Communities and Nature Thriving Together
Empower Nature is a movement to help repair the relationships between communities, traditions, and the natural world. We are particularly focused in the northwest of Botswana around the Tsodilo Hills, but we are part of larger networks spanning Africa.
Empower Nature is a registered NGO in Botswana and is affiliated with The African Wild as a community-based initiative focused on restoring cultural traditions and the relationship between local and indigenous communities and their landscapes, and to protect these communities and landscapes from detrimental extractive industries such as oil and gas exploration.
Empower Nature works through two main tenants. Cultural revival (to support communities to live in harmony with nature) and the establishment and support of the Great Tsodilo Biosphere (to give communities pride over place and protect them from extractive industries).
Cultural Revival
Cultural revival in the communities surrounding the Tsodilo Hills is not a project or campaign—it’s a gentle remembering. We begin simply: by sitting together beneath the shade of trees, sharing stories, and letting the wisdom of elders shape the conversation. Through these community-led dialogues, memory stirs—songs are sung again, places are re-named in the old language, and stories once nearly forgotten return to the circle. It is slow, deliberate work. The kind of change that takes time to grow deep roots. Our role is not to instruct, but to accompany—to create the space where communities can speak for themselves, reconnect with ancestral governance, and rebuild their own systems of care for land and life. As the dialogues deepen, so too does the understanding that cultural revival and ecological restoration are one and the same—the Earth heals as her people remember who they are.
How we work
Traditional Practices
Foster the revival of traditional practices that has guided life in this landscape for generations.
GOV Systems
Strengthen traditional governance structures that reflect ancestral law and shared responsibility.
Sacred Sites
Safeguard sacred sites through community-led monitoring, mapping, and restoration of cultural protocols.
Build Networks
Connect emerging custodians from Tsodilo and surrounding communities to share learning, solidarity, and support.
Heal Bonds
Restore ecological and spiritual balance by reaffirming the principle that humans are part of, not apart from, the living Earth.
“For a long time, we had forgotten our identity and our relationship to the land. When we now listen to the land and to one another, we grow stronger and are able to see the path forward.”
– Kabo Kelebetse, Project Facilitator Empower Nature
The Greater Tsodilo Biosphere
Cultural revival in the communities surrounding the Tsodilo Hills is not a project or campaign—it’s a gentle remembering. We begin simply: by sitting together beneath the shade of trees, sharing stories, and letting the wisdom of elders shape the conversation. Through these community-led dialogues, memory stirs—songs are sung again, places are re-named in the old language, and stories once nearly forgotten return to the circle. It is slow, deliberate work. The kind of change that takes time to grow deep roots. Our role is not to instruct, but to accompany—to create the space where communities can speak for themselves, reconnect with ancestral governance, and rebuild their own systems of care for land and life. As the dialogues deepen, so too does the understanding that cultural revival and ecological restoration are one and the same—the Earth heals as her people remember who they are.
Our Goals
Establish the Greater Tsodilo Biosphere
Effectively establish The Greater Tsodilo Biosphere as a protected area ratified by the parliament of Botswana, and as an extension of the KAZA Trans-frontier Conservation Area.
Protect Against Extractive Industries
To stand with local and Indigenous communities to resist mining, oil exploration, and other extractive threats that endanger sacred landscapes, water sources, and cultural identity.
Strengthen Earth-Centred Governance
Support the revival of traditional decision-making systems rooted in ancestral law and ecological responsibility, guided by community leadership and the principles of Earth Jurisprudence.
Link Communities Across Landscapes
Rebuild cultural and ecological connections among Tsodilo, Chukumuchu, Qangwa, Nxaunxau, and neighbouring settlements through shared dialogue, learning exchanges, and joint stewardship.
Wildlife Corridors and Sacred Sites
Safeguard ancient migration routes of elephants, zebras, and other species, while restoring sacred sites, waterholes, and cultural landmarks vital to both nature and community identity.
Our Project Partners
Extractive Industries Around the Okavango
Landscapes around the Delta, and the Okavango Delta river system itself under pressure from extraction. In numerous areas within the Okavango region, companies seeking oil, gas, iron ore and uranium see opportunity. One of the most serious: ReconAfrica, a Canadian oil-and-gas company holding licences over a huge part of the Kavango/Okavango basin. Rory Sheldon has written a scientific paper on how contamination from oil and gas would very likely contaminate the Okavango Detla permanently.
Beyond this, local and indigenous communities and conservation groups warn that exploratory drilling and seismic surveys in this fragile ecosystem could imperil groundwater, wildlife corridors and the sacred flows of the delta. On another front, mining company Gcwihaba Resources (through its parent Tsodilo Resources) is advancing iron-ore and uranium prospecting licences in the buffer zones of the delta—areas that UNESCO and others say should be off-limits or strictly managed.
The danger is more than ecological. Extraction changes the pace, the rhythms and the governance of the land. Traditional custodians and community-led guardianship systems are stretched when industrial access, roadworks and seismic activity move in. At the heart of our work with the Greater Tsodilo Biosphere is a refusal to accept that this land must trade its meaning for its minerals. We choose instead to stand with the people of Tsodilo, Chukumuchu, Qangwa and Nxaunxau as they reclaim the right to say no.
Empower Nature is a registered non-profit affiliated with The African Wild. For more information on our project activities, or if you want to support us, please feel free to send a mail to info@empowernature.earth.
