the richtersveld cultural and botanical landscape - SAHRA

Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape World Heritage Site Nomination 100
5 Protection and Management
Traditional Management
Sustainable management of the core area and envisioned World Heritage Site has
been on-going for the past two thousand years. Since the beginning of pastoral
activities in the area - primarily nomadic and semi-nomadic sheep and goat herding
– the Nama people have been caring for and managing the land. Traditional
management of the grazing and water resources ensured that their livelihood,
which was inextricably linked to the health of the land, could survive. As with other
groups of pastoral people who are so directly dependant on sustaining natural
resources, the Nama utilized the land wisely, rotating grazing pastures between
seasons, which prevented overutilization of one particular area and which allowed
summer grazing areas to rest during the winter months and vice versa. The
piospheres, or sacrifice zones, which are often found in arid areas surrounding
water points are noticeably absent from the Conservancy. It is no coincidence that
after two thousand years of pastoral activity and habitation, the Conservancy area
is being heralded by international conservation organisations as an ecologically
intact and highly valuable biodiversity area. Traditional management of the natural
resources by the Nama people has ensured this.
Community Conservancy Management
In recent years, however, the process of the developing a community-owned and -
managed protected area sought to build on the success of traditional management
and to organise the Richtersveld people in such a way as to preserve the
indigenous knowledge of wise-use while arming the people with a management
structure which could ensure from a legal and institutional perspective the future of
the area as an ecologically sound and culturally vibrant wilderness area forever
preserving one of the last and largest reserves of Succulent Karoo flora. The
process of creating a community conservancy supported strongly by local people
and local government and the development and adoption of the Conservancy
Management Plan by the broader community and the landowner (CPA) has been
successful. The Conservancy has been written into the Integrated Development