For many river-folk like the Bassons, the process of surveying, demarcation and sale of farmland to Whites during the 1920s and 1930s transformed them into ‘tenants’ on a good day and ‘squatters’ on a bad one. These families had to either endure the shifting whims of White farmers regarding their presence or else move to one of the Roman Catholic mission stations, like Homsrivier or Pella. By the end of the Second World War, South Africa’s colonial expansion into Namibia was nearly complete, and the situation switched to one of colonial consolidation. During these years, through the development of apartheid legislation and subsidies for Whites, the SWA Administration sought to stabilise and expand White agriculture in southern Namibia, particularly within the karakul sheep industry. For southern Namibia, apartheid was largely about finding ways to turn grass into meat and skin, and more fundamentally it was about ensuring White control over the lands upon which the sheep grazed. While the preferred meat was mutton and the preferred skins were karakul pelts for the global fur fashion market,1 policies would also favour and support the development of the game-farming and hunting industry.
Eendoorn Farm lies a thirty-minute drive southeast of Warmbad. Today, it is one of the last commercial sheep farms in this area just north of the Orange River, almost surrounded by either mining operations or farms owned by ‘conservation’ businesses. Among the first Afrikaans settlers in Warmbad/Karasburg District was the Pretorius family, who arrived before the First World War. Eendoorn was originally a SATCO farm, surveyed for sale and settlement along with the nearby farms Haakiesdoorn, Homsrivier and Girtis.2 The farm was originally leased to D.J.A. Brand in 1910, who, it appears, returned it to SATCO a few years later, after which point it was sold to the Pretorius family.3 Brand eventually took over the neighbouring farm, Pelgrimsrust. It is hard to imagine
Landscape on Eendoorn Farm during the dry season
PHOTO: B.C. MOORE, 2021
Hendrik Erasmus (Henry) Pretorius sat down at his kitchen table, and his wife brought us some coffee and rusks. ‘This drought is going on too long’, he lamented, ‘but there was some rain up in Ariamsvlei, so we’re hopeful that things will get better soon’. Henry was not always a farmer; he started working on the family farm only once his father had passed away. His brother, Nico, owns Lugeck Farm to the north of Eendoorn. Henry did his schooling in Warmbad during the 1950s and 1960s, staying in the state hostel in town and returning to the farm on the weekends and school holidays. ‘Everyone here was a karakul farmer in those days’, he said. ‘Even farms which weren’t so productive were being put to use because the pelts were so valuable back then. Karakul built everything you see here’.4
By the time Henry finished school, there were few farms left that the government could sell; more or less all were occupied by White settlers. For this reason, the SWA Administration started pushing White farmers to educate their children in more than just agriculture, because there would not be enough farms for the many male children born to Afrikaans families.5 After his military service in Rundu, Henry went to a technikon in South Africa, where he studied to be a teacher, and eventually rose up the ranks of the SWA Administration, taking on teacher training duties during the 1980s. He even spent a year living in a caravan in Ovamboland – the apartheid-era homeland in
Henry grew up at the height of the karakul industry in Namibia (see Figure 24). During the twenty five years after the Second World War, the karakul industry flourished, peaking in 1969, when more than 3.6 million pelts were exported, primarily to West Germany and the United Kingdom. Consumer demand for fur coats among the rising middle class in Europe and North America meant that there was a growing market for karakul pelts from Namibia: between twenty and thirty pelts are required to craft a woman’s fur coat. Although Namibia was not exporting the gross quantity of pelts that the Soviet Union and Afghanistan were sending to the auctions in London and Frankfurt, SWA Persian lambskin pelts (known from 1966 by their trademark name ‘Swakara’) realised higher prices on average.7 This was in part because Swakara production had a reputation of breeding pelts with a less-developed curl pattern, and therefore were on average lighter and easier to work with.
Karakul pelts exported from Namibia, 1924–19906
Karakul pelt stretched on a drying frame, 1949
PHOTO: NAN PHOTO NO. 03693
The jackal-proof fencing was subsidised by twenty five per cent by the SWA Administration, paid for in part by an export levy on the valuable karakul pelts en route to Western Europe. However, in order to claim the subsidies, farmers had to join a soil conservation association, contract an official ecological survey plan for their farm, and – crucially – evict all African tenant farmers resident on the property.9 The SWA Administration sought to rationalise the farming sector in such a way that African-owned livestock was kept only within the so-called ‘native reserves’, effectively ensuring that all the livestock on White farms belonged to Whites alone. This provided new incentives for White farmers to evict families such as the Bassons, who were spread across the farms near the Orange River, including Eendoorn.
The White farmers who lived near major railway and transport corridors especially welcomed these labour policies, because they were able to switch about forty per cent of the workforce from local Nama labour to migrant contract workers from northern Namibia and Angola, who were paid less and did not bring their own livestock.10 Under the new fencing regime, fewer shepherds looked after more sheep, with the average being 500 ewes per shepherd. The long-term infrastructural effects of the karakul boom were the gradual reduction of farm labour in southern Namibia and a shift in the geography of the labour-sending areas. Furthermore, with increased fencing and water infrastructure, farmers had better control over rotational grazing, predator management and monitoring of ewe pregnancies.
New technology improved production within the karakul sector, bringing more and more revenue into the pockets of White farmers. These were not ‘poor-White’ smallholders anymore but rather capitalist fur farmers. With that being said, technology does not remove farms from their ecological context. As Figure 27 makes clear, droughts still happen, and the period from the late 1950s to the early 1960s saw poor rainfall in southern Namibia. Nevertheless, these droughts coincided with large increases in pelt exports. We asked Henry Pretorius to tell us how his family overcame these struggles. He answered in a fairly matter-of-fact manner. ‘The government at the time gave White Warmbad
Shepherd with karakul flocks
PHOTO: KBN ARCHIVES
Pretorius’s story reveals some of the ways in which the apartheid-era system of individual family ownership of fenced, demarcated farm parcels did not really function this way at all. Although technological improvements enabled a degree of rotational grazing, allowing the stocking rate of the farms to increase, variations in rainfall meant that it was still necessary to trek to other locations during droughts.12 This system kept the White farming sector stable,
Selected Namibian rainfall patterns (1951–1976)13
The drought troubles led the SWA Administration to institute a subsidised Veeverminderingskema [Livestock Reduction Scheme] in 1970, which would pay White commercial farmers to voluntarily cut the gross numbers of livestock on their farms by approximately one third. The farmers could then choose instead to upgrade to more valuable stock or more desert-adapted breeds. The scheme was a crucial way in which farmers, supported by the government, sought to make farming more adaptable to drought. Those who participated for the full five year term and reduced their stock numbers by at least one third received an annual cash payment per animal culled/sold. The scheme operated on a sliding scale, such that for the first 600 small stock culled, a farmer earned ZAR
Livestock reduction scheme: Southern districts (1971–1976)14
We must remember, however, that the prices of Swakara pelts on the world market were still strong at this time, and for this reason farmers wanted to grow their participation in the karakul industry. The Karakul Breeders Association
Swakara exhibition at the Keetmanshoop showgrounds, c.1975
PHOTO: KBN ARCHIVES
In 1974, the rains improved across Namibia, such that during 1975–1976 at least 977 participants ceased participation in the Livestock Reduction Scheme across the territory – either voluntarily or because their five year tenure was ending.20 For those in southern Namibia, however, the rainfall gains of 1974–1977 were ephemeral, and by 1978 drought again took hold, stronger than before.21 This caused many farmers to rejoin the Livestock Reduction Scheme, and between 1978 and 1982, the southern districts culled more than half of the cattle and a third of the sheep.22 During the drought, the apartheid government tried to ease the pressures on drought-stricken sheep-farming districts in the south by providing a ZAR 2 subsidy per pelt exported.23 This was in part to offset the additional costs that sheep farmers had to spend on lucerne, and it was also a response to the global decline in pelt prices from the late 1970s, which was causing sheep farmers to increasingly slaughter their ewes for mutton.
In 1982, the SWA Administration hired a team of South African consultants to study the commercial farming sector systematically to identify structural problems and propose possible solutions. With regard to the south of Namibia, the team identified that even after significant progress by the Livestock Reduction Scheme, the average stocking rate in 1982 was still fairly high, yet the desired profits were not attainable. The commission estimated that assuming the karakul pelt price remained at its low rate at the time, fewer than one quarter of Namibian sheep farms would ever reach the levels of profitability they had once attained, even if pastures were fully stocked post-drought and unproductive neighbouring parcels were bought out to increase economies of scale for mutton production.24 The consultants saw the problem not as a crisis
…
Not all farmers in those days were like Henry Pretorius, soldiering on through drought by switching how they farmed. Some saw the writing on the wall and switched what they farmed. While he is perhaps most famous as one of independent Namibia’s first ministers of agriculture, Anton von Wietersheim started his career as a karakul farmer. He grew up on Gras-Süd Farm, in the area near Kalkrand village – about halfway between Karasburg and Windhoek. The farm had come from his mother’s side: the Gusinde family.26 His grandfather, Erich Gusinde, was until his death in 1965 an Honorary Chairman of the Karakul Breeders’ Association and a member of the SWA Executive Committee. The Gusinde stud rams were among the most sought-after breeding stock for karakul farmers in southern Namibia.27 After the death of his father and the completion of his studies, Anton took over the family farm in 1976. He soon noticed that prices for pelts and rams were gradually declining along with the rainfall. Despite inheriting one of the most productive stud farms in the territory, he began to sell karakul, replacing them with dorper sheep intended for mutton production. By 1982, the karakul stud had all been sold off. From the point that he took over the farm, Von Wietersheim pursued a growing new industry: game-farming.
The 1948–1949 SWA Game Protection Commission signalled a dramatic shift away from the ‘MacKenzian Orthodoxy’. Chaired by H.F. Mudge (father of the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance politician, Dirk Mudge), the commission was tasked to investigate the requests by the newly founded and increasingly political Suidwes-Afrika Landbou Unie [Agricultural Union: SWALU], that White commercial farmers receive property rights [eiendomsreg] over the game within their fenced farm boundaries.32 Over the previous few decades, farmers had been considered by government to be poor custodians of wildlife, and that giving them property rights over game would create a country of
However, the Commission agreed with most aspects of the SWALU proposal, and these recommendations were submitted to the SWA Executive Committee in 1949, with nearly all being passed into law with the 1951 Game Protection Ordinance.35 The legislation decreed that ‘any [White] owner or occupier of a farm shall own all game other than protected game while such game is lawfully upon such farm and while such farm is enclosed with a sufficient fence’.36 The legislation eliminated the category of ‘Royal Game’, and game was simply classified as big/small (‘huntable’) game and ‘protected game’, the latter category including species like elephant and rhinoceros. Farmers, potentially, could now shoot ‘huntable’ game throughout the year on their own properties, having to report to the local magistrate only the number of big game killed, and they could hire out hunting rights to others to shoot on their land, for a fee.37 This legislation did not grant property rights over game to Black Namibians, however. The reserves were technically the property of the SWA Administration, and game residing within the reserve boundaries still fell within state custodianship.
It is not a coincidence that this new game legislation coincided with the rise of the karakul pelt industry and the finalisation of the Land Settlement
Although the 1965 Nature Conservation Commission did recognise that farmers sometimes made too heavy use of their property rights over game, it ultimately argued that ‘After all, game eats a farmer’s grazing, drinks his water, tastes his licks and damages his fencing. If game had monetary value, like a cow or a sheep has, then it would automatically result in better protection’.41 For the Commission and the Administration, favourable legislation was the motor to drive profitability. With the passing of the Game Parks, Nature Parks and Private Game Reserves Ordinance of 1958, a number of farmers immediately applied to register their properties (or group of properties) as private nature reserves. There were seventeen in operation by 1965.42 The legislation was re-affirmed in 1967 in slightly modified form, making it clear that (White) farm owners were permitted to hunt game on their farms throughout the year, in any season.43
As the homeland system in Namibia expanded from the late 1960s, so did the budget of the Division of Nature Conservation, and the NTB was eventually merged with the Department of Agriculture. The state viewed nature conservation and agriculture as analogous: both involved grass, meat and skin. The NTB further earned revenue by venturing into the newly created homelands – particularly Damaraland, Kaoko and Caprivi – where their game capture team would (without homeland approval) remove thousands of wild animals for relocation to either national parks or onto private game reserves. This included both ‘huntable game’, like zebra, as well as protected species, like black rhinoceros, which were often sold to private game dealers for ‘tens of thousands of rand’, according to De la Bat.45
…
‘Nagoes started on my farm, Gras-Süd’, said Anton von Wietersheim. ‘It was where they did the first test operations in the 1970s’.46 By the time that Anton took over his family farm, he had a good relationship with NTB and Bernabé de la Bat, and in the face of decreasing karakul pelt prices and decreasing rainfall, the NTB pushed for a fundamentally new relationship between farmers and game, called the night harvests [Nagoes]. Although White farmers themselves already had the right to hunt game for meat, skins, trophies, etc., night harvests were on a completely different scale. The goal was to cull up to one third of the entire game population in a single night. The goal was speed, efficiency and profitability. Selling game meat to Cape Town hotels was profitable (the price
NTB operations in 1980/81. The original caption reads ‘In the biggest single game capturing operation ever launched in southern Africa, 1500 Burchell’s zebra were caught and sold to farmers’.47
Skietspanne [‘shooting teams’] would arrive on the farm during the afternoon, and they would survey sites where they could corral game into corridors
Skietspanne preparing for the night harvest
PHOTO: NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF NAMIBIA
In order to manage the large quantity of game carcasses, a mobile abattoir was constructed on the farm, together with refrigerated trucks. Springbok carcasses need to be eviscerated and bled within thirty minutes, or else bacterial infection from the entrails occurs. Teams would routinely deliver hunted springbok to the abattoir, where the entrails would be rapidly cut out and the abdominal cavity sealed. The carcass would then be hung in the truck until the load was full or the Nagoes was over. The meat would then be shipped by road to Cape Town, 1,000–1,600 kilometres away.
Springbok carcasses delivered to the mobile abattoir
PHOTO: NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF NAMIBIA
Refrigerated truck at a Nagoes operation
PHOTO: NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF NAMIBIA
Von Wietersheim joined SWALU as their ‘Game Farming Chairman’, and he worked with Hartlief Slaughterhouse to open a large-scale game abattoir in Windhoek in 1980, which meant that the carcasses did not necessarily have to travel to Cape Town. The abattoir received European certification the following
The farming economy in apartheid-era Namibia was primarily about grass, meat and skin. Even more fundamentally, it was about maintaining White control over those lands on which grass, meat and skin was produced. In the face of irregular rainfall and drought, as well as fickle prices for karakul pelts, White farmers like the Pretorius family changed how they farmed with sheep, culling unproductive stock and moving animals to reserve grazing far away. But by the late 1970s, it was not that easy to access emergency grazing on African communal lands anymore. As we elaborate upon further in chapter 7, apartheid planners understood that the political climate was changing. Night harvests were a solution for many like Von Wietersheim to reduce grazing pressure by reducing the
For Nama families in the Bondelswarts communal areas and for river-folk like the Bassons, the years between the Second World War and the coming of Namibian independence in 1990 were a period of White consolidation of the countryside. As sheep-farming became more profitable and capital-intensive, the Bassons’ presence as tenants or ‘squatters’ became more precarious. This was further complicated once Whites obtained property rights over game and saw profits rocket with night harvests. Thus, commercial agriculture dominated the economy of the district. The next chapter explores the emergence of mining in the area, revealing other ways in which humans interacted with these mountainous lands near the Orange River.
For more on the history of the karakul industry in Namibia, see B.C. Moore, ‘Land, Labour, and Karakul in Namibia, 1910s–1960s’ (PhD thesis, Michigan State University, 2025). Also see J. Swanepoel, ‘In the Land of the Jackals: Postcolonial Aridity in Southern Namibia’ (PhD thesis, University of the Free State, 2023).
NAN Zentralburo des kaiserlichen Gouvernements (hereafter, ZBU) 1973 File U.V.u.13: ‘General Plan der Farmen der S.A.T. Ltd im Bezirk Keetmanshoop, Deutsch Südwest Afrika’ (undated, likely December 1911).
WDO: ‘Übersicht über die Farmverkäufe und Verpachtungen der Landgesellschaften in Deutsch-Südwestafrika’ (1913).
Hendrik Erasmus Pretorius, interview with Bernard C. Moore (Eendoorn farm, 16 May 2020).
SWA Administration, Report of the Long Term Agricultural Policy Commission (1950), p. 68.
Data from L. Neubert, The Karakul Industry: Policy Options for Independent Namibia (Lusaka, United Nations Institute for Namibia, 1989). B. Bravenboer, Karakul: Gift from the Arid Land, 1907–2007 (Windhoek, Karakul Board of Namibia, 2007).
KBN: Monthly Auction Reports, 1960–69, 1971–74, and Swakara Nuus magazine (Hudson’s Bay & Annings, Ltd, 1973–1980). See Moore, ‘Land, Labour, and Karakul in Namibia’.
Moore, ‘Smuggled Sheep, Smuggled Shepherds’, pp. 116–119.
NAN SWAA 1071 File A.138/25 (v. 2): Soil Conservation Ordinance, 1952.
See Moore, ‘Smuggled Sheep, Smuggled Shepherds’.
Hendrik Erasmus Pretorius, interview with Bernard C. Moore (Eendoorn farm, 16 May 2020).
This included the Namib Desert Sperrgebiet, as well as the Bondelswarts Reserve after 1972. See NAN Archives of the Division of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure (hereafter, LKG) 56 File 9/24/1/2: Landdros, Lüderitz to Hoof, Departement van Landboukrediet en Grondbesit ‘Aansoek: Noodweiding op Staatsgrond’ – 22 May 1972.
Data from NAN Amptelike Publikasies (hereafter, AP) 4/1/11: Departement van Vervoer: Weerburo Verslag vir die Jaar 1951; Jaarverslag 1952; Jaarverslag 1953; Jaarverslag 1954. NAN AP 4/1/12: Weerkundige Jaarverslag 1955. NAN AP 4/4/3/1: Weerkundige Jaarverslag 1954; Jaarverslag 1958; Jaarverslag 1970. NAN AP 4/4/3/3: Weerkundige Jaarverslag 1962; Jaarverslag 1975; Jaarverslag 1976. NAN AP 4/4/3/2: Weerkundige Jaarverslag 1971; Jaarverslag 1972; Jaarverslag 1973; Jaarverslag 1974. Georg O.J. Schmid (ed.) S.W.A. Handboek (Windhoek, South West Agency Co., 1969). H-M. Schindler (ed.) S.W.A. Handboek (Windhoek, South West Agency Co., 1972).
Data from: NAN Archives of the SWA Agricultural Branch (hereafter, AGR) 533–535 File 68/6/30 (vols. 2–8): Landbou-Tegniese-Diens, SWA: ‘Besonderhede van Deelnemers aan Veeverminderingskema’ (1971–1976). Southern districts include Keetmanshoop, Maltahöhe, Lüderitz, Bethanie and Karasburg/Warmbad. Only about half of the participating farmers reduced their stock fully by one-third. Most, however, still made significant reductions.
NAN Archives of the Land and Agricultural Bank (hereafter, LAB) 17 File WM.70: Streeksveldbeampte, Landbou-Tegniese-Dienste, SWA ‘Opsomming van Veeverminderingskema soos van Toepassing in Suidwes-Africa’ (undated, likely April 1970).
NAN LAB 17 File WM.70: Land-en Landboubank van Suid-Afrika, ‘SWA Deelnemers van die Veeverminderingskema’ (1 January – 30 September 1971). NAN LAB 17 File WM.70: ‘Deelnemers aan Veeverminderingskema soos op 20 February 1974’.
Results published in Archives of the Karakul Board of Namibia (hereafter, KBN): P.H. Hugo, ‘Follikulêre Ondersoek na die Verskillende Patroonvormende Eienskappe van Karakoellammers’ (MSc thesis, University of the Free State, 1982), pp. 42–46.
KBN: P.J. le Roux, ‘Oestrus synchronisation in karakul ewes’ (DSc thesis, University of Pretoria, 1974).
R.G. Niemöller Private Archive, Pofadder (hereafter, GNPA): L. Mundell, ‘Carry on Kraaling’, Farmer’s Weekly (25 July 1973). KBN: A.J.A. van Niekerk, “n Studie van Teeltprobleme by Karakoelskape met Spesiale Verwysing na die Niemöllerkudde’ (DSc thesis, University of the Free State, 1972), pp. 142–146.
NAN AGR 535 File 68/6/30 (vol. 8): Direkteur van Bodembeskerming, Windhoek to Sekretaris, Landbou-Tegniese-Dienste, Windhoek ‘Veeverminderingskema’ – 29 December 1975.
Warmbad received 165 mm and 242 mm in 1974 and 1976, respectively; in 1980 and 1981, it recorded only 70 mm and 69 mm. Data courtesy of Namibia Meteorological Service, Windhoek.
Erfdeel Argief en Kultuursentrum, Windhoek (hereafter, EAKS), JWF Pretorius Versameling: S.A. Farm Consultants (Pty) Ltd, Proposals for the Restoration of Profitability in of Farming in SWA/Namibia (1983), p. 109.
Ibid, p. 17.
Ibid, p. 139.
Ibid, p. 45.
Anton von Wietersheim, interview with Bernard C. Moore (Swakopmund, 26 October 2020).
KBN: ‘Erich Gusinde [Obituary]’, in Karakulzuchtverein von Südwestafrika: Jahrbuch 1966, p. 8.
See, J.M. MacKenzie, The Empire of Nature, and L. van Sittert, ‘Bringing in the Wild’.
NAN ADM 11 File 40/2: Translation of Game Law: German South West Africa (1 March 1909).
NAN ADM 11 File A.40/15: Secretary for the Protectorate to Acting Secretary, Transvaal Game Protection Association – 9 December 1915.
Inter alia, Royal Game includes elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe; Big Game includes kudu, wildebeest, gemsbok; Small Game includes springbok, warthog, steenbok. NAN SWAA 1345 File A.205–3: Game Preservation Proclamation, 1921.
NAN AP 5/7/4: Verslag van die Suidwes-Afrika Wildbeskermingskommissie, 1948.
NAN SWAA 1347 File A.205/1 (vol. 6): ‘A Neglected Asset of SWA’, translated article from Allgemeine Zeitung – 6 February 1926.
[‘Eiendomsreg kan nie voortdurend oorgedra word na gelang van die kant van ‘n heining waar die wild sig bevind’]
Italics ours. Basler Afrika Bibliographien Archives (hereafter, BAB) Personenarchiv: Hubertus Graf zu Castell-Rüdenhausen (hereafter, PA.24) File VI.A.1: Ordonnansie op Wildbeskerming, 1951.
Ibid, sec. 6(6). A sufficient fence is deemed to be a four strand galvanised-wire cattle fence or a superior variety, such as jackal-proof. Concerning the legal concept of ‘sufficient fence’ and ‘superior fence’, see NAN SWAA 2206 File A.486/1 (vol. 2): Attorney-General, Windhoek to Secretary for SWA ‘Fencing Proclamation, 1921: Jackal-Proof Fencing’ – 20 April 1954.
BAB PA.24 VI.A.1: Ordonnansie op Wildbeskerming, 1951, sec. 8(2).
See Moore, ‘Land, Labour, and Karakul in Namibia’.
NAN BB/0042: Verslag van die Kommissie van Ondersoek na Natuurbewaringsaangeleenthede in SWA (1965), p. 6.
One study saw decreases in kudu (by 16.1%), springbok (18.4%), gemsbok (9.2%), red hartebeest (31.3%) and zebra (17.7%). See NAN Archives of the Division of Nature Conservation (hereafter, NTB) 1/8 File N.13/2 (v. 2): J.S. van der Spuy, ‘Die Huidige Status van Koedoe, Gemsbok, Springbok, Eland, Rooihartbees, Bergsebra en Volstruis op Plaasgebied in Suidwes-Afrika’ – February 1961.
[‘Wild vreet immers ‘n boer se weiding, suip sy water, vreet sy lekke en beskadig sy heinings. As wild ‘n geldwaarde, soos ‘n bees of ‘n skaap het, behoort beter beskerming outomaties te volg’]. NAN BB/0042: Verslag van die Kommissie van Ondersoek na Natuurbewaringsaangeleenthede in SWA (1965), p. 17.
Ibid, p. 42.
BAB PA.24 VI.A.1: Nature Conservation Ordinance, 1967.
NAN Archives of the SWA Administrator General (hereafter, ADG) 2/4: Bernabé de la Bat, ‘An uneasy marriage’ African Wildlife (vol. 27, likely 1979).
NAN ADG 2/4: Direkteur, Natuurbewaring en Toerisme ‘Memorandum: Toedeling van die Regeringsfunksies ten opsigte van Natuurbewaring en Toerisme aan die Gesagowerhede op die Eerste en Tweede Regeringsvlakke’ – 15 February 1980: Bylae A, p. 12.
Anton von Wietersheim, interview with Bernard C. Moore (Swakopmund, 26 October 2020).
NAN JX/0012: B.J.B. de la Bat, ‘Etosha: 75 Years’, SWA Annual (1982), p. 21. See also NLN TXX 0742: Departement van Landbou, Bosbou en Natuurbewaring: Jaarverslag, 1980, Bylae D, p. 2.
This is a very reassuring rate when the net profit per slaughter sheep had declined to less than ZAR 9 each. After the skietspanne costs (ZAR 10 per springbok), butcher costs (ZAR 3 per springbok) and transport costs (ZAR 0.10 per kg to Cape Town) were taken into account, the profit for the farmer per springbok was about triple that of sheep. The profit was higher for kudu as well. E. Joubert, P.A.J. Brand and G.P. Visagie, ‘An appraisal of the utilisation of game on private land in South West Africa’, Madoqua: Tydskif vir Natuurbewarings – en Woestynnavorsing in SWA, 13, 3 (1983), p. 205.
Ibid, p. 206.
Anton von Wietersheim, interview with Bernard C. Moore (Swakopmund, 26 October 2020).
Data from: NLN TXX 0742: Dept. van Landbou, Bosbou and NTB: Jaarverslag, 1980. NLN TXX 0742: Dept. van Landbou and NTB: Jaarverslag, 1981. NLN TXX 0742: Dept. van Landbou 7 NTB: Jaarverslag, 1982. NLN TXX 0742: Dept. van Landbou, NTB en Veeartsenydiens: Jaarverslag, 1983. NLN TXX 0742: Dept. of Agriculture and Nature Conservation: Annual Report, 1985. Note that the 1984 Annual Report held no data about night harvests.
[‘In der Kombination von ökonomischer Wildnutzung und der Entwicklung von Liebe und Verantwortung durch den einzelnen Farmer, Jäger und Einwohner Südwestafrikas’] A. von Wietersheim, ‘Im Jagdrevier zwischen Kalahari und Namib (1984)’, in Vom Schutzgebiet bis Namibia 2000 (Windhoek, 2000), p. 404.
Berndt Rothkegel, interview with Bernard C. Moore (Windhoek, 23 June 2020).
The post-1978 files from the Division of Nature Conservation within the Administration for Whites have not yet been catalogued by the National Archives of Namibia, so we cannot yet disambiguate precisely which farms took part in Nagoes operations. Von Wietersheim remembers, however, that the farms in the area around Warmbad and Ariamsvlei participated, even though springbok numbers were a bit lower than farther north. He personally attended, as a member of a skietspan, one operation on Heirachabis farm, a portion of which was leased to a karakul stud-breeder.
Walter Theile, interview with Bernard C. Moore (Namtib farm, Lüderitz District, 25 September 2020).