By Maddy Breen

With blinding sand dunes standing as tall as 1,000 feet and wind whipping sand in every direction, trekking across Namibia’s vast Namib Desert is no walk in the park. 

But Sanjayan, the lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy, did just that — spending two weeks tackling the 300-kilometer journey in April and May 2008.

Inspired by a longtime personal goal, Sanjayan’s desert odyssey developed into a larger conservation mission and allowed the Conservancy to play a role in protecting an area teeming with beautiful wildlife including elephants, cheetahs and black rhinoceros.

Creating a 15-Million-Acre Wildlife Corridor

The Nature Conservancy and its partners — Save the Rhino Trust and Round River Conservation Studies — are helping the Government of Namibia in its efforts to create a new national park smack in the middle of the Namib Desert. The protected area will link the Etosha and Skeleton Coast national parks, thus creating a massive 15-million-acre corridor for wildlife. 

Before the park can be established, though, Sanjayan and our partners explored the rolling hills of the Namib and conducted a conservation assessment of the region — and meet some interesting animals along the way! The expedition accomplished several things:

• Helped our partners explore and collect key information about the proposed park’s lands and identified wildlife movement routes.
• Mapped some rarely visited regions, including hidden springs in the heart of the desert that animals will be able to use along the newly protected corridor.
• Determined the potential of more conservation-based tourism opportunities in this water-limited landscape, with the goal of creating more walking or camel treks across the undeveloped region.

Sanjayan and his crew, which included colleagues, friends, and a few fearless camels, are now home from their desert expedition. Linking these two national parks will create one of the largest protected areas in the entire world, and the Conservancy is fortunate to have had an opportunity to contribute to this endeavor.

Maddy Breen is a Nature Conservancy marketing specialist based in Arlington, Virginia.

 
Check out Sanjayan's dispatches from Expedition Namib >>

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © David Banks/TNC (Sanjayan explores the sand dunes of Namibia); Photo © David Banks/TNC (Sanjayan, photographed in Namibia).