Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape

/ A South African World Heritage Site
Northern Cape Tourist Attractions

Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape

Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape
Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape

Recently inscribed as one of the eight South African World Heritage Sites, the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape is a remarkable mountainous desert in the north-west of the country that is uniquely owned and managed by the Nama community, descendents of the Khoi-Khoi people. It is a land of extreme temperatures characterised by a harsh, dry landscape.

What is exceptional, both in South African and international terms, is that the community that runs the landscape has chosen to dedicate it to conservation. Up until recently the Nama had little to show for themselves. Their ancestors were pushed further and further north of the Western and Northern Cape - their land of origin - until only a few years ago when the Richtersveld area was returned to their ownership under the country’s land restitution programme.

The Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape is bordered by a number of areas, ensuring its further protection. These include the Richtersveld National Park, the Nababiep Provincial Nature Reserve, and designated communal grazing areas that allow the Nama to continue their semi-nomadic pastoral lifestyle.

Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape
Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape
Today the Nama people live in three small villages - Kuboes, Lekkersing and Eksteenfontein - just outside of the proclaimed area. The endangered Karoo vegetation, characterised by succulents, is protected by the seasonal migratory behaviour of the Nama, who move between stock-posts with traditional demountable mat-roofed houses called haru oms - a practice which has endured for about two millennia. The spacious communal grazed lands are a living example of a partnership between people and nature.

Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape

Accommodation nearby

For accommodation nearby, see Vioolsdrift Accommodation or Springbok Accommodation (a little further away, on the N7). To view all accommodation in this region at once, see Namakwa Accommodation.

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Attractions / Activities nearby

Richtersveld National Park

The Richtersveld is a unique mountain desert wilderness of great beauty, tucked in the far north-western corner of the Northern Cape in South Africa. Within this wilderness lies the incredible Richtersveld National Park. Proclaimed in 1991 after 18 years of negotiation between the National Park Board and the local ... more information

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