Oris has become nearly as well known these days for its devotion to charitable causes as for the remarkable value-to-price ratio that sets it apart from so many other makers of Swiss mechanical watches. Its latest special-edition timepiece, the Big Crown ProPilot Okavango Air Rescue Edition, continues the growing legend, with a textured green dial inspired by the marsh grasses of Botswana’s Okavango Delta.

Specifically, the watch pays tribute to Okavango Air Rescue (O.A.R.), an aeromedical organization founded in Botswana in 2011 by a Swiss entrepreneur and a German doctor, on the occasion of its 10th anniversary (hence the odd limited edition number of 2,011 pieces). Operating both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, O.A.R. is a privately owned and independently funded air service that brings quality medical care to the locals and tourists of Botswana, particularly in the African nation’s Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site made up of grasslands, marshes, lagoons, and thousands of islands. It is this stunning natural vista that inspires the green of the dial as well as its organic, undulating pattern.
Suitably for a watch celebrating the accomplishments of rescue pilots, the limited edition hails from Oris’s Big Crown ProPilot family and includes all of its familiar hallmarks, including a coin-edge motif on the side of the case echoing the look of jet turbines and the large, fluted, screw-down crown that gives the model its name. ...