Richtersveld Collaborative Book

Over the last two years, in association with EcoAfrica, I have been involved in the production of a collaborative book with local communities in the north-west of South Africa, an area called the Richtersveld.  The extract from the original proposal below puts the aims more eloquently than I can. The book is now just about written, and first stages of layout have begun. We have however also collected all the materials – photographs, anecdotes, historical documents and transcripts of interviews and evenings of story telling – in an online database as shared reference. If you are interested, have a look at http://book.ecoafrica.co.za .

extract from the proposal:

” The Richtersveld is an area of exceptional qualities and beauty that is located in the northwestern corner of South Africa on the border of Namibia. The area contains higher levels of biodiversity than any other desert in the world, with several thousand succulent species adorning its plains, mountains and deep riverine valleys that run from the higher ground down to the Orange River that flows along its northern border (and the border with Namibia). The area also contains examples of unique culture, including some of the last examples of transhumance, the nomadic lifestyle by which traditional stock farmers seasonally move with all their belongings from the highlands to the grazing fields along the Orange River. It is those qualities that led to a Statement of Outstanding Universal Value that lead to the Richtersveld being inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Richtersveld population is made up of people of widely divergent origins that are united through dispossession that has been inflicted upon them during the colonial era and through Apartheid. Part of the population consists of the Nama people while other people were “dumped” there during the Apartheid years with nowhere else to go to escape the repressive regime of the day. The Richtersveld people, who today form a closely knit community, not only lost their land to colonial masters and miners, but were deprived of even the most basic human rights by a hostile government who had little sympathy with them. Many of them were prohibited from speaking their mother tongue and, like some of the older people will tell you, they have even lost their names. After three hundred years of persecution and repressions their culture hangs by a thread. Yet the people of the Richtersveld persisted in their quest for survival and today, in an era of greater tolerance and fairness, they are slowly starting to recover their past, including cultural attributes such as traditions and language, and their pride.

There are two main aspects to recovery: one is the recovery of history, memory and identity, and the other is the recovery of economic independence and security that can be achieved through sustainable livelihood creation. The proposed Richtersveld Indigenous Knowledge Book Project will go a long way in assisting in both aspects. Firstly, it will help to capture history, memory and identity in a carefully facilitated way that is expected to yield rich results; in terms of the second aspect it will consolidate cultural heritage and to some extent biological heritage in a way that will help the Conservancy to get on the world map and provide sustainable livelihood options through the creation of ‘responsible’ tourism enterprises.”