NATIONAL PARKS
LAND, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT (LEAD) PROJECT
ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK
The Etosha National Park (22 270 km²) is one of the world’s largest national parks and the premier tourist attraction in Namibia. The popularity of this park is based on the abundance of wildlife: most of Namibia’s lion, elephant, rhino and other large animals live within the boundaries of the park.Background: The area south of the great white Pan, where most of the tourist roads are situated, has long been home to the Hai||om, an indigenous hunter-gatherer community.
During the 19th early the 20th century, the Hai||om lived in the region stretching from Ovamboland, through present-day Etosha, to Grootfontein, Tsumeb and Otavi, and south to Outjo and Otjiwarongo. These peoples were enmeshed in trade networks and sociopolitical relations with surrounding groups.
Issues: The park was created in 1907, but initially and for a long time afterward the Hai||om were accepted as residents within the game reserve, while the surrounding area was occupied by white settler-farmers.
In 1954, however, the Hai||om were evicted from their homes in Etosha National Park. As a result they joined the legions of landless generational farm-labourers who sustained an uneconomic and heavily subsidised white owned commercial agricultural sector. Today the Hai||om are among the most disadvantaged of Namibia’s San population.
Read more about the issues surrounding Etosha as it celebrates its Centenary in this newspaper column.
LAC Activities: Through a series of grants, the LAC is continuing to capture a historical archave that embeds a Hai||om cultural, economic and environmental history into the Etosha landscape. Some of the expected results include:
- A series of Etosha maps detailing areas of historical, cultural, social, ecological and environmental significance.
- A heritage archive comprising maps, video interviews, written resources and other relevant data which will be available for researchers and institutions.
- A data-base of plants and their uses in Etosha, including veld-foods and medicinal plants.
- A tourist-guide-book, focussing on the Hai||om who lived in that area of the park which is today easily accessible to tourists, designed in such a way as to “re-embed” or “re-introduce” the culture and history of the area into the natural landscape of Etosha.
- A book(let) for educational purposes on the history of the Etosha area for use in schools and for sale to people with a specific historical interest in the area, comprising archive photographs, maps and oral history material.
- A worldwide website on Etosha.
- Digital resources on Etosha, including CD ROM-based tourist guides.
Read more about the LAC's comments on the new Caprivi Strip National Park.
Learn more about the LAC investigation of how mining is effecting national parks.
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