More than sixty scientists from the four countries involved in the TFO project met in Rundu, Namibia for a three day symposium. After opening words from the Master of Ceremony, Mr Ben Strohbach, Polytechnic of Namibia, and the TFO speaker, Prof. Norbert Jürgens, University of Hamburg, on behalf of the TFO-consortium, results from the respective subprojects were presented and discussed. The talks and work groups during the next two days dealt with interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary topics: The current status of the scenario building process was presented as well as preliminary results from the interviews with stakeholders concerning their involvement in TFO and their expectations towards the project findings. In the work groups, monetary and non-monetary valuation of ecosystem services, trends and drivers of change, trade offs as well as governance aspects were discussed. On the last evening of the symposium, the special TFO Journal "Biodiversity & Ecology" entitled "Environmental Assessments in the Okavango Region" was launched and three participatory films produced by TFO in collaboration with local stakeholders were shown to the interested public.