Instagram – April 10th, 2020

Loved this news from the Into the Okavango team that Adjany da Silva Freitas Costa has been appointed as the new minister for Culture,Tourism and the Environment in Angola. The news couldn’t be better for conservation and tourism in Angola and we wish her every success ⭐️ #Repost @intotheokavango with @get_repost
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It is with great admiration that we congratulate Angola’s newly appointed Minister of Culture, Tourism and Environment; Her Excellency Ms. Adjany Costa! We wish you every success and offer you our full support, from all of us at the NGOWP!

Wow, what a journey! Literally thousands of kilometers in dug-out canoes, or “mekoro” as they are known in Botswana, exploring some of the remotest parts of Angola, traversing the “Terra no fim do Mundo”, the “Land at the end of Earth” as the South East of Angola was often called. In 2015, Adjany joined an intrepid team of explorers guided by the Wayeyi people of the Okavango Delta on a 121-day, 2,500km odyssey across the entire Okavango River Basin from the source lake of the Cuito River to Lake Xau in the Kalahari Desert. This incredible journey was shared in the National Geographic feature documentary film, Into the Okavango, in which Adjany was a lead character. After 2015, Adjany visited the Luchaze people of the Lisima lya Mwono Landscape in the Angolan highlands many times to work with them as the custodians of these grand forests in Angola’s Moxico Province. She has lived with these remote communities and understands the challenges they face every day. In mid-2019 Adjany left the project to pursue her D.Phil at Oxford’s WildCRU focused on building a bottom-up Community Based Natural Resource Management Model (CBNRM), tailored to the needs, beliefs, traditions and aspirations of the local Luchaze people, in Eastern Angola.

We feel privileged to have joined Adjany on this journey, to have seen her in action, have experienced her resilience and strength as she took on some of the most difficult field expeditions while still maintaining her unique charisma and enthusiasm, winning over the hearts of not only the remote Angolan communities but also her team members and colleagues.