History
When Crispin Chizabulyo started as one of the first eight government game guards in East Caprivi in 1973, conservation wasn’t a familiar concept. People believed that God would always provide. But the wildlife disappeared, poached to remnant herds or local extinction. Yet conservation gained a hold, and the game returned. Retired since 2005, Crispin revisited Nkasa in 2017 to see the fruits of his work.
During the colonial period of German South West Africa, the Caprivi was largely ignored. The first German outpost was established here only 25 years after the proclamation of the colony – at Schuckmannsburg, considered a strategic location at the time. After World War I, the South African administration paid similarly scant attention to the remote tract. A ‘Native Commissioner’ was posted at Katima Mulilo, but little development took place.
Enforcement of conservation laws fell under the police, yet was generally haphazard. The first official conservation unit in Caprivi was created by the Department of Nature Conservation in 1973, consisting of eight local game guards under the supervision of a South African official. The initial work of the game guards mostly entailed community outreach and anti-poaching patrols.
In 1974, South Africa installed a massive military presence in Caprivi to ward off threats to its rule over the Namibian territory, causing rapid changes to the area and impacting heavily on its wildlife. By the time Mudumu and Mamili (now Nkasa Rupara) were proclaimed in 1990, populations of most large game had been decimated. The initial years after independence were no better for the region’s wild animals. Having been disenfranchised from all natural resources for decades, local communities had no incentives to conserve the remnants of once-abundant game.
It took years of liaison by NGOs and government conservation staff to build trust amongst the people and thus establish a basis for community conservation. The first conservancy was registered at Salambala along the Chobe River in 1998. Wuparo Conservancy, along the northern border of Nkasa Rupara, followed in 1999, with more conservancies around Mudumu and along the Kwando registered later.
The park is named after two broad areas of raised ground in the Kwando Delta, which become islands at the height of flooding. Nkasa Island is located in the south, and Rupara in the north-east. The origin and meaning of the words nkasa and rupara (also spelled lupala) are unclear.
The first park name, Mamili, originated as a title bestowed on a local chief under the dominion of the BaLozi King. The title was later used as a name by local chiefs after the end of BaLozi rule. The park was named after a Chief Mamili, but later renamed.
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