National Geographic’s Okavango Wilderness Project Among Tribeca Film Festival's Inaugural Class of Podcast Programs

Today, the Tribeca Film Festival announced it will include podcasts for the first time in its film festival lineup. It is the first major film festival to feature audio programming. Among the twelve curated selections nominated for awards is a podcast featuring the work of National Geographic’s Okavango Wilderness Project (NGOWP) and created by House of Pod and the Wild Bird Trust entitled “Guardians of the River.”

The podcast takes listeners on a journey through the Okavango River Basin that spans Angola, Namibia and Botswana as the NGOWP team works to protect this near pristine environment from increasing threats and the external pressures bearing down on it.

In response to today’s announcement, NGOWP team leader and National Geographic Fellow Dr. Steve Boyes said:

“This has been a great opportunity to continue to tell the story of this one-of-a-kind landscape and the critical need to secure its protection. I hope that it will transport more people into the Okavango along with us as we work to protect this magnificent place before it is too late. If we can make the beauty of this place and the importance it plays in the lives of local communities a little more accessible and real for people who cannot experience it in person, we will be that much closer to realizing its protection.”

“Guardians of the River” is nominated in the category of juried Fiction Podcast Award and Narrative Nonfiction Podcast Award to be granted at the Tribeca Film Festival June 9-20.

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Since 2015, the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project has been surveying and collecting scientific data on the Okavango River system and working with local communities; NGOs; and the governments of Angola, Namibia, and Botswana to secure permanent, sustainable protection for the greater Okavango River Basin.