A glance at South Africa’s Richtersveld Park

‘THAT is what they call the halfmens tree,’ said one of our journalist colleagues as we all pointed our cameras to the tree from our open-sided vehicle of South African National Parks (Sanparks).

I was amongst a group of journalists from various media houses in Namibia who covered the official launch of the new Fish River Canyon Viewpoint and the Orange River Festival last week in the Ai-Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, a cross-border park between Namibia and South Africa. Visiting South Africa’s Richtersveld National Park, tucked into the far northwestern corner of the Northern Cape, was a celebration of this good initiative between the two SADC countries.After Nick de Goede of Sanparks briefed us that the park is jointly run by the Richterveld’s Nama community and Sanparks, we jumped into the vehicles to tour the 162 445-hectare park – accessible only by 4 X4 vehicles.Sanparks field ranger Freddie Carstens, who was also our driver, first took us to some ancient rock paintings, located just a few feet from the park’s reception.Hundreds of plant species we saw included the desert roses, hoodia, bottle trees, quiver trees and halfmens trees – a tall succulent plant that bears an uncanny resemblance to the human form when seen outlined against the sky.About 650 plant species have been recorded in the park and the Nama people who live in the park have specific uses for 150 of these species – ranging from medicinal and cosmetic to nutritional.Although we did not see any wild animal, the park’s website says Richtersveld National Park is a home to grey reebok, duiker, steenbok, klipspringer, kudu, zebra, baboon, vervet monkey, caracal and leopard. For campers, there is the Potjies Campsite in the park.Proclaimed in 1991 after 18 years of negotiations between the National Park Board and the local Nama people, the park is managed jointly by the Nama people and Sanparks.The Nama people, who lease the land to the board, continue to live and graze their livestock in the park. When we arrived at her temporary dwelling in the park, Sussana Domrugh, a Nama woman, was excited to find that our group included people who speak her language and she and New Era’s Irene !Hoaes had a chat in the Nama language.’Life is good, living the park. Except for some jackals that eat up our goats,’ she said.

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