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12. Cultural heritage and histories of the Northern Namib / Skeleton Coast National Park

Chapter of: Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast: Conservation Histories, Policies and Practices in North-west Namibia(pp. 307–342)

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Title12. Cultural heritage and histories of the Northern Namib / Skeleton Coast National Park
ContributorSian Sullivan(author)
Welhemina Suro Ganuses (author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0402.12
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0402/chapters/10.11647/obp.0402.12
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightSian Sullivan; Welhemina Suro Ganuses
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2024-08-02
Long abstractWe outline Indigenous cultural heritage and histories associated with the Northern Namib desert, designated since 1971 as the Skeleton Coast National Park. We draw on two main sources of information: 1) historical documents stretching back to the late 1800s; and 2) oral history research with now elderly people who have direct and familial memories of using and living in areas now within the Park boundary. This material affirms that localities and resources now included within the Park were used by local people in historical times, their access linked with the availability of valued foods, especially !nara melons (Acanthosicyos horridus) and marine foods such as mussels. Memories about these localities, resources and heritage concerns, including graves of family members, remain lively for some individuals and their families today. We argue for the importance of understanding of the Northern Namib as a remembered cultural landscape, as well as an area of high conservation value. In doing so, protecting and perhaps restoring access to sites with significant contemporary cultural heritage value would be appropriate. Such sites include locations of culturally important foods such as !nara, graves of known ancestors, and named and remembered former dwelling places. We hope that the material shared here will contribute to a diversified recognition of values for the Skeleton Coast National Park, and shape ecological and heritage conservation practice and visitor experiences into the future.
Page rangepp. 307–342
Print length36 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Sian Sullivan

(author)
Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0522-8843
http://www.futurepasts.net/

Sian Sullivan is Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University. She is interested in discourses and practices of difference and exclusion in relation to ecology and conservation. She has carried out long-term research on conservation, colonialism, and culture in Namibia (www.futurepasts.net and www.etosha-kunene-histories.net), and also engages critically with the financialisation of nature (see www.the-natural-capital-myth.net). She has co-edited Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power (2000), Contributions to Law, Philosophy and Ecology: Exploring Re-embodiments (2016), Valuing Development, Environment and Conservation: Creating Values that Matter (2018), and Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis (2021).

Welhemina Suro Ganuses

(author)
https://www.futurepasts.net/

Welhemina Suro Ganuses was born in Sesfontein and has worked as a Khoekhoegowab-English translator and research facilitator for several projects in north-west Namibia, including Future Pasts (www.futurepasts.net) and Etosha-Kunene Histories (www.etosha-kunene-histories.net). She is an administrator for the rhino-monitoring NGO Save the Rhino Trust at the NGO’s field base-camp near Palmwag Lodge in the Palmwag Tourism Concession, Kunene Region, and a Councillor for the Nami-Daman Traditional Authority.

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