14. Living next to Etosha National Park

Abstract

This chapter considers the implications of being park-adjacent for ovaHerero pastoralists now living in Ehi-Rovipuka Conservancy. Using PhD research conducted in 2006 and 2007 as a baseline, the chapter focuses on three dimensions. First, some aspects of the complex and remembered histories of association with the western part of what is now Etosha National Park (ENP) are traced via a “memory mapping” methodology with ovaHerero elders. Second, experiences of living next to the park boundary are recounted and analysed, drawing on a structured survey with forty respondents. Most interviewees indicated that no benefits were received at the time from the national park. They also expressed desires for grazing rights––especially for emergency grazing during dry periods, as well as access to ancestral birthplaces, graves and traditional resource use areas, and involvement in joint tourism development ventures inside the park. Finally, different dimensions of local knowledge are recounted, including of wildlife presence and mobilities through the wider region, “veld-foods”, and school-children’s perceptions of ENP and the conservancy. Although the research reported here was carried out some years ago, circumstances in Ehi-Rovipuka have changed rather little. The conservancy remains along the border of a national park, and peoples’ histories of utilising, moving through, and being born and desiring to be buried in the western reaches of the park remain. The chapter argues that more awareness of how social, ecological and historical dimensions of the broader Etosha landscape are connected is essential for achieving biodiversity conservation outcomes.