Moremi (Okavango Delta)

Declared in 1963, Moremi is unique in the history of African conservation for having been created on the direct initiative of the local Batawana people, led by Chief Elizabeth Moremi, after whom it is named, rather than by decree of an outside colonial administration — a response to the community's own concern at the decline of wildlife through overhunting and the spread of cattle. It protects part of the Okavango Delta, a singular piece of geography: instead of reaching the sea, the Okavango spreads into a fan of channels, lagoons and islands in the middle of the Kalahari, creating one of the largest inland wetlands in the world, one that floods seasonally with no outlet to the ocean. It was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014, the thousandth (1,000th) site on the world list.