Unfortunately, there has recently been a continual flow of very negative comments about what the Namibian Wildlife Resorts (NWR) are currently doing with their large-scale and very expensive upgrading programme in their resorts throughout Namibia.
I have recently taken visitors around Namibia, and yes, we did also suffer like many other visitors from some problems at Etosha.
But I would like to share with you some of the comments and observations of my guests.
I should mention that they were from Australia and had recently spent time touring through Vietnam.
Maybe they are not your typical tourists as they were very well informed about the environment, land rights and human rights issues, and were formerly supporters of the anti-apartheid movement in Australia.
We spent a lot of time in the desert and along the coast and they were impressed with a lot of the environmental activity taking place, especially the conservancy programme that allows community members to get actively involved in caring for their own environment and being able to directly profit through income-generating activities such as running camps and guided tours.
We also spent some wonderful days in Etosha viewing the wonderful variety of game.
With the continually rising costs of energy and more environmental-friendly alternatives, my visitors were appalled to see that new electric hot water systems had recently been installed at the Okaukuejo and Halali Camps.
I had to inform them that Namibia did have an alternative energy policy, but couldn’t answer them on why solar hot water systems hadn’t been installed by a government-owned company such as NWR.
They were very aware of the history of Namibia and the long fight for independence, so it wasn’t surprising that my guests wanted to know where the previously disadvantaged Namibians were when we visited Etosha and Sossusvlei. Sure they were there working in the offices, shops and cleaning the rooms, but I was asked “don’t they also come here as visitors?
Once they realized what the cost of staying and visiting these wonderful attractions was and the sort of income an average Namibian receives, they quickly understood why all the visitors appeared to be foreign tourists or wealthy Namibians.
They now wanted to know why the Namibian Government didn’t do something to encourage all Namibians to enjoy the beauty and excitement of their own country, particularly seeing the many millions of dollars being spent by NWR on extravagant luxury developments, such as the raised timber walkways at Namutoni, where the imported timber must have cost a fortune.
My guests from Australia know how hard the indigenous people in their own country – the Aborigines – have fought for the rights to their traditional land and access to their birthright, their land.
To them it sounded like some racist or colonial government had made the decision to basically exclude most Namibians from what is their inheritance.
Someone asked “Is this some form of economic discrimination?”
Like my guests, I feel bad that most Namibians are not allowed to enjoy their own beautiful country because they could never afford the very high costs of staying in the NWR camps, especially as now the sanitation has become much worse with another substantial increase in camp and accommodation fees coming up later this year.
Namibia sells its natural resources like uranium, copper, zinc and gold, etc. to the highest foreign bidder, but why must the right to enjoy the natural beauty of your own country be also sold to the foreigners? Maybe I must also pose the question: has NWR created their own form of “economic discrimination”?
Graeme Bruce