As the world seeks to achieve greater peace and stability, social justice and democracy, perhaps we ought not to focus only on what is convenient, less costly and the norm, but also on what is just. This requires new thinking, innovation and the willingness to change and transform our society. According to (M. Chase, Elephants Without Borders, 2010), Around 14,000 elephants populate the Okavango Panhandle.

The overall wildlife management goal is to ?conserve and optimize wildlife populations while ensuring the maintenance of habitats and biodiversity, promoting the contribution of wildlife to national development and to the communities within their range at the same time as minimizing their negative impacts on rural livelihoods.?

Tourism is a potential source of income but until now, benefits for local people remain small as they are not integrated properly in the tourism business.

? The government protects wildlife, and the expansion of wildlife threatens traditional livelihoods (30% of the harvests is destroyed by elephant raids; livestock losses occur and meat cannot be exported since 7 years due to risks of Foot and Mouth disease.

? The poor are the most vulnerable to the negative consequences of human wildlife conflicts as agricultural production is the major part of their income.
It?s out of the above situation that birthed the below mitigation strategy to curb reliance on only wildlife tourism but to explore other tourism opportunities to be unearthed in the era of Covid-19. The proposed project is that of a Herbarium lab that will be housed within the Okavango Community Trust (OCT) Cultural village in Eretsha Village to provide agro tourism, preserve indigenous herbs found in the eastern panhandle villages, and provide education on the different species of herbs , their nature and uses.

The lab will be within the cultural village, therefore will provide opportunities to learn the different indigenous medicines made from these herbs by local herbalist demonstrating the processes to the latter. In response to uncertainties shown by the present COVID 19 pandemic, the lab will feature its own website which will be a home to herbs within the lab but unlimited to include other species which may not necessary be hosted in the lab. Along with the picture of the herb, more rich content will be provided to bring a full education upon visiting the website. In addition, virtual classes will be provided which will allow users to interact with the lab/plant keeper on understanding anything that pertain to our herbs. The lab keeper employed will be someone who has a degree in courses that relates to herbs, like Environmental Conservation, Ecologist etc and will have an environmental management background, which OCT currently has a qualified Environmental officer with more than 10 years of working Experience. Expertise will be sort for this role as we want proficient information given to our visitors as well as researches done in order to find out how the community can be further educated on how they can better preserve these herbs for future generations. The researches will be able to provide rich content for those who may want to take the business aspect of herbs in the area of pharmaceuticals.