In the final part of their Botswana blog with video, Survival supporters Joseph and Daniel leave Kaudwane resettlement camp and head for Gugamma and Mothomelo in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Both places used to be thriving communities before the Bushmen were evicted by the Botswana government in 2002. Read part one and part two of the diaries.

We have packed our tent and equipment and are ready to drive into the CKGR. I think we are both excited and a little anxious about the trip.

We’ve offered to help our new acquaintance, Nama, by transporting some goods to his family inside the game reserve. He packs a big bag of melons and two bags of mealie meal (cornmeal), a staple food over here.

If we have time, we would like to see where their homes were inside the CKGR before the government evicted them and cut off their water supply in 2002.

So off we go into CKGR. The road is good to begin with, but it quickly becomes sandier and the tracks become deeper.

I’ve just turned on the four-wheel drive and the car is swiftly moving along. The driving feels quite similar to riding a horse.

Every now and then the sand becomes so deep that I have to keep reminding myself: just keep driving. The car floats like a snowboard through the sand.

Remains of Gugamma

After a few hours we suddenly see a number of homes fenced by densely packed branches. We have reached Gugamma! I’m feeling sweaty but happy to have made it.

Nama’s mother is not the only family member living in Gugamma. His brother and sisters are there, too. They are surprised to see us.

Before it becomes too dark we ask Nama whether any of his ancestors are buried nearby. He says yes and would like to show us. We walk through the grass away from the camp.

Nama takes us to see the place where his father and relatives are buried. He walks in silence and pauses when we arrive at the place to look first downwards, and then skywards, saying that this land is sacred because it is the land of his ancestors.

I’m looking forward to sleeping but the car proves everything but a nice bed. I’m glad when the sun rises, but my back feels sore. The plan was to drive for 8 hours today. After breakfast we leave to drive to Mothomelo, another village.

The road is the same as yesterday: endless turns and bumps keep us awake. Our friends are in a good mood, and we are in a good mood. It is a challenge but a really good one to drive a car through this terrain.

Eviction site

We have been driving for almost two hours when one of our friends suddenly says that we are there.

We look around, it is a small open area and we recognize the cement square in the ground. That used to be the water tank.

Now it has been taken by the government, making it excruciatingly difficult for the Bushmen to be able to survive in the Kalahari without a dependable source of water.

Our friends look around. After some encouragement one of them tells how it used to be to live here. He talks quietly. His story is moving. His world disappeared and it seems hard to bring it back.

We drive back from Mothomelo in a depressed mood. It is hard to be confronted with a vanished world.

It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like for Nama to see the place where he once lived, where he used to go for water, meet his friends, and now he finds this empty, silent space.

All across Southern Africa, and in fact all over the world, people have been forcefully removed from their homes and their lands, to make room for nature parks and mining and other industries.

The Botswana government is determined to see through the full and final removal of the Bushmen from their traditional homes.

The government has just approved a mine by Gem Diamonds as long as the company denies the Bushmen use of water sources they build there.

The pressure on the government must continue. Please write a letter in aid of the Bushmen.

Last week we reported on Anglo-French oil company Perenco’s plans to invade the lands of uncontacted tribes in Peru.

Spotted on their website:

“Social outreach is an integral part of Perenco’s approach to conducting business. Wherever we operate, every effort is made to improve quality of life while preserving traditional culture and values…”

Perenco’s methods of ‘preserving traditional culture and values’ have so far included briefing its workers on how to behave when encountering uncontacted tribes. Exploration teams were told to shout, through megaphones, ‘We haven’t come here to look for women, we have our own women in our own village’.

Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of corporate social responsibliity, where words are all it takes to fulfil voluntary codes of practice.

A Khanty boy wrapped up against the cold. © Sophie Grig/Survival

Living in temperatures reaching -50ºC, the Khanty of Russia have always successfully depended on reindeer for their food and livelihood.

But their well-adapted lifestyle and culture has been continually rocked by outsiders. Oil companies have wrecked many Khanty areas, killing reindeer and forcing them off their land.

Yeremai Aipin, Khanty poet and writer, wrote of Survival’s campaign for the Khanty: ‘Survival’s campaign certainly had a great influence on Lukoil. Now Lukoil’s attitude toward tribal people has become more correct and respectful. In the Agan River area, oil companies have became more sensitive to the environment, and are not as brutal as they were a few years ago. I am grateful to Survival for your help.’

But due to Russian government policy, the Khanty still have less legal protection than they once had. Survival is calling on Russia to respect their land rights, and on the oil companies to stop drilling on the Khanty’s land without permission.