Conservation and Tourism to the Detriment of the Bushmen

By Linda Poppe

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) is situated in central Botswana. It was founded in 1961 in order to provide a home for Botswana's indigenous population and endemic wildlife. Since the mid 1990s, however, the government of Botswana has repeatedly been trying to evict the indigenous population from their ancestral land in the game reserve. The original inhabitants are to make way for tourism and diamond mining.

Once, more than 5,000 members of Botswana's indigenous population used to live in this area. They belonged to the last remaining indigenous communities in southern Africa who were still living as hunters and gatherers. These semi-nomadic groups are today generally known as "San", "Basarwa", or "Bushmen".

In three big clearances, in 1997, 2002 and 2005, virtually all the Bushmen were forced out. Their homes were dismantled, their school and health post were closed, their water supply was destroyed and the people were threatened and trucked away to resettlement camps outside the game reserve.

The government gave various reasons for the forced displacement, ranging from "development" of the Bushmen to the alleged conservation of wildlife in the game reserve. However, there are many indications that economic interests in the game reserve had been crucial.

High Court Confirms Right to Land

After negotiations with the government had failed repeatedly, the Bushmen took the case to the country's High Court. In a case that was to become the longest and most expensive one in the history of Botswana, the indigenous people were in 2006 given the right to return to their ancestral land.

Nevertheless, the government has so far done little to actually implement the ruling. Since the court ruling in 2006, not a single hunting permit has been issued to the Bushmen, effectively making hunting illegal for them. The High Court had called such a denial of permits "unlawful". Furthermore, the government has refused to re-open the borehole which had been capped when the people were evicted. It has not allowed the Bushmen to rehabilitate it at their own cost either. Without these food and drinking water sources, life on their ancestral land is almost impossible for the Bushmen.

In the meantime, the authorities have found new use for the game reserve. Apart from diamond mining, tourism is to be promoted. This also includes hunting permits for tourists and boreholes to attract wildlife. The contrast to the treatment of the indigenous population is striking. In view of the harsh treatment in the game reserve, many Bushmen continue to live in resettlement camps outside the reserve, without anything to do. Many of them suffer from alcoholism and depression.

Tourists considering safaris and holidays in the CKGR must know that its inhabitants were forcefully evicted, and with disastrous consequences. And this game reserve is not an isolated case. Indigenous communities were evicted from many popular conservation areas and safari parks, often under the pretext of nature conservation.

Dangerous Water Scarcity

In the case of the indigenous Bushmen in Botswana, the project of a private ecotourism company also raises questions. "Wilderness Safaris", which describes itself as a responsible ecotourism and conservation company, has in 2009 opened the luxury lodge "Kalahari Plains Camp", including a swimming pool, on the Bushmen's land. This gives cause for concern, not just because of the lack of water in the reserve which the United Nations described as "dangerous" and under which the remaining communities are suffering at the same time. The activities of "Wilderness Safaris" are also bound to clash with the Bushmen's customary right to hunt and gather on their entire territory, as established by the High Court in 2006. How can they do so in an area that is reserved for a lodge, safaris, or access roads?

The construction of the lodge on the Bushmen's land was not supposed to happen without the community's prior informed consent, according to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is also supported by Botswana. However, there had not been any such consent by the indigenous people, nor had they actually ever been consulted about the commercial project on their land.

"Wilderness Safaris", who try to win customers by projecting their ethical principles, referred to the government regulations which they claim to have observed - regulations of a government that had just a few weeks earlier in another court case been found guilty of "degrading treatment" of the Bushmen. For really responsible tourism companies, it is certainly not sufficient to justify their actions by referring to governments that violate human rights themselves.

How the situation of the Bushmen will continue to develop will also significantly depend on the way in which the new court ruling is being implemented - a ruling which again dismisses the arguments brought forward by the government. However, the decisions taken by tourists in favour of or against a certain destination will without doubt have an influence on how indigenous communities are being treated in Botswana and elsewhere.

Linda Poppe is head of the German office of Survival International in Berlin.

Translated from German by Christina Kamp.

Further information: www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/bushmen

(857 words, 74 lines, March 2011, TW 62)