Africa's Okavango River Basin, which covers 125,000 square miles across Angola,Botswana and Namibia, is home to the largest remaining population of African elephantsas well as significant populations of lions, cheetahs, wild dogs and hundreds of speciesof birds. It's also a vital source of water for more than 1 million people and feedsBotswana's majestic Okavango Delta, a World Heritage Site that is now threatened byhuman activity along the rivers that feed it.In 2015 National Geographic Fellow Dr. Steve Boyes assembled a remarkableteam to embark on a four-year project to study this vast and diverse ecosystem todetermine how best to protect the delta and its headwaters for generations to come. Thefirst 1,500-mile river expedition of the project brought together local guides andinternational explorers, storytellers and scientists. The team included 27-year- old marinebiologist Adjany Costa, who grew up in the sprawling Angolan capital of Luanda duringthe country's brutal civil war, as well as an Okavango native, Tumeletso Setlabosha,nicknamed "Water," an expert boatsman who spent his entire life on the delta.Starting in Angola at the source of the Cuito River, one of the three arteriesfeeding the basin, the explorers traveled by traditional canoe (mokoro), but they soonran aground when the stream narrowed to a trickle, forcing them to drag their boatsacross marshland for eight grueling days. As the river again became navigable, theteam's hopes of documenting a thriving ecosystem were further deterred when theyencountered vast tracts of woodland burned by local hunters.Despite these initial disappointments and setbacks, Boyes and his teamcontinued their journey through the highlands of Angola and soon encountered adizzying array of wildlife. By journey's end, the scientists collected data from 50,000locations along the way, chronicling dozens of new scientific discoveries and sheddingfresh light on the delicate interconnections that bind humankind with nature.Directed by National Geographic Society filmmaker Neil Gelinas and featuringstunning wildlife photography and aerial views of rarely seen vistas, National GeographicDocumentary Films' Into the Okavango is a deeply moving chronicle of modern-dayexplorers forever transformed by the adventure of a lifetime. It is also an attempt to drawthe world's attention not only to the Okavango River Basin, one of the most importantareas for biodiversity conservation, but to the little-known and vulnerable wildernessarea in the Angolan highlands on which it depends.