A prime holiday experience consists in the personal privilege and pleasure to explore a hitherto unknown part of the country or even a “new” country - i.e. speaking for oneself. The time of the pre-colonial and colonial European explorer who would boast that “no man” had trodden the piece of earth before, he claimed to have discovered, is long past. And the very ambition and claim to have been the first, was of course highly relative. Indigenous people and neighbouring migrants and explorers with an oral tradition, leaving no written records, except for rock paintings, may have been around for thousands years before.
Yet there are places left, both in Namibia and elsewhere in southern Africa, where the ambience will give you the feeling of being “the first and only”, for the time being at least, amid scenes of untold beauty like at the edge of the southern Namib desert. That is truly for you and me to enjoy.
However, the pure enjoyment that you are entitled to experience during a well deserved holiday is a matter of consumption and ideally will add some value to the working staff of the guest farm or lodge. And beyond there is another aspect that the discerning traveler and holiday reveler never forgets – that we are custodians of the landscape and its fauna and flora, both in a biblical sense to rule over beast, fish and bird and to utilise fruits and seeds for nourishment, and that we are heirs of previous generations who have to leave the land intact for our descendants. It is conspicuous that the Lord said “rule and enjoy”, not “suppress and destroy”.
No matter whether you approach our environment with a spiritual understanding of creation or simply from an evolutionary perspective of survival – the obligation remains, that we put back where we take out and even more; that we put back and restore where others have taken out too much, whether intentionally or unconsciously. It hardly matters, once the damage is done, the pressure is on that we act.
It is therefore heartening that there are nature and wildlife activists that engage in conserving a number of endangered species in Namibia. During previous decades and centuries the much maligned African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus) has borne the brunt of the bullet and, even worse, of poison, which is particularly insidious as it immediately enters the food chain of carrion feeders with fatal consequence: vulture, jackal, hyena and a number of smaller animals. With the jackal and lion the Wild Dog was simply declared a “problem animal”, mainly because of its highly successful collective hunting skills.
During the 20th century the large wide open game tracts largely disappeared that were the hunting fields of the Africa Wild Dog. Now at this late hour when the numbers have shrunk close to extinction the N/a´an ku sê Wildlife sanctuary actively intervenes to re-introduce the Wild Dog to few remaining open spaces which can support and sustain the species.
Indeed, even in eco-friendly Namibia a species is threatened! But there is hope for a prime holiday destination and for our descendants.
