CConservationonservWWhatahtiaotn AREA cancRanE undermineuHumanHnudmeramni nRRights,ei gHHumanhutms, aaanyway?nn yRRights...wigahyt?s... CConservationonservation andand humanhuman rights—rights— tthehe ccasease ofof tthehe ‡‡KhomaniKhomani SanSan (bushmen)(bushmen) andand thethe KKgalagadigalagadi TransfrontierTransfrontier Park,Park, SouthSouth AfricaAfrica PPhillipahillipa HoldenHolden Abstract. This paper outlines the dispossession of the southern Kalahari San of their an- cestral lands, due to colonisation, the development of the conservation estate, and South Africa’s apartheid policies. The San (or Bushmen as they more usually call themselves) are the first peoples of southern Africa and there is evidence of their widespread distri- bution over the sub-continent, dating back at least 30 000 years. With the establishment of the Kalahari Gemsbok Park in 1931, people’s rights to live and hunt on the land were gradually eroded until their final eviction from the park in the mid 1970s. Under the new democratic government, the ‡Khomani San Community submitted a land claim for 400 000 ha in the park, which was vindicated and formally settled with major modifications in March 1999. The paper considers whether progress has been made since then, if in fact the rights of the San have been fully restored to them, and what factors are driving such outcomes. A look into the past... of other peoples. Approximately 2 000 Most paleoanthropologists and geneti- years ago the sheep and cattle herding cists subscribe to the “Out of Africa” Khoekhoe peoples migrated down from theory that the ancestors of modern Namibia and Botswana, pushing !Ui humans arose some 200 000 years ago speaking peoples away from the coast in Africa, with the earliest modern hu- and river areas, and around 800 years man fossils being found at Omo Kibish, ago a major migration of Bantu-speak- Ethiopia.1 They also agree that all the ing peoples entered eastern South variously shaped and shaded people Africa.3 Most relations between hunter- of Earth trace their ancestry to African gatherers and the agro-pastoralist peo- hunter-gatherers. Ancestral DNA mark- ples, however, are likely to have been ers turn up most often among the San positive and to have involved a degree people of Southern Africa and the Biaka of intermarriage. Pygmies of central Africa, as well as in some East African peoples.2 A vast rock This changed with the arrival of Euro- art record found on the sub-continent pean explorers and settlers in the 16th points at the San as the first peoples of and 17th centuries, after which land southern Africa. It seems reasonable to was gradually carved up into freehold conclude that the San are closely re- farms, displacing indigenous people lated to the ancestry of all humankind. onto smaller tracts of communal land, particularly in Namibia, South Africa The first peoples of southern Africa and Zimbabwe. The expansion of Euro- were seemingly all from one language pean colonisation caused a great strain family, known as !Ui. They were pushed on land resources. !Ui speaking hunter- into remoter and drier regions by two gatherers were victimised by the Eu- major and relatively recent migrations ropean settlers as well as by Khoe and 15, July 2007 57 CConservationonservation andand HumanHuman RRightsights Bantu-language groups, who were now black and white rhinos became flag- all competing for resources in the face ships for conservation as their numbers of European territorial expansion. Over had dwindled to near-extinction levels. this period, disease and other genocidal Game reserves were proclaimed by the conditions decimated most San clans state, conservation legislation control- in South Africa and Namibia— the last ling hunting was enacted, and several permit to hunt a Bushman was issued private nature reserves were pro- by the South African pre-apartheid claimed by conservation conscious land state in 1927.4 owners. At the same time, growing commer- Whilst indigenous hunter-gathering cial trade, together with protection of communities are likely to have had only crops and livestock necessitated certain minor impacts on natural systems, the controls over wildlife. The accumulation enforced apartheid policy of South Af- of wealth led to divisions among social rica (also applicable to Namibia, then a classes, and ‘desirable’ wildlife species mandated territory under South African came to be controlled by an elite who administration) and the prevailing land alone had the permission to hunt, trade policies in then Rhodesia (now Zimba- and enjoy the spoils of certain species.5 bwe), further removed any control or Wildlife numbers on freehold ranches use of wildlife from indigenous popula- decreased over time, particularly in tions. The net result of protectionist South Africa, due to a combination of legislation was to centralize control uncontrolled hunting and slaughter over wildlife and to effectively ban for skins, trophies and biltong.6 The subsistence use. Customary and tra- dominant settler religion, Christian- ditional natural resource management ity, excluded pantheistic beliefs in the institutions were eroded and gradually intrinsic power and value of nature, replaced with centralised, state sys- such as those held by the hunter-gath- tems that effectively removed control ering communities.7 Rather, Christianity of natural resources and biodiversity encouraged its adherents to tame and from local communities, destabilising civilize nature in the service of mankind functional management systems and and material progress.8 replacing them with increasingly non- functional, alien ones. ‘Superstitious The net result of the situation de- beliefs’ that had previously safeguard- scribed above— exacerbated by the ed biodiversity to some extent were rinderpest epidemic of the late nine- also undermined by the church with teenth century— is that by the early detrimental impacts on local, de facto twentieth century, in South Africa in conservation practices. particular, wildlife numbers had de- clined substantially and other natural History of the land claim resources were under increasing pres- The last to be affected by the European sure.9 During that time, the emergence expansion were the peoples of what is of a ‘new’ conservation ethic in western now Siyanda District in the Northern countries filtered through to southern Cape (see Figure 1 below). This terri- African colonial administrations. The tory, away from the Orange River, was extinct quagga and Cape bluebuck so dry that none of the food produc- were held as examples of the result of ing peoples could penetrate it easily an uncontrolled free-for-all approach. with their cattle and crops. Various San Species such as the bontebok and the groups co-existed in the area until the 58 15, July 2007 CConservationonservWWhatahtiaotn AREA cancRanE undermineuHumanHnudmeramni nRRights,ei gHHumanhutms, aaanyway?nn yRRights...wigahyt?s... 20th century when technology allowed for the proclamation of a Bushman the European and so-called Coloured reserve, either inside or outside of the settlers to sink boreholes and gradu- KGNP. Boydell (1948:100) pointed out ally dispossess the last surviving “Cape that the extinction of the Cape Bush- Bushmen” or Southern Kalahari San of man ‘...was now being expedited be- their ancestral lands.10 cause that part of the country where they had lived, roamed and hunted had recently been made into a game reserve in which Bush- men were not allowed’. Though General Smuts was sympathetic, the National Parks Board was adamant that a Bush- man reserve should be created elsewhere, as is stressed by Mr Jus- tice de Wet, chairman of the National Parks Board in a letter to Sena- tor Boydell, dated July 3rd, 1937: ‘As regards the Bushmen I certainly have no objection to the government creating a Figure 1. Map of the northern Cape— reserve for them so long as it is not ‘Farms’ indicates the position of the in or on the border with the Gemsbok ‡Khomani San farms, south of the Kgala- Reserve (Boydell 1948:105). Though gadi Transfrontier Park, which occupies they could not persuade the govern- much of the finger of land north of Riet- ment to proclaim a Bushmen reserve, fontein, between Namibia and Botswana the efforts of Bain, Boydell and others (Source: Adapted from Department of however bore some fruit with the ap- Environmental Affairs and Tourism, South pointment of Colonel Denys Reitz as Africa, 2004)11 Minister of Native Affairs, who in April 1941 reported to parliament that there In 1931 the Kalahari Gemsbok National were 29 Bushmen in the KGNP, ‘...and Park (KGNP) was proclaimed, with it is our intention to leave them there enormous implications for the Bush- and allow them to hunt with bows and men living within the park boundaries. arrows but without dogs. We look upon A process of evictions began, which them as part of the fauna of the coun- continued on and off until the mid try...We think that with their bows and 1970’s.12 In 1936, Donald Bain, a well- arrows they will kill less gemsbok than known explorer and big-game hunter, the lions. It will be a crime to let them responded and took up what he saw as die out, and we have to make provision the desperate plight of the Bushmen. for them in some way or another.”13 An extract from Steyn is instructive in this respect: “Donald Bain and Senator The efforts of Bain to obtain land for Thomas Boydell meantime campaigned the Bushmen eventually bore fruit 15, July 2007 59 CConservationonservation andand HumanHuman RRightsights when the farm ‘Struis Zyn Dam’ adjoin- ing the park was allocated by the state as a home for them. However, for rea- sons that aren’t entirely clear, the farm was sold to white settlers before the Bushmen could occupy the land.14 The remaining Bushmen continued to live in the park, hunting at first, but then gradually being relocated to the park headquarters at Twee Rivieren, before final eviction in the early seventies.