In Celebration of World Elephant Day, National Geographic Releases Elephant Footage from Documentary 'Into the Okavango'

In celebration of World Elephant Day this Sunday, August 12, National Geographic is releasing stunning footage of wild elephants in their natural habitat as a sneak peek from the upcoming documentary Into the Okavango. Just as World Elephant Day aims to bring awareness to the urgent need to conserve and protect elephants, Into the Okavango immerses audiences in Botswana's majestic Okavango River Delta, a World Heritage Site, documenting the threats it faces from human activity along the rivers that feed it. The film premiered earlier this year at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival and is slated to be released on Friday, December 14, at 9/8c on Nat Geo WILD.

The Okavango River Basin provides a vital source of water to about 1 million people, the world's largest population of African elephants and significant populations of lions, cheetahs and hundreds of species of birds. However, this once unspoiled oasis is now under siege due to increasing pressure from human activity. From National Geographic Documentary Films, Into the Okavango chronicles a team of modern-day explorers on their first epic four-month, 1,500-mile expedition across three countries to save the river system that feeds the Okavango Delta, one of our planet's last wetland wildernesses.

Directed by National Geographic Society filmmaker Neil Gelinas and featuring stunning wildlife photography and aerial views of rarely seen vistas, National Geographic Documentary Films' Into the Okavango is a deeply moving chronicle of modern-day explorers forever transformed by the adventure of a lifetime. It is also an attempt to draw the world's attention not only to the Okavango River Basin, one of the most important areas for biodiversity conservation, but to the little-known and vulnerable wilderness area in the Angolan highlands on which it depends.

NEIL GELINAS (Director) is an executive producer, director, cameraman and editor for the National Geographic Society. He spent more than six years making his first feature documentary, Into the Okavango, and is passionate about using film as a tool for change. Gelinas has also produced films for National Geographic Pristine Seas, a project that has helped protect more than 5 million square kilometers of ocean through science, exploration and media. His work has been screened for presidents of nations and environmental film festivals, and has aired on National Geographic and Nat Geo WILD. "We're going to get this place protected. We're going to achieve what we set out to do because after this journey, after everything we've been through, anything is possible."

Watch the clip of it here: