Once upon a time on the Makgadikgadi Pans…

Botswana is definitely not known for its mountains. It’s so flat that the Okavango River drops only a few metres on its mega journey to the sand of the Kalahari. The Makgadikgadi Pans in the north-east of the country are just as flat and remote. But underlying this seemingly sedate landscape is one of the continent’s most dramatic geological features. It can all be traced back to the formation of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. As the Somali tectonic plate moved away from the larger Nubian plate, it formed a crack in the earth’s crust. Imagine a dinner plate with one big crack and several smaller cracks branching off the main crack. One of these smaller cracks influenced the geological features of Botswana. Ancient rivers once flowed through the eastern part of Botswana to get to the Indian Ocean. But a secondary Great Rift Valley crack effectively dammed those rivers and formed a vast inland lake. Several millennia later, another crack further north lifted the earth’s crust in the region of the Chobe River, channelling the rivers east (including what we now call the Zambezi) and cutting off the water supply to the lake. The remaining water evaporated, forming the 10 600 km² Makgadikgadi Pans. Today, the pans are one of Africa’s most remarkable birding destinations, with waterbirds like flamingos, pelicans and ducks breeding around the ephemeral pools that form during the rainy season. It’s probably one of the best places to see pallid harrier and Montagu’s harrier. Keep an eye on Veld Facts over the coming months, when we’ll take a closer look at some of the remarkable residents of the Makgadikgadi Pans.