It gives me great pleasure to be back at Mokolodi, at this impressive new facility, to mark the occasion of the official opening of World’s View, as it is known. It is not so long ago that the hill where we are now standing, known as Mmatshedikwe, was a bare rocky outcrop, one of several that you can see around us. I shall tell you presently how World’s View came to be conceived and built.

But it is opportune first to say a few words about the origins of the Mokolodi Wildlife Foundation, and of the Mokolodi Educational Reserve.

In 1990 this was a cattle farm, overgrazed and employing seven persons being a foreman and some badisa. Successive droughts had shown that the rocky and marginal terrain was not well suited for cattle. When Ian and Gwithie Kirby decided at that time to donate their land to a trust for development as an educational wildlife area for children, I was invited to chair the steering committee. Other members included Gobe Matenge, Uttum Corea, Alec Campbell, Neo Moroka, the Chairman of neighbouring Land Boards, and the Director of Wildlife, among others.

The Mokolodi Wildlife Foundation was registered in 1991, with the main objectives of environmental education for children, and nature conservation including the preservation and re-introduction of endangered species. The land was duly registered in the Foundation’s name by a 99-year leasehold, with annual rental of one Pula, and fundraising began. From the start the Foundation has been a charitable non-profit organisation, as it remains today. No trustee may benefit financially from Mokolodi in any way. There are no sitting allowances or travel expenses paid. All income from Mokolodi projects is used exclusively for conservation and education, including running expenses of eth Nature Reserve and Education Centre.

The community responded magnificently at that time to the challenge of the Mokolodi project. Major donations from Debswana, NORAD and the ODA, supported by contributions in cash and in kind from Gaborone businesses and individuals, soon helped make the dream a reality. In early 1994 the Nature Reserve and the Education Centre were opened to the public. Game fencing had been installed and animals, including rhino, giraffe, hippo, eland and many others had been re-introduced. Old fencing had been removed and new waterholes installed, with game viewing roads and chalets for hire. The Education Centre was built with dormitories for 80 children, as well as staff accommodation, workshops, entrance gates and the restaurant, and a full complement of staff had been employed. A total of over 6 million pula had been raised and expended on the project.

It is now almost ten years exactly since the park opened and many of you here today have seen Mokolodi grow and have helped it to succeed. During that ten years there have been many new developments. The Friends of Mokolodi organisation was started by Gwithie Kirby and now has a large membership. The animal sanctuary and hospital for abandoned, orphaned, or injured animals is in operation under the resident Vet, Dr Kyle Good. Over 10,000 children pass through the Education Centre each year, emerging with a new appreciation and love for their natural environment. More recently, our Boitumelo mo Nageng project offers free two week camps for some six hundred disadvantaged children and AIDS orphans each year. The Mokolodi white rhino breeding programme is progressing well, and Mokolodi provided three animals for the first relocation of Botswana rhino back into the National Parks of the North West. Our nature reserve is the headquarters of Cheetah Conservation Botswana which is now working for the preparation of this endangered species in Botswana – encouraging farmers to capture and relocate “problem” cheetahs instead of shooting these.

Many new activities have been introduced – the now well know Mokolodi Bush Braais, elephant walks with the orphan herd raised and nurtured in partnership with the Corea family’s Serendib Elephant Orphanage; giraffe walks. Rhino-tracking, horse riding and game drives. A new outdoor classroom has been built beside the lake, there are campsites with full ablutions at Hidden Valley and a number of well appointed picnic sites. There is a swimming pool for the children, a grey-water reclamation scheme, a crocodile pond, snake pits and a cheetah camp for orphans Duma and Letotse. Recently the park has also taken over management of the Mokolodi Restaurant. I know you all support these facilities, and I thank you because each time you do so, you make a contribution towards our objectives of education and conservation.

Today Mokolodi has come a long way. The project employs over 80 people, mainly from Mokolodi village nearby. It sponsors the Ditshwene Dancers, whom you will see briefly this evening, and has helped found the Majakathata Community Project based in Mmankgodi. I have been happy to stay on as Patron of the Foundation, while Sir Ketumile Masire is the present Chairman. By the hard work of the Mokolodi staff, some of whom are volunteers, and most of whom work for very low remuneration, the project now covers most of its own recurrent expenditure, but it still needs your support to continue subsidizing the children who use the centre, and for its capital costs. Visiting children pay only P30 per day to cover accommodation, three meals and all game drives and educational materials.

And that is why we welcome the enthusiasm shown by you, the Gaborone Community, for your Nature Reserve. A good example of this, which I would like to recognize before moving to the main business of the evening is the innovative Techno Ranger Challenge, a schools competition sponsored by Richard and Kate Harriman and their company Business and Enterprise Solutions Botswana. Through their generosity the winner, Tebogo Moreng of Letlhakane, is spending a year at Mokolodi, training under a senior Game Ranger and keeping a web diary of his experiences. Please come forward Tebogo, and also Kate and Richard to receive my congratulations.

It is also to help Mokolodi on the road to complete self-sustainability and to subsidize children using the centre that this World’s View facility was conceived – with the hope that a top-class bush facility for seminars, conferences and weddings “far from the madding crowd” would attract support from local institutions and companies, who wish to combine good business with a well-directed social responsibility contribution.

World’s View was the brain child of Puso Kirby, then the manager of the Park. With energy and determination, and latterly as a volunteer, he martialled willing donors, contractors and artisans in a task which at times seemed almost impossible to achieve – placing this edifice at the top of a rocky hill and servicing it with electricity, roads and water. Huge contributions were made by so many people, all of whom will be recognized in the Honours Board which I will shortly unveil. But I should perhaps single out N.R.D., Norway’s oldest NGO, which made the main financial donation, TCM Plant Hire and Excavator Hire, who came to the rescue when Puso decided to double the size of the centre midstream so that a large part of the hill had to be removed to create a big enough platform, and of course Wharic Construction, the lead contactors, who soldiered on at truly charitable prices to complete the project, when when everything seemed to go wrong. There were two disasters which could easily have destroyed World’s View. First, an initially inadequate structure caused the whole roof to collapse. This was re-done after a flurry of mid-term fundraising. Second, there was a major fire which threatened to destroy the building in its final stages, and only prompt action from the Mokolodi rangers, working through the night, saved World’s View.

But today, as we meet here, the project is virtually complete and we have a magnificent facility, which will benefit both Gaborone and Mokolodi. I congratulate Wharic and all concerned. I would like at this stage to call Puso forward to receive a small presentation as a mark of the appreciation of the Board of Trustees for his determination, faith and hard work in seeing World’s View through completion. Puso, please step forward.

I would also like to thank Mike Olivier, our new volunteer Park Manager, and Education Director Tebelelo Tsheko, as well as all the other members of the Mokolodi Team fort their efforts.

It now only remains for me to perform the function for which I was invited this evening. In doing so, I would like to encourage each and every one of you to support Mokolodi’s charitable objectives by making full use of this facility for all your seminars, team building exercises, conferences, weddings and parties. It offers the unique added advantage of arrivals by game drive, with insulation against mid-seminar interruptions and departures. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Centre, please use it well.

It gives me great pleasure to now formally declare World’s View open. Please enjoy your evening and thank you for coming.