History
For 18 years, I had my base in the Khomas Hochland, a cosy rented home and art studio 10 kilometres west of Daan Viljoen. I walked inexhaustibly across this rugged country and saw the farmers struggle with erratic rain and limited groundwater, and the impacts of livestock-killing leopards and cheetahs. I experienced the joys of abundant wildlife in magical landscapes, and wondered why not more of this realm is protected and accessible as a nature park.
Of all Namibian biomes, acacia tree-and-shrub savannah is afforded the least coverage by state parks. Within this biome, the highland shrubland vegetation zone in the centre of the country is basically unprotected by the state. The Khomas Hochland is utilised mostly for a mix of commercial livestock farming, tourism and conservation hunting. Daan Viljoen was created by chance and political ignominy and now formally protects a tiny patch of it as a national park.
In the course of German colonial rule, all land around Windhoek had been surveyed as freehold farmland by 1911. During the disarray of World War I, local stock farmers re-established a pastoral settlement on surveyed farms west of the capital. The South African administration turned this into the ‘Aukeigas Damara Reserve’ in the 1920s and later forcibly moved many Windhoek residents there. The reserve was closed in 1945-’46 and its residents were relocated again.
Legend has it that some businessmen and government officials colluded to divide the vacated land amongst themselves. A public uproar apparently ensued and a game park was proposed. When the park was proclaimed, it consisted of only two sections of Aukeigas. The rest remained in private hands.
Windhoek is the geographic, economic and social heart of the country. Its attractive cluster of springs in a crescent of mountains was named by Kaptein Jonker Afrikaner, who made this his base in 1842 after moving here as part of the Oorlam migration from the Cape. San and Damara hunter-gatherers are the earliest documented inhabitants of the area, yet human use of these highlands goes back thousands of years, confirmed by rock paintings and other archaeological discoveries, including a 3,000-year-old human skeleton. Today, Windhoek stretches across the background of most Daan Viljoen vistas, turning into a sea of lights at night. The proximity to the city makes the park a great getaway.
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