of the Kalahari,

more valuable than diamonds

to the world's largest diamond producer,

and celebrated in 2014 as our planet's
1000th UNESCO world heritage sight.

Now, what you see here are the two
major tribuataries --

the [Quito] and the [Kubangu],

disappearing up north

nto the little known Angolan highlands.

This is the largest undeveloped
river basin on the planet,

spanning an area larger than California.

These vast, undeveloped Angolan
watersheds were frozen in time

by 27 years of civil war.

In fact, Africa's largest tank battle
since World War II

was fought over a bridge crossing
the Okavango's [Quito] River.

There on the right,

disappearing off into the unknown --

into the [Terra Defundamundo] --

the land at the end of the earth

as it was known by the first
Portuguese explorers.

In 2001,

at the age of 22,

I took a job as head of housekeeping
at [Budumtikican]

in the Okavango Delta.

A patchwork mosaic of channels,

floodplains,

lagoons

and thousands upon thousands
of islands to explore.

Home to the largest remaining
population of elephants on the planet.

Rhinos are airlifted and C-150s
to find sanctuary in this wilderness.

Lion,

leopard,

hyena,

wild dog,

cheetah,

ancient bareback trees
that stand like cathedrals

under the Milky Way.

Here I discovered something obvious:

wilderness is our natural habitat, too.

We need these last wild places
to reconnect with who we really are.

We --

all seven billion of us --

must never forget we are
a biological species,

forever bound to this biological world.

Like the waves connected to the ocean,

we cannot exist apart from it.

A constant flow of atoms and energy
between individuals and species

around the world in a day

and out into the cosmos,

our fates are forever connected
to the millions of species

we rely on directly
and indirectly every day.

Four years ago,

it was declared that 50 percent
of all wildlife around the world

had disappeared in just 40 years.

This is a mass drowning
of 15,000 wildebeasts

that I witnessed
in the Maasai Mara two years ago.

This is definitely our fault.

By 2020, global wildlife populations
are projected to have fallen

by a staggering two-thirds.

We are the sixth extinction

because we left no safe space
for millions of species

to sustainably co-exist.

Now, since 2010, I have pulled myself
eight time across the Okavango Delta

to conduct detailed scientific surveys

along a 200-mile,
18-day research [transit].

Now, why am I doing this?

Why am I risking my life each year?

I'm doing this because we need
this information

to benchmark this near-pristine wilderness

before upstream development happens.

These are the [Wayegi River] bushmen --

the people of the Okavango Delta.

They have taught me all I know
about the Mother Okavango,

about presence in the wild.

Our shared pilgimage across
the Okavango Delta each year

in our [Mukurros],

or dugout canoes,

remembers millenia living in the wild.

10,000 years ago,

our entire world was wilderness.

Today, wilderness is all
that remains of that world.

Now gone.

10,000 years ago we were as we are today:

a modern, dreaming intelligence
unlike anything seen before.

Living in the wildness is what
taught us to speak,

to seek technologies like fire and stone,

bow and arrow,

medicine and poison,

to domesticate plants and animals

and rely on each other
and all living things around us.

We are these last wildernesses --

every one of us.

80 percent of our planet's land surface

is now experiencing
measurable human impact:

habitat destruction

and illegal wildlife trade are decimating
global wildlife populations.

We urgently need to create safe space
for these wild animals.

So in late 2014,

we launched an ambitious
project to do just that:

explore and protect.

By mid-May 2015,

we had pioneered access
to active minefiels

to the undocumented source leg
of the Quito River --

this otherworldly place,

an ancient, untouched wildnerness.

By the 21st of May,

we had lauched the Okavango
megatransit.

And in dugout canoes,

1,500 miles,

121 days later,

full of pulling, paddling
and intensive research,

got us across the entire river basin
to Lake [Khao] in the Kalahari Desert,

480 kilometers past the Okavango Delta.

My entire world became the water:

every ripple, eddy, lilypad and current;

any sign of danger,

every sign of life.

Now imagine millions of [...] bees
choking the air around you;

flesh-eating bateria;

the constant threat
of a landmine going off;

or an unseen hippo capsizing in [Makuro.]

These are the scenes just after
a hippo did just that --

thrusting its tusks
through the hull of my boat.

You can see the two holes --

punctures in the base of the hull --

absolutely terrifying

and completely my fault.

(Laughter)

Many, many portages,

tree blockages

and capsizes in rocky rapids.

You're living on rice and beans,

bathing in a bucket of cold water

and peddling [anywhere] from six
to eight hours every single day.

After 121 days of this,

I'd forgotten the PIN numbers
to my bank accounts

and logins for social media.

A complete systems reboot.

You ask me now if I miss it

and I will tell you I am still there.

Now why do we need to save
places we hardly ever go?

Why do we need to save places

where you have to risk
your life to be there?

Now, I'm not a religious
or particularly spiritual person,

but in the wild,

I believe I've experienced
the birthplace of religion.

Standing in front of an elepant
far away from anywhere

is the closest I will ever get to God.

Moses, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus,

the Hindu teachers,

prophets and mystics

all went into the wilderness --

up into the mountains,

into the desert,

to sit quietly and listen
for those secrets

that were to guide
their societies for millennia.

I go into the Okavango on my [mokoro].

You must join me one day.

Over 50 percent of the remaining
wilderness is unprotected.

A huge opportunity --

a chance for us all.

We need to act with great urgency.

Since the 2015 [megatransit],

we have explored all major rivers
of the Okavango River basin,

covering a life-changing 4,000 miles
of detailed research [transits]

in our dugout canoes

and [... ..] mountain bikes.

We now have 57 top scienctists

rediscovering what we call
the Okavango's [Ambezi] water tower.

This vast, post-war wilderness
with undocumented source lakes,

unnamed waterfalls in what is Africa's
largest remaining [... ] woodland,

we've now discovered
24 new species to science

and hundreds of species
not known to be there.

This year we started the process
with the Angolan governement

to establish one of the largest systems
of protected areas in the world

to preserve the Okavango's
[Zambezi] Water Tower

we had been exploring.

Downstream, this represents
water security for millions of people

and more than half of the elephants
remaining on this planet.

There is no doubt this is the biggest
conservation opportunity in Africa

in decades.

Over the next 10 to 15 years,

we need to make
an unprecedented investment

in the preservation
of wilderness around the world.

To me,

preserving wilderness is far more
than simply protecting ecosystems

that clean the water we drink

and create the air we breathe.

Preserving wildnerness protects
our basic human right to be wild,

our basic human right to explore.

Thank you.

(Applause)