Em 1890, Count George Leo Caprivi de Caprera de Montecuccoli, um soldado alemão e homem de Estado, negociou um tratado de fronteira com a Grã-Bretanha, o qual resultou em um corredor do noroeste da África do Sudoeste, até a junção dos rios Chobe e Zambezi.
A proposta para esta fronteira incomum foi promover uma saída para o comércio alemão de minerais. A faixa de 20 milhas de largura entre os rios Okavango e Cuando. Seu ponto mais largo, ao longo do rio Cuando, é de 60 milhas de largura. Seu comprimento é de cerca de 280 milhas. Como mostra o selo abaixo:
Emitido em 1986, pela ex-África do Sudoeste (atual Namíbia), o selo mostra a região de Caprivi, localizada entre as fronteiras de 4 países (Botsuana, Namíbia, Zâmbia e Zimbábue) e também o Delta do Okavango, em Botsuana.
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Portão Ngoma – Caprivi
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Abaixo, mini-folhinha de 10 selos com valor facial de 60 centavos cada um, emitido em 26/09/1998, que mostra a fauna de Caprivi - feito pela artista Mary Jane Volkmann.
This sheetlet of stamps features the nature, animal and plant life of the Caprivi area of Namibia. The Fish Eagle stamp on this sheet was entered with three other Namibian stamps for the 1999 Stamp World Cup competition in France. These Namibian stamps were awarded a first prize in the geographical zone category for the most beautiful stamps in Africa and the Middle East, as well as a third prize overall for the most beautiful stamps in the World Prize category. The Fish Eagle stamp was also voted the most popular Namibian stamp for the year 1998.
Os selos mostram (da esquerda para à direita): Carmine Bee Eater (Merops apiaster), Antílope Sable (Hippotragus niger), Lechwe (Kobus leche), Woodland waterberry (Syzygium guineense subasp), Nile Monitor (Varanus niloticus), African Jacana (Actophilornis africanus), African Fish Eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer), Woodland Kingfisher (Halcyon senegalensis), Nile Crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) e Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis).
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Reserva Mahango
Localizado no Nordeste da Namíbia, na fronteira com Botsuana, dividido da Reserva de Caprivi pelo rio Okavango, cobrindo uma área com cerca de 30 mil hectares. Embora pequena é uma bela reserva, onde se encontra uma grande variedade de vida selvagem...
WildNet Africa News – "Craft and hippos are our diamonds now" (28/04/1999)
Twenty years ago the Caprivi was Namibia's richest wildlife area. Apart from elefante, rinoceronte, hipopótamo, crocodilo, cachorro selvagem, leão, leopardo, guepardo e outros predadores, it was also the habitat for 22 espécies de mamíferos herbívoros, incluindo girafa, elande, roan, sable, búfalo, gnu azul, impala e kudu.
Today numbers of all these species have decreased while some have disappeared altogether, mostly due to uncontrolled hunting and the loss of habitat. The black rhino, for instance, is now extinct in the Caprivi, while giraffe and wildebeest are no longer found in eastern Caprivi.
In the past, wildlife played an important role in indigenous African people's cultural heritage since both wild animals and plants made significant contributions to their traditional economies. This changed during the colonial era when elitist and protectionist nature conservation policies resulted in the alienation of African people from wildlife, while also creating hostility to conservation authorities.
Modern education and values, which until recently did not recognise wild animals as a valuable economic resource, also contributed to the general belief that wildlife conservation was in opposition to rural development in communal areas. In spite of this, wildlife based enterprises have become major generators of foreign exchange by annually attracting large numbers of tourists wishing to hunt big game or simply to see wild animals in their natural habitats. Because of past discriminatory legislation the rural people who live with the wild animals on communal land have received little benefit from the booming tourism industry. A Namibian non-governmental organisation, Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation, was launched in the late 1980's, first in the Kunene region and later in Caprivi with the specific aim of changing the status quo to the benefit of rural communities.
Run by nature conservationists Garth Owen-Smith and Dr Margie Jacobsohn, it aims to link conservation and the sustainable use of wildlife to the social and economic development of rural communities in Namibia. A multi-partnered approach, involving NGOs, government, traditional leaders, communities and international donors, has resulted under the Community Based Natural Resource Management banner. The donors include the US Aid for International Development, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and the Namibia Community-Based Tourism Association. A turning point came in June 1996 when the Namibian government promulgated a new conservation policy, so that communities could benefit financially from wildlife through trophy hunting, the sale of live game, harvesting quotas and from tourism concessions.
To implement these conditions, communities have to form conservancies which must be registered with the government. Since the legislation was passed, four conservancies have been established in Namibia, of which one, Salambala Conservancy is situated in Caprivi. Twenty-one other conservancies are currently being established, including five more in the Caprivi, a tiny strip of land in the northern tip of Namibia bordered by Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola. Central to their idea of conservancies is the realisation and importance of natural resources and wildlife conservation for the communities' benefit. Since its implementation, communities have come up with some novel ideas how they can benefit from wildlife.
An example is the establishment of "traditional villages", where the traditional lifestyle and environment is recreated in a village to benefit from tourism. The first one was established at Lizauli in 1994 and since then hundreds of tourists have passed through to catch a glimpse of the rapidly fading Caprivian and African heritage. In the village one encounters the induna's house, ornated by wooden fish traps, hunting knives and bows and arrows; and musical instruments such as mouth organs, thumb pianos and hollow drums, which, when rubbed inside, imitate the sound of a hippo's call. According to tradition, this was a valuable tool to catch hippos.
Other attractions include the grainstore, a huge, cumbersome cat-trap (for wild cats which caught the chickens); the "running mad" ceremony - where villagers traditionally played drums throughout the night to chase away evil spirits and cure mentally disturbed members of the community; and a riveting performance by the medicine man. To implement the aims of the programme, community resource monitors and community game guards have been appointed who, although working in different areas, complement each other. The resource monitors are mostly women who form craft groups and assist local craft-makers by creating markets. The Mashi Craft Centre was recently inaugurated in the proposed Kwandu Conservancy and currently there are 11 active craft groups assisting more than 100 producers.
Also, the more than 100 community game guards in the Kunene and Caprivi regions realise the importance of their work - by combating poaching, craft centres and the community will benefit from increased tourism. Game guards have also benefited from a remarkable invention, the "cybertracker", which brings the age-old art of tracking right into the cyber-age. The cybertracker was originally developed for use by illiterate trackers to gather wildlife data, such as the occurrence, frequency and species of wild animals. The data can be viewed immediately once the information has been downloaded, which has speeded up the process of data collection immeasurably.
Conservancy groups have also been assisted to enter into agreement with private companies and establish tourism facilities within the conservancy boundaries. As if to underline the growing realisation of the great benefits of wildlife conservation, the chairperson of the Mayni Conservancy, Bernard Munembo, notes "Through the Kubunyana (a joint venture between an investor and a conservancy) campsite, money is starting to flow into the community - the hippos are our diamonds now."
By Helge Schutz. Courtesy of The Star.
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Última atualização: 17/06/2008. |
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