San Heritage Day in West Hanahai

The High Commission partnered with Conservation International to promote long term sustainability of the Western Kalahari Conservation Corridorby way of improved environmental awareness and quality of the life local communities in the WKCC region.

The vision of the project is to conserve the bio-diversity and integrity of the WKCC ecosystem. This would be achieved by:
• Maintaining ecological corridors between the Central Kgalagadi Game reserve (CKGR), and the Kgalagadi Trans-frontier Park (KTP)
• Improving the quality of life of the local communities in these intermediate areas by promoting sustainable use of renewable natural resources.

The entire project region is arid Kalahari Desert, with sparsely distributed resources (Water and Food) which shift according to erratic rainfall patterns. Historically, the region functioned as one large ecosystem, wherein large ungulates such as eland, gemsbok, hartebeest and huge herds of cattle wildebeest and springbok, could move freely throughout the region to track and use these resources wherever available. Conflicting land use has fragmented this ecosystem resulting in massive cumulative die offs of wildlife because they can no longer move across the region to core seasonal habitat areas. This severe disruption of the ecosystems' functioning also impacts on human livelihoods, in particular the Basarwa, who have as an indirect result been settled into villages with no access to jobs and historic resources and have experienced a breakdown in their cultural values.
The proposed wildlife corridors aim to rehabilitate this dysfunctional ecosystem and assist in reducing poverty among the Basarwa through identifying and developing sustainable livelihoods and capacity building. The corridors will also assist in providing a buffer to climate change, by enabling wildlife to forage more widely between the two protected areas and by providing economic opportunities, which will support the impoverished communities.