2.4 The 1960s until 1989: Odendaal and the alleged “optimisation” of spatial separation

Starting in the early 1960s, another initiative began which was to “perfect” the spatial-functional organisation of the colony. Beinart notes that:

[b]oth colonial and African practices saw land as to some extent divisible by its function. But colonial ideas, drawn from an industrialised and capitalist Europe, laid far more stress on rigid spatial division between lands set aside for different purposes.178

The Odendaal Plan epitomised this rigid spatial division between lands assigned to different purposes. As South African anthropologist Lesley Green writes,

Apartheid South Africa, which took modernist divisions to the extreme, relied on the twin project of creating the nature reserve and the native reserve, with the former justified as the protection of nature, and the latter as the protection of culture […]179

In this section we document the new recommendations for expanded “homelands” in Etosha-Kunene and their perceived implications for conservation.

2.4.1 The Odendaal Plan and uncertainty in the 1960s

In 1962, a Commission of Enquiry into South-West Africa Affairs was appointed and Frans Hendrik “Fox” Odendaal, Administrator of Transvaal, became its chairman, leading to its colloquial name, the Odendaal Commission. The official purpose was:

[t]o enquire thoroughly into further promoting the material and moral welfare and the social progress of the inhabitants of South West Africa, and more particularly its non-White inhabitants, […] the attention of the Commission is particularly directed to the task of ascertaining—while fully taking into consideration the background, traditions and habits of the Native inhabitants—how further provision should be made for their social and economic advancement, effective health services, suitable education and training, sufficient opportunities for employment, proper agricultural, industrial and mining development in respect of their territories, and for the best form of participation by the Natives in the administration and management of their own interests.180

The commission sought to implement apartheid in Namibia based on justifiable “scientific” grounds using Volkekunde, understood as the Afrikaner version of cultural anthropology. As Gordon points out, ‘Afrikaner anthropology has played a significant role in the legitimation and reproduction of the apartheid social order on two levels: as an instrument of control and as a means of rationalizing it’.181 The appointment of this commission was also due to increasing international criticism of South Africa’s politics and its mandate to rule SWA. In 1960, Ethiopia and Liberia had instituted proceedings against South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case regarding the continued existence of the League of Nations Mandate and its duties and performance as mandatory power,182 charges that were dismissed in 1966 on technical grounds.¹⁸³ As Heydinger notes, ‘South Africa sought to invoke its right to rule South West Africa while showcasing the benefits of separate development and state planning’.184

The Odendaal Commission handed in their report at the end of 1963 to the Prime Minister of South Africa, Hendrik Verwoerd, commonly regarded as the architect of apartheid.185 The report claimed:

[t]he population of South West Africa is characterized by its ethnic diversity. In the course of many decades of the country’s history, various ethnic groups have settled as separate peoples in certain areas of the present Territory. In spite of internal strife and wars, which were particularly fierce in the southern part of the country during the previous century, the respective groups all retained their individual identity and are still distinguishable as such in the present population. The distinct population groups are the Bushmen, Damara, Nama, Whites, Basters and Coloureds, as well as the various Bantu people which can be divided into five different groups, namely the Herero, Kaokovelders, Ovambo, Okavango and the East Caprivians. There is also a smaller group (consisting mainly of Bantu) which amongst others includes the Tswana. These separate population groups are distinguished from one another by their different languages, cultures and physical appearance, and to a large extent also according to the areas in which they have settled and now live.186

The Odendaal Commission helped to constitute social categories.187 Evidently, these categories were somewhat arbitrary, lumping together language, culture, physical appearance, and area, at times quite selectively using one or another criterion, according to convenience in each case. English, Afrikaans and German groups were lumped together as Whites; Nama were transferred from the Department of Bantu Affairs to the Department of Coloured Affairs; ‘the Bushmen’ remained within the ambit of Bantu Affairs, although it was mentioned that they belonged to “Khoisan” peoples.188 It was admitted that ‘the Bushmen’ consisted primarily of three groups—the ‘!Khung’, ‘Heikum’ and ‘Barakwengo’—and that their languages differed from one another.189 The awkward category ‘Kaokovelders’ clearly makes reference to the cultural diversity of a geographic area, the inhabitants of which were described as ‘closely related to the Herero as far as origin, language and culture are concerned’.190

One justification for “separate development” referred to alleged hostilities between these “groups” and their own alleged ideas about “development”:

[t]he Commission gained the impression, supported by evidence, that various population groups harbour strong feelings against other groups and would prefer to have their own homelands and communities in which they will have and retain residential rights, political say and their own language, to the exclusion of all other groups.191 […] The Commission is therefore of the opinion that one central authority, with all groups represented therein, must be ruled out and that as far as practicable a homeland must be created for each population group, in which it alone would have residential, political and language rights to the exclusion of other population groups, so that each group would be able to develop towards self-determination without any group dominating or being dominated by another.192

Accordingly, the recommendations in the report centred around the recommendation to divide and organise the country in eleven separate homelands with the white homeland having a special status (see Figure 2.5 for north-west Namibia):

[f]or all the foregoing reasons the Commission’s conclusion is that the upliftment and development of the non-White groups and their contemplated homelands is a task of direct handling in all its facets by the Central Government of the Republic of South Africa, and that, largely in view of the implications involved, only the proposed White area in South West Africa should be administered by an Administrator, Executive Committee and Legislative Assembly.193

Fig. 2.5 ‘Proposed Homelands’ for north-west Namibia. Source: Odendaal Report (1964: Figure 27, out of copyright), CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

These suggestions entailed a substantial transformation of the administration of SWA. It also entailed massive changes to the organisation of socio-ecological space and a reshuffling and uprooting of local communities. With regard to Etosha, it foresaw a reduction in size of over 70% from its predecessor, Game Reserve No. 2.194 It should be noted here, however, that Kaokoveld and the land that became part of the south-west extension of Game Reserve No. 2 in 1958 (later included as the western Torra Bay extension of Etosha Game Park in 1962), was mainly a ‘game reserve on paper’,195 inhabited at the time and historically by a diversity of people (as documented in Chapters 6, 7, 12, 13 and 14). The envisaged separation of people from people on the basis of actual and constructed ethnicity was reportedly grounded in the need for improved population control in light of increasing local resistance towards South African rule.196 It also perpetuated and “perfected” the functional division of space in the territory, mostly focusing on human inhabitants, although including paragraphs on ‘natural resources’, Game Reserves and Nature Reserves, ‘Etosha Game Reserve’, ‘wildlife conservation’, and several pages on ‘veld foods’ comprising plants, insects and ‘game’.197

The ambiguous status of Kaokoveld, being simultaneously part of Game Reserve No. 2 and the Kaokoland Native Reserve, was to be solved once and for all:

[a]s practically the whole of the Kaokoveld is at present a proclaimed game reserve, and since the Commission has in its recommendations in regard to Homelands recommended that the Kaokoveld, as expanded, should become the permanent Homeland of the Kaokovelders, and since the Commission is of the opinion that a Homeland as a whole should not be a proclaimed game reserve but that only a small part of it should continue to exist as such, it recommends:

(i) That the existing Kaokoveld Reserve be deproclaimed, except for an uninhabitable desert strip, 20 miles wide, known as the Skeleton Coast, and running parallel to the west coast boundary line from the Kunene River in the north to the southern boundary of the Kaokoveld to be contiguous to the Game Reserve further south; and further

(ii) That those parts of Game Reserve No. 2 which it is proposed to add to the Kaokoveld, Ovamboland and Damaraland, be deproclaimed as a game reserve.198

With the new Homeland of Damaraland to the south of Kaokoveld, the Odendaal Commission proposed to connect the fragmented Native Reserves of Sesfontein, Fransfontein, Okombahe and Otjohorongo:199 see Figure 13.12 in Chapter 13. In doing so, the Commission reflected prior mobilities, habitation and uses of land between these areas (see Chapters 1, 12 and 13).

These recommendations were not fully implemented in the 1960s, as the South African government waited for the judgement of the ICJ, which dismissed the charges against South Africa only in 1966.200 This was certainly one reason why the 1960s were characterised by uncertainty, confusion and conflict which partly hampered straightforward “development” in any direction, as illustrated by the following points:

• Kaokoveld remained a “native reserve” and part of Game Reserve No. 2 in the 1960s. For the sake of “development”, however, hundreds of boreholes were drilled to support the pastoralist practices of the inhabitants, transforming the ecology of the area significantly (see Chapter 7);²⁰¹
• uncertainty existed about the coastal resort of Torra Bay as freehold farms inland, where users of the resort for fishing were located, were bought up in order to create ‘the proposed Bantu homeland’ of Damaraland, making Torra’s status as a nature resort questionable;202
• the exact boundary between Etosha Game Park/Etosha National Park and the Kaokoveld homeland was fiercely debated during the 1960s as a reaction to the Odendaal’s recommendations (see Chapters 13 and 14);²⁰³
• and the Nature Conservation Ordinance of 1967, which re-confirmed the 1962 south-western borders of Etosha National Park up to the west coast,204 was eventually over-turned by the Odendaal recommendations.

Figure 2.6 aims to illustrate these conflicts and diverging ideas prevalent in the 1960s. The blue contour shows Etosha National Park as of 1967, legalised as a National Park three years after the Odendaal Commission’s recommendations were published, mapped against the then envisaged, but only later implemented homelands of Kaokoland205 and Damaraland. It becomes clear that these different development and conservation plans precluded straightforward “progress” in any direction during the 1960s.

Fig. 2.6 Map of the borders of Etosha National Park in 1967 (blue), the borders of Game Reserve No. 2 in 1958 (red), the Kaokoland and Damaraland ‘homelands’ as implemented in the early 1970s (light blue and light orange respectively), and currently protected areas (green). © Ute Dieckmann; data: NAN; Atlas of Namibia Team 2022, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

2.4.2 The implementation of apartheid and spatial-ecological development in the 1970s and 1980s

In 1968, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution formally terminating the mandate of South Africa to administer SWA, which was instead to come under the direct responsibility of the United Nations.206 South Africa, however, continued to implement its apartheid politics in the country, enacting the Odendaal Plan and the creation of homelands with the Development of Self-Government for Native Nations in the South West Africa Act 54 of 1968.207

According to the recommendations, Damaraland (4,799,021 hectares) included 223 government-bought white-owned farms (1,872,794 hectares) (see Chapter 13); 1,290,000 hectares of the short-lived 1958 south-west extension of Game Reserve No. 2—part of which was included in Etosha Game Park in 1962 and Etosha National Park in 1967; and 94,876 hectares of the south-eastern corner of Kaokoveld (outside the formerly designated Kaokoveld Native Reserve), initially included in Damaraland but later added to Kaokoland.208 As noted, Damaraland thus reconnected several native reserves inhabited by mixed populations of Damara/ǂNūkhoen, ovaHerero, ovaHimba, Nama and ǁUbun (namely Okombahe, Otjohorongo, Fransfontein and Sesfontein).209 It also became the homeland for Damara/ǂNūkhoen living in other parts of the country (e.g. |Khomanin from Khomas Hochland).210 Displacements within the area also took place. The reallocation of the south-east corner of Kaokoveld from Damaraland to Kaokoland resulted in the settlement of Warmquelle/|Aexa|aus east of Sesfontein becoming part of Kaokoland: Damara/ǂNūkhoen living there had to move southwards to Kowareb, located in Damaraland.211 In the early 1970s a population of ‘Riemvasmakers’ living in the Upington area of South Africa were also relocated to Ward 11 around Bersig in Damaraland—on the grounds that they were linguistically connected with Damara/ǂNūkhoen—this area later becoming Torra Conservancy (see Chapter 3).²¹² Major parts of the redistributed western extension of Game Reserve No. 2 (Etosha Game/National Park 1962/67) were subsequently established as a trophy hunting concession and later as the tourism concessions of Palmwag, Etendeka and Hobatere (see Chapter 13).

The Kaokoveld, already a “native reserve”, was re-organised: a strip at the coast considered uninhabitable was cut off for the ‘Skeleton Coast Game Reserve’ (804,000 ha); the Kaokoveld area of Game Reserve No. 2 (256,435 ha), as well as the European-owned Farm Kowares (15,531 ha), were added to Kaokoland (also comprising almost 5 million ha).213 The Odendaal Report recommended boreholes as key to economic development in the Kaokoveld,214 contributing to the ‘hydrological revolution’²¹⁵ documented in detail in Chapter 7. The consequent change in pastoralist mobility patterns is asserted to have caused a shift in vegetation structure through increasing dry season grazing near boreholes, promoting annual grasses over perennials.²¹⁶ Declining numbers of predators through strychnine and rifles issued to headmen in the 1960s and 1970s,217 reportedly contributed further to the degradation of rangelands as stock owners could now leave their cattle to roam freely.

Unsurprisingly, the Odendaal Plan created a furore among conservationists—nationally and internationally—for disregarding ecological systems.218 As Heydinger points out,

[i]n transforming Etosha’s boundaries and de-proclaiming Kaokoveld’s game reserve status, Odendaal was also set to alter the region’s ecology, with negative outcomes feared, particularly for rare species such as black rhino (Diceros bicornis) and mountain zebra (Equus zebra).219

In the years to come, ecologists and conservationists, both from within and outside of government, suggested alternative plans for dividing or re-arranging “Etosha-Kaokoveld”. In the late 1960s, a Committee for the Enquiry into Nature Conservation and Tourism-problems in Bantu (sic) areas in Southwest-Africa (Komitee van Ondersoek na Naturbewaring en Tourisme-probleme in Bantoegebiede van Suidwes Afrika) was mandated to conduct research into the potential for nature conservation in Kaokoveld and Ovamboland, and to explore the tourism potential of those areas.220 De la Bat was part of this commission, which argued for the integration of the northern homelands into a wider tourism and conservation strategy for the territory, highlighting the immense potential of these areas on the grounds that they ‘still had abundant wildlife and comparatively low human population numbers’.221 Recommendations included the development of nature conservation legislation for these homelands which should serve the conservation of wildlife and flora and at the same time ‘preserve local traditions […] for the benefit of local inhabitants’,222 as well as establishing game parks within these homelands. This idea was not completely new. As mentioned in Section 2.3.1, Chief Kambonde in Ovamboland had already proclaimed part of the Andoni Plains as his private game reserve at the end of the 1950s.223 The commission regarded especially the Kaokoveld as of particular touristic potential and highlighted prospects for trophy hunting in the area.224 The report was not followed by any action in line with the recommendations, however, leading to growing concern and a series of conservation recommendations for the area that had briefly comprised the Etosha Game Park extensions, as reviewed in detail in Chapter 13.

Not only were people moved around in this period, but animals were subjected to increasingly intense conservation management practices, a key technique being translocation. A game capture unit was established in 1966 and the translocation of rare or endangered (as well as other) species began,225 with game capture and sale also becoming an economic enterprise, as can be read in the SWAA White Papers in the section on Nature Conservation. In 1971, for instance, the game capture team in Namibia caught and translocated in total 364 animals, 145 black-faced impala and ‘the last remaining black rhinos in the farming areas were taken to safety in the Etosha National Park’.226 In 1972, 85 elands and some giraffes were transferred from the Mangetti area to the Waterberg Plateau Park, two rhinos to Etosha and seven mountain zebras to the game park area of the Hardap Recreation Resort, while 250 animals (springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis), gemsbok and plains zebras) were captured and sold to farmers. In 1975, 34 roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus) were translocated from Etosha National Park to Waterberg Plateau Park, 58 black-faced impala were captured at Otjovasandu (in the west of Etosha National Park) and released either at Ombika or Namutoni (in the east of the park). In 1976, the game capture unit concentrated on operations on freehold farmland in order to supply game to settler farmers: 862 animals were caught and sold for a total value of R24,750,00.227 In 1977, sable antelope (Hippotragus niger), tsessebe (Damaliscus lunatus lunatus) and reedbuck (Redunca arundinum arundinum) not present in other SWA game reserves or parks were caught, enduring a three-month quarantine period in Caprivi (now Zambezi Region) before being transferred to Etosha where they were subjected to another three-month quarantine.228 In 1978, a total of 1,326 animals were captured, less than half of them sold or ‘given by the Administration to other bodies as a gift’, while the remaining animals were transferred to other localities.²²⁹ In 1979, it was reported that,

[t]here are now approximately 150 black rhinoceros and 100 black-faced impalas in Etosha. The future of these two rare game species is now assured in Southwest Africa.230

These displacements were not always completely successful. In the translocation of 55 rhino to Etosha National Park from the western areas sleighted to become “homelands”, five animals were lost overall between 1967 and the early 1970s; perhaps connected with difficulties in estimating accurate doses of anaesthetic and antidote.231 The translocation process must have been arduous for the animals. In 1971, for example, it was reported that:

[t]he use of helicopter proved imperative because of the rough terrain and sparse scattering of the rhino and black-faced impala. Drop-nets were used for the first time in catching the impala and springbok and injuries were reduced substantially. For the transportation of the black-faced impala over very bad roads and in hot weather, fans were installed in large crates with power units on top. This method contributed considerably to the successful translocation from Enyandi in Kaokoland to Otjovasandu.232

Although the mortality rate decreased considerably over the years due to improved capture techniques and drugs, in 1978, it was still reported that the ‘average mortality for the year’s capture operations was 5,3%’.²³³

Fences around ENP disrupted large-scale migration routes, especially of plains zebras and wildebeest (see Chapter 10), leading to an unforeseen collapse of the ungulate populations in the park.²³⁴ Berry reports that successive aerial censuses of Etosha, together with water-hole and ground counts:

showed conclusively that by 1987 some large herbivore species had declined drastically in numbers: Burchell’s zebra from 22000 (1969) to 5000; wildebeest from 25000 (1954) to 2600; gemsbok from 5000 (1982) to 2200; and eland from 3000 (pre-1960) to 250.235

The mechanisms causing these changes in numbers were manifold and the dynamics only partly understood, a major factor being the restrictive fencing completed around ENP in 1973. This enclosure made human management more necessary than ever before. More artificial water places and roads were constructed;236 these were important factors for increasing levels of anthrax,²³⁷ which again was followed by a growing number of predators taking advantage of the vulnerable game. Heydinger sees the ultimate cause of the large-scale decimation of ungulate populations in the Odendaal recommendations,²³⁸ although the exact relationship between the fencing of the park and the Odendaal Plan is unclear.

The “game-proof” fences prevented the migration of ungulates, but they were not such an insurmountable obstacle for elephants who regularly visited neighbouring commercial farms or “homelands”. This caused considerable trouble and laid another time-consuming task on the shoulders of nature conservation officials; fence breaks ‘occurred faster than they could be repaired’,239 and elephants were ‘driven back to the game reserve time and time again but had returned to the farms just as regularly’.240 In 1971, for example, officials had to drive back 111 elephants and shot three ‘obdurate troublemakers’; in 1977, 1,841 breaks caused by elephants on the park’s northern boundary were repaired; nine elephants were shot on farms while 102 were driven back to Etosha.241 The broken fences also offered an opportunity for lions to exit the National Park, ‘causing havoc among the farmers’ stock’.242 Farmers on freehold land often put an end to these incursions by shooting the lions: in 1970, for instance, 87 lions were shot by farmers; in 1974, 44 lions were shot; and in 1977, 56 lions were shot and 25 were driven back to Etosha.243 This was a considerable loss of animals, bearing in mind that there were around 400–500 lions in Etosha over the years. Although Hu Berry, the biologist in Okaukuejo during those years, considered the number too high,244 killing by farmers might not have been the best solution for population control.

The fencing also raised concerns with regard to available grazing in the park. In 1971, research was begun to study the vegetation in the park in order to determine the carrying capacity for grazing management, deemed as important ‘especially once the Park has been full [sic] fenced in’.²⁴⁵ Reportedly, animals were sometimes also captured in one area and moved to zones with better grazing.²⁴⁶ In 1977,

grazing was reasonable in the sandy veld but poor in the lime areas. According to grazing capacity stipulations it has been established that the winter grazing areas are generally overgrazed. The grazing capacity of the system is + 4000 large stock units, which is much lower than the present burden.²⁴⁷

The SWAA White Papers for the 1970s also provide an idea of the importance of game to the economy, as direct revenues to the Administration, as income for game dealers and as income to farmers. In the section on the annual developments of nature conservation, a paragraph on ‘Game Farming’ is included with income estimates provided for levies, hunting licences, game sale, sale of carcasses, sale of hides, income from trophy hunting, income from skins and huntable game shot for own use. Reading these reports, it becomes evident how important game farming was for settler farmers on freehold land, following the 1967 Nature Conservation Ordinance which established the legal framework for farmers to capitalise on game. The 1971 SWAA White Paper notes that:

[m]ore and more profits are being derived from the administration’s policy that game should have a direct monetary value for the farm owners. Farmers thus netted an estimated income of R 186 600,00 throughout the year from the sale of live game, game carcases [sic], hunting licence fees and trophy hunters. The value of hides or venison used by the farmers themselves is not included in this figure.248

In 1977, it was reported that the national income of commercial farmers from their game had exceeded 5 million rand for the first time.²⁴⁹ It is worth noting that farmers on freehold land could also apply for permits to shoot ‘protected or specifically protected’ game in order ‘to conserve grazing, to maintain the correct sex ratio or to protect live-stock and property’.250 In 1971 and 1972, for instance, permits for shooting 4,449 and 3,091 head of game were issued to protect grazing.²⁵¹ As mentioned above, a major area of communal land to the west of ENP, including land that had been part of the short-lived western extension of Etosha game reserve from 1962, was also designated for trophy hunting (Chapter 13).

To the north-west of Etosha National Park, the newly created Kaokoland homeland was characterised by a decline of wildlife in the 1970s to the early 1980s,252 linked with a major drought from 1979–1982.253 Authority over nature conservation in the homelands remained with the Department of Bantu Administration and Development (BAD) in Pretoria.254 Bollig claims that:

[t]he revocation of game park status [game reserve?] and the endorsement of homeland status resulted in a situation in which the emergent homeland Kaokoland, had no applicable legislation on conservation whatsoever. Formally, homeland authorities would have to establish a new legislation for the Kaokoland in the long run, but for the time being conservation was transferred to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development. In the early 1970s a number of South African homelands did indeed establish legislation on conservation but in northern Namibia [i.e. Kaokoveld] this did not happen.255

Poaching and legal hunting became serious problems there.256 SWAPO had also opened a western front in Kaokoveld and the administration handed out thousands of rifles to local residents.257 Yet, not only local residents equipped with rifles by the administration contributed to the decline of wildlife, but also top-level politicians and local white administrative and military staff were engaged in poaching.258

With Odendaal, spatial functional separation was completed in Namibia as a whole and in Etosha-Kunene in particular, at least on paper and maps: neatly defined “homelands” (“Damaraland” and “Kaokoland”) for diverse population groups of African background and their livestock; settlers of European background and their livestock in the respective freehold farming area south-east of the homelands; and game kept within ENP and eventually through tourism concessions established in the 1980s by the Damaraland Regional Authority (see Chapter 13). Certainly, the reality on the ground differed from the ideas in the minds of the architects of this spatial functional separation and from the boundaries on maps. Human mobility between these areas continued to take place, game continued to exist in areas designated as homelands, and tourism concession areas were established in homelands.

What is important, however, is that land, flora and fauna, and humans of various backgrounds, were treated as separable categories to be sorted and arranged according to colonial needs. The intra-dependence within socio-ecological systems was largely disregarded by the South African government. The new arrangement imagined ENP as a fenced island within the wider colonial system. As described, this “dismembering” had unforeseen effects. Yet, the 1980s also saw the first ideas of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) being experimented with in north-west Namibia, to later become the dominant paradigm for communal areas in independent Namibia, as considered briefly below and in more detail in Chapter 3.

2.5 The 1980s: First steps towards community-based nature conservation in Etosha-Kunene

The history of CBNRM in Namibia owes much to the initiative of a number of individuals concerned about the decline of wildlife in Namibia’s north-west. In 1981, control over nature conservation in the homelands was transferred from BAD in Pretoria to the Directorate of Nature Conservation (DNC) in Windhoek, with the late Chris Eyre appointed Senior Nature Conservation Officer in Khorixas.259 In 1982, the NGO Namibia Wildlife Trust (NWT) was formed by the late Blythe Loutit, the late Ina Britz, and other concerned conservationists (including botanist Dr Pat Craven), ‘to help the nature conservation authorities bring poaching in the country’s north-west under control’.260 They had the support of the Damara Regional Authority (DRA), the Peoples’ Trust for Endangered Species, and the Wildlife Society of South West Africa, with financial resources committed by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT, South Africa) under the leadership of Clive Walker. The late Garth Owen-Smith, who became one of Namibia’s most famous conservationists, was employed by the Trust to direct the field operations from NWT’s field base at the farm Werêldsend,261 south of the vet fence on the Torra Bay road, working between 1982–1984 with, most notably, Peter Erb, Elias Hambo, Bennie Roman, Johan le Roux and Sakeus Kasaona.262

This Trust, which later formed the basis for Namibia’s well-known and successful Save the Rhino Trust (SRT),263 was thus formed ‘by a group of conservationists alarmed by the wilful slaughter of game species in Namibia’ who, ‘as a first step’²⁶⁴

had worked out a programme of protection for the large mammals of the desert regions, in particular the elephants, rhinos, giraffe and mountain zebra occurring outside proclaimed game reserves in the Kaokoland and Damaraland tribal areas. As Senior Field Officer, Garth was responsible for determining the status and distribution of the endangered species and for spearheading an anti-poaching campaign.265

The Trust worked on the basis of four principles that have formed a basis for subsequent ‘community-based conservation’ activities in the region (see Chapter 3):

1. To create an awareness of the need for good conservation among all residents of Kaokoland and Damaraland.

2. To train suitable inhabitants of Kaokoland and Damaraland in conservation so that in the future they might play an active professional role in the conservation of the region.

3. To assist the local government conservation officers in controlling illegal hunting in the region.

4. To promote a better understanding of the ecology of this unique region.266

A foundation of the Trust’s work was cooperation with local headmen vis-à-vis poaching, leading to the establishment of an Auxiliary Game Guard (AGG) system, which later became known as Community Game Guards (CGG), and formed the basis of a network of Rhino Rangers267 and Lion Rangers established in post-Independence conservancies (see Chapters 17, 18 and 19).²⁶⁸ Margaret Jacobsohn, who later co-founded Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) with Owen-Smith, articulates their approach as follows:

[c]onservation could be and should be relevant to Africans. If wildlife was valuable to people they would look after it. Instead, they were alienated from it by colonial conservation laws which gave ownership of wildlife to the state. […] Conservation (back in the 1980s) was a white man’s game, and wildlife, even though it was one of Africa’s most valuable resources, was less important than people’s domestic stock and crops.269

Jacobsohn considers the auxiliary game guard network to have played ‘a pivotal role in ending the poaching crisis in both Kaokoland and adjoining Damaraland’.270 In 1985, however, Owen-Smith lost his funding and thus his job with the NWT, reportedly ‘because the colonial authorities claimed he was “a dangerous Swapo supporter who was confusing the communities”’.271 Evidently, the new ideas about conservation were not in line with the government of the time; crossing “ethnic” boundaries, these ideas also crossed political lines. Still, with funding from the EWT, the Department of Nature Conservation took over the auxiliary game guard network, although reportedly with limited enthusiasm.272

In 1987, following an approach by Jacobsohn who was conducting archaeological research in Puros, the then Director of EWT (Dr John Ledger) visited the north-west to evaluate circumstances there, after which he secured further small funding for Owen Smith’s work in the north-west. Owen-Smith and Jacobsohn started a small pilot eco-tourism project at Puros, the ‘Purros Pilot Project’, with three components:

• a tourist levy paid to the Purros community by tour operators, charged on a per head basis and paid directly to the community for their role as caretakers of wildlife;
• a craft market drawing for example on local materials such as palm fronds used in basketry, with the impacts of harvesting monitored by local women;
• a ‘Conservation Committee’ established to represent the interests of the community, distribute the tourist levy and as a forum for discussion of any problems related to tourists and tour operators.273

An underlying principle here was to create ‘an incentive for the local community to become involved in the CGG Program’ by channelling benefits from wildlife conservation and increased tourism ‘back into the hands of the Purros community’, so as ‘to broaden the Purros community’s economic base and thereby change their attitudes towards wildlife’.274 This “sustainable use” principle has remained foundational to Namibia’s post-Independence consolidation of CBNRM programme, although with disparate outcomes as elaborated in Chapters 3 and 5. As can be seen, CBNRM, now so prominent throughout Namibia’s communal areas, has its origins in pre-Independent Etosha-Kunene.

The South African period was characterised by the classification and hierarchisation of human inhabitants according to so-called ethnic groups, the separation of human inhabitants from wildlife, and the reorganisation of space in Etosha-Kunene. Local inhabitants had become and were treated as resources for the colonial system, as was nature: both to be treated and exploited differently. The attempts at neat spatial-functional severance clearly reflected colonial thinking, being rooted in the ideas and categorisations documented in Chapter 1. Local human inhabitants were displaced and removed from lands they had previously lived in, and wildlife separated from its broader ecological context. The importance of “nature” for the colonial project increased considerably during the years covered in this chapter, which were also dominated by settlers’ interests at the start of this period and the implementation of apartheid towards the end. Especially from the 1950s until the 1970s, nature conservation gained more prominence and was professionalised and “scientised”.275 This was due to various factors, among them the spatial limitations for further white settlement based mainly on livestock husbandry and the increasing interest in tourism. Nature conservation became driven by the aim of nature commercialisation, an emphasis amplified since Independence.

The high economic value of game was the reason for the establishment of Game Reserve No. 2 in German colonial times, as outlined in Chapter 1. During these early times, game was important as an economic resource for settlers and traders and as a social resource for white sportsmen.²⁷⁶ Its value increased tremendously during South African times, both for settlers, thanks to the legislation enacted by the SWAA in 1967, and for the administration itself, due to the significance that tourism gained in economic terms for the territory. Wildlife became a product to be sold, not only as meat or hides to be eaten and used, but also an image of African wilderness for foreign visitors and as trophies for hunters from overseas.

The spatial reorganisations documented in this chapter had a tremendous impact on Etosha-Kunene ecology: in simplifying terms, ENP became overpopulated in wildlife and underpopulated in terms of human inhabitants, whilst from a conservation perspective the homelands of Kaokoland and Damaraland became underpopulated by wildlife and overpopulated with people and livestock. Game and local people with their livestock were perceived by the authorities as enemies to each other. During the 1980s, initial attempts to reconcile the interests of game protection on the one hand and of local populations on the other were observable but also limited in face of the liberation war and the political turmoil during those years. When Namibia became independent in 1990, it had to address this colonial legacy and the spatial division of Etosha-Kunene. In Chapter 3 we outline the efforts the new nation undertook to reshape Etosha-Kunene.

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