Tourism Development Plan Khomani San Community - The African ...

TOURISM DEVELOPMENT PLAN - ‡KHOMANI SAN COMMUNITY
The Mier people also inhabited the area that now constitutes part of the Park, and they too have a
history of dispossession. Like the San, the Mier were also allowed to continue living in certain
areas within the Park, but lost their rights to hunt and manage stock on the land and were
eventually forcibly removed to state land reserved for them under the settlement schemes of the
1930s.
The proclamation of the Park was followed by gazetting of Botswana’s Gemsbok National Park
(2,840,000ha) in 1938. The two parks were amalgamated as the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
(KTP) in 1999 following the signing of a bilateral agreement between the South African and
Botswanan governments.
In 1995 the ‡Khomani San community lodged a claim for the restitution of 400,000ha of land in
the Kalahari Gemsbok Park. In December 1998, the Mier community, represented by the Mier
Transitional Local Council, lodged its own land claim for land both inside and outside the Park.
After many years of negotiation and verification, the claims were finally settled on 21 st March
1999, with the official transfer of title to six Kalahari farms (approximately 34,728ha) to the
‡Khomani San Common Property Association (CPA), a form of collective trust allowed by the
Communal Property Associations Act (No. 28 of 1996) for use by communities that have
benefited from land restitution under the Restitution of Land Rights Act (No. 22 of 1994).
Supplemental to this, in 2007 it was agreed that a further two farms (Sonderwater and Rolletjies -
approximately 6,020ha) be transferred to the ‡Khomani San CPA; however up to now the
allocation of title has not yet been completed (Chennells, pers. comm., 2010).
In addition, after further negotiations, on 29 th May 2002 the conditional allocation of some
57,903ha of land within the Park – to be managed as a Contractual National Park (!Ae!Hai
Kalahari Heritage Park) – was committed to the ownership of the ‡Khomani San and Mier
communities through what is known as the !Ae!Hai Kalahari Heritage Park Agreement
(Chennells, pers. comm., 2010). In this Agreement the ‡Khomani San community were also
granted preferential tourism rights over 80,000ha south of the Auob River inside the Park, and
473,830ha of land between the Auob and Nossob Rivers as a symbolic and cultural zone.
In the years after the land claim was settled, little development occurred on this land, with growing
social decay and disintegration, lack of post-restitution support from the South African authorities,
divisions within the now disparate community, and no significant improvement in the welfare of
most community members being the order of the day. Until recently, most elders from the
community had yet to set foot on their land in the Park, let alone enjoy the rights conferred upon
them.
There are many factors that contribute to and exacerbate the situation within the ‡Khomani San
Community and these include (but are not limited to):
• After nearly a century of being spread out in the diaspora, families and clans had developed in totally
different directions. Some had retained most of the old ways, others had totally immersed themselves in
modern life, or had eked out lives as an underclass in dismal squatter environments. Many had survived
lives of unspeakable hardship and misery. The land claim brought these disparate San, linked by ancient
blood ties, into one reconstituted community, overnight. The tensions and differences arising from
countless perceptions, mistrust, lack of knowledge of each other in the community, were underestimated,
and need to be addressed in order to further build up the community.
• Racial discrimination remains rife in this area and this perpetuates the status quo and the sense of
disempowerment that the San community experience.
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