Mounting socio-economic pressures on the Okavango River basin in the riparian countries, Angola, Botswana and Namibia, threaten to change its present character. It is anticipated that in the long term this may result in irretrievable environmental breakdown and consequent loss of domestic and global benefits. Very little is know about the water use in the upper catchment, because the Angolan civil war has prevented any baseline data from being collected.