Botswana may be the only nation in the world that flies country-wide aerial surveys for large herbivores. It is a remarkable record spanning over 30 years, but has its limits. Areas are vast, methods are imperfect, budgets are tight. Surveys are flown less frequently at a time when land use is intensifying. Wherever data is lacking, ignorance and assumptions likely to be false take their place. Consequential decisions - everything from land use zonation to hunting quota determination to fence erection along transportation corridors - lack adequate supporting data. Remote communities closest to wildlife have long expressed dissatisfaction over their lack of involvement in wildlife counts, and skepticism of aerial survey results.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge has been devalued in modernizing Botswana society while rural development policies instead focus on promotion of livestock husbandry. Cattle expansion and intensification tends to exacerbate inequality and extreme poverty while degrading Kalahari rangelands, eventually eliminating traditional food and medicinal plants around settlements and driving wildlife further away. The oldest, poorest, and most traditional people suffer most. Available wage-earning options are essentially two: herd other peoples’ livestock or labor for the government ‘drought relief’ welfare program. Meaningful employment is in high demand but extremely short supply.

Several lines of evidence now suggest the Kalahari environment is the birthplace of humanity. Tracking, the process of observing and interpreting the footprints and signs left by animals, may have played a significant role in shaping our cognitive abilities throughout human evolutionary history. Much like indigenous languages, advanced track interpretation skills which represent an Intangible Cultural Heritage are in rapid decline. Opportunities to practice, transmit and preserve these skills have become limited when people are restricted to settlements surrounded by livestock-degraded rangelands, and a younger generation sees little modern value to be gained from tracking.