Bushmen - People without a Future ?
 

In 1961, I had the great pleasure to hunt with the bushmen in Angola. With me was my father, Dr. Georg von Opel and Werner Trense who later became the CIC General Secretary. The Bushmen lived in small groups in fairly open huts - Bushmen umbrellas - and wore close - fitting loin cloths an the children were astonished by the first jeeps.

The Bushmen climbed every elevation offering - termite hills, tree trunks - in order to get a view. They are regarded as the best trackers in Africa and were put into action by the military who happened to be in the area. It was therefore unjustified that they made themselves unliked by the respective foes.

In 2000, I took advantage of the opportunity to look at 4000 to 5000 year old Bushmen drawings and rock carvings. I was very impressed by the pertinent elegance and statement of these works which could inspire and direct many of todayīs artists. On the drive north, my driver, friend and guide Armin Hester told me that in 1997, the Bushmen stood in front of the Etosha-Pan and waited to be let in. There were about 200 who had assembled in front of the two entrances Namutoni and Okawkuego. But the entrance gates didnīt open. They waited for days until the police came and drove them away.

The Bushmen didnīt defend themselves. They were very peaceful. They simply wanted to go back to the Etosha which was their homeland until 1965. It canīt be that we reserve a piece of land for the animals and drive away the people ?! The Bushmen only wanted to go back to their home country in which they had developed their culture for a couple of thousand years. But for many hundred of years, they had been the dispossessed people, firstly being exiled by the blacks and then by the whites. And now, in Namibia too, their hunting areas have been taken away. Nearly the whole country has been divided into farms and fenced in. Except for the Kaoko country, where the Himba and Herero drive their herds which are mostly too large for the area.

The Etosha Pan is 22,000 sq.km in size and taking away the Pan area only 17,000 sq.km remain. This fenced-in reserve is so full of animals, that the surface water dries out soon after the rainy season and the steppe continues to increase due to over-grazing.

The Bushmen are our equals. They have understood how to survive through the centuries without disturbing nature. This is because they take only as much as they need to live.

In May 2000, the CIC had its 47th General Assembly in Berlin. In his opening speech, the Lord-Mayor asked the audience: " How does our so called civilized world deal with native races?" He gave the answer himself after he had personally visited Namibia and had formed a twin-city partnership with Windhoek.. His personal speaker said the foreign issue was the affair of the federal government. Partnership is important especially for a country which receives more foreign aid than others. Partnership is good and the Bushmen are dependent on it in their lonely struggle for survival. They need our help. We have to think about this when we support a government which drives people out of their homeland. We could learn a lot from the Bushmen, about their way of life, about their knowledge of the animal and plant life, and the way they know how to be satisfied with little. They don'tī need any foreign aid, we only have to give them a piece of land - to give it back.

 
 
From the former thousands of Bushmen, also called the San, only around 70,000 still live on the edge of the Kalahari, and because of the shortage of land have had to change to gardening, looking after small livestock, wage workers, trading and handicrafts. About 2000 still live their traditional life in the centre of the Kalahari. But in the meantime, they are also being driven away by cattle breeders, mining companies, and planned animal reserves.

When we take the Bushmen into our civilization (by force), this leads to a dependency on alcohol and poverty. Then our world is not their world. They are more susceptible to our civilization illnesses than we are.

Who feels responsible for the Bushmen and for the indigenous people? The WWF writes, "The WWF takes a clear position, namely that nature can only be effectively preserved with and not against the people in question." The demand for a just equalisation of interests between the protection of nature and the affected groups, between local and national interests, as well as between rich and poor countries has passed beyond the organizations for the protection of the environment into the environmental politics of many countries. But the problem of the Bushmen is neither on the agenda of the W:W:F: in Namibia nor on that of Greenpeace, who have written to me and explained that as an environmental organization they are specialized in environmental questions and take action where there is the best publicity for environmental protection.

Dr. Richard Faust, director of the Frankfurt Zoo, and former president of the Zoological Society Frankfurt writes: " I can assure you that the life and survival of indigenous people means a lot, and that primarily modern environmental protection has to try to seek solutions with the people and not against them. Only then can we permanently retain protected areas. It is therefore without doubt that we should take into account the rights of the hunters who lived there originally.

The Zoological Society of Frankfurt is at present taking a leading role in the establishment of so called "Wildlife Management Areas" around the Serengeti. For the first time, local resources (especially wild-life) are to be transferred to the administration of the local population. Some project areas are to take place in close co-operation with the Hazake hunters. In another part of the world, in the Manu National Park in Peru, ZGF workers are conducting training courses for intrusion-free observation of the large otter in a tourist project conducted by the Machiguenga Indians.

Near the wonderful Eguassu Waterfalls in South America, an animal reserve the size of a German state was set-up. The Indians living there were simply pushed out. In the far north of South America, the Indians were systematically exterminated in the 1920īs. Not so very long ago, the Bushmen were also hunted as if they were animals.

The International Hunting Council decided at its yearly world conference in May 2000 in Berlin, that the CIC would further the cause of the Society for Endangered Peoples, i.e. for the indigenous people to which the Bushmen belong. President Dieter Schramm underlined the fact that this decision wasnīt for image advertising for the European hunters - criticized by animal rights advocates - but that he sees himself" in a union with the hunters of Africa and America. According to the CIC, about 50 indigenous peoples or communities live from hunting, e.g. the Inuits of Greenland and Canada, the Aborigines in Australia and the San Bushmen in Namibia. To underline this decision, representatives of the indigenous hunters of South Africa, India and Australia were brought to the conference.

Both organizations want to set up a working body that points the way to realize their demands.

But something has been achieved. The chairman of the German CIC delegation Lothar Freiherr von Maltzham has had intensive talks with local representatives from Namibia and Botswana during the course of his Namibia trip in August 2000, and has encouraged them to buy land - as he writes - in order to give a San family the possibility to live their traditional way with the ancient knowledge of the connections between nature and environment.

The World President of the C.I.C Dieter Schramm informed me. That the intention is to buy approx. 1,800 ha. for the Bushmen

According to the latest reports, it may be even possible to acquire an area of 60,000 to 80,000 ha and the Bushmen can also obtain a hunting permit. (Game would come in from the bordering National Park.) There is a planned co-operation between the XCI (Safari Club International) and the conservation International.

It is thought that the Bushmen can guide tourists to hunt and shoot animals, possibly to take photos, too. Also the Bushmen can produce items of daily use and jewellery so that one day, they will be able to buy the land.

They shall be able to buy back what they already once had.

My whole endeavour will be to let the bushmen do whatever they want on their own land. We have to let them decide if their children go to school or hunt. We donīt have the right to dictate regulations to them.

If we leave the Bushmen as they are, then they will leave the land as it is. It will remain a real piece of nature, without trees being felled and without large herds eating the ground barren.

The Bushmen should certainly not be able to sell the land otherwise it may one day belong to some business profiteers.

The Bushmen do not know the meaning of "my" an "yours" in the legal sense.In their everyday language they only really use the word "ours". Perhaps this is the reason why they have kept their way of life over the centuries.

For that reason I founded the association "Project Bushmen".

The Bushmen, also called the San, need our help.

Iīm looking forward to hearing from you.

Carlo von Opel
Chairman Project Bushmen