Dorob national park

The coast is Namibia’s economic engine. The most extensive and economically-important mining is done here. Marine fisheries generates significant local employment and export earnings. Tourism is a fast growing and vital sector, and the coast is one of its key focal points. And the central seaboard has always been Namibia’s coastal playground, where people come to fish, and to play on the beach and in the dunes and on the plains with all manner of crafts, basically without rules. Now it is a regulated national park. Namibia’s most unusual park; a visionary park.

It stretches along the 200 most used kilometres of coastline. It embraces several holiday settlements and three towns, two of which are large for Namibian standards (although the municipal areas are technically excluded from the park). It also seeks to balance all manner of potentially destructive activities from mining to quad biking with the conservation of a very fragile environment.

Dorob’s riches are stunningly diverse. They include some of the most important coastal bird areas on Earth. The dune belt is a showcase of ‘the living desert’. The landscapes of the Messum Crater and Rössing Mountain are breathtaking. The park protects extremely sensitive biodiversity, such as lichen fields, nesting sites for ground-breeding birds, and fragile desert flora. With enough awareness and responsible behaviour, such varied facets can be united.