Healing the crippled hand: tourism and community-based tourism as sustainable forms of land use and development in Eastern Tsumkwe, Namibia

Gaisford, Wendy

Healing the crippled hand: tourism and community-based tourism as sustainable forms of land use and development in Eastern Tsumkwe, Namibia

Thesis / Dissertation

1997

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Environmental and Geographical Science

Faculty

Faculty of Science

Abstract

This dissertation followed a study undertaken by the 1996/7 Masters (Mphil) students from the Environmental and Geographical Sciences Department at the University of Cape Town, on behalf of the Namibian Programme to Combat Desertification (NAPCOD), involving the environmental impacts of emergency borehole relief in Namibia (UCT, 1997). The study area for the dissertation was visited during the course of the UCT research. Formerly eastern Bushmanland, now officially designated eastern Tsumkwe District, the area is known to the local people, the Ju/'hoansi-speaking Bushmen, as 'Nyae Nyae'. Inappropriate land uses including a reliance on pastoralism, on marginal, semi-arid lands susceptible to degradation, that exist in Namibia and the study area, were found to result in degradation of natural resources and to consequent susceptibility to drought and loss of livelihoods. During the course of the original UCT research, it was seen that the people who inhabit the Tsumkwe District area, predominantly the Ju/'hoansi but also the Herera, are no longer able to be sustained by the land as a result of inappropriate development decisions and land use strategies made, leading to 'The Crippled Hand' of the Ju/'hoansi. Economic development and diversification is perceived as necessary, with tourism proposed as a development and land use option. However., as any development needs to be particularly sensitive and well planned in the area, an environmental, including social, impact study of the effects of development plans or project, including tourism, is necessary. The aim of the dissertation was to investigate the situation regarding tourism, and particularly Community-Based Tourism, as a sustainable land use and development option in the eastern Tsumkwe district, as part of a mixed economic strategy for the area, and as an economic development strategy in Namibia as reflected in government policies and legislation. It was examined as a form of supply-led, sustainable fom1 of ecotourism, mitigating against many of its negative impacts and enhancing many of its positives, as well as a necessary component of Community-Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM), linking conservation of natural resources and wildlife with benefits. Jt was found that although tourism and CBT have the potential to provide many benefits both direct and indirect, to both the local people and to Namibia, they do not provide the panacea for all development problems. Furthermore, a number of significant threats and constraints on a local, regional and national level were found to be impeding tourism and CBT development. As many of these a.re shared by various Community-Based (CB) programmes in other parts of Namibia, the significance of the study goes beyond that of tourism, and the study area. Threats to tourism development in the Nyae Nyae area include the Ministry of Resettlement and Rehabilitation (MLRR) Herero Repatriation Programme in the adjacent Garn area, where pastoralist Hereros from Botswana are being resettled. The decimation by the Herero of wildlife as the animals enter from Nyae Nyae into the Garn area as part of their migratory patterns is posing a threat to tourism, as is the movement of the Hereros, with their conflicting land use patterns, into the Nyae Nyae area in search of water and grazing, resulting in the degradation of natural resources on which the Ju/'hoansi, wildlife, and tourism depend. Tourism in the area has been ad hoc and uncontrolled, with the negative impacts on the people and the natural environment generally outweighing the positive. Furthermore, the sustainability criteria have not been met, in particular that of equity where the affected people have received few of the benefits while bearing most of negative impacts. Management strategies at a local level are necessary to regulate the scale and nature, and thus the negative impacts of tourism. Constraints to community management and control, including the prevention of access by outsiders, and to tourism development in the area in general, were found to include problems with community representative decision making and leadership structures, inadequate institutional capacity at the community and government level, a lack of sectoral co-ordination, lack of commitment by those involved, in both government and the community, and the lack of clearly defined rights and authority over natural resources, including land, by the affected community. Further constraints to tourism include the remoteness, relative inaccessibility, and lack of facilities, keeping the costs of tourism high and limiting numbers of visitors to the area, inadequate marketing, and a lack of tourism enterprise skills by the community. It appears that tourism should remain small scale and form part, albeit a significant one, of a mixed economy in the area, while taking care that other economic activities do not foreclose the tourism option. Sustainable social and environmental measures need to be incorporated in the planning, implementation and monitoring stages. Furthermore, tourism in the area needs to be viewed not in isolation, but holistically, and as part of a co-ordinated and integrated land use and development plan for the region. Relevant enabling policy and legal framework is necessary, as well as the sectoral cohesion, political will, commitment and capacity for implementation and enforcement.

Keywords

Environmental and Geographical Science

Reference:

Collections

Masters

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