Bushmanland

Bushmanland (Boesmanland in Afrikaans) is a name applied to two different territories; one in Namibia and one in South Africa. Though they have points of resemblance, they do not adjoin. One of the territories called Bushmanland was a bantustan in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), intended by the apartheid government to be a self-governing homeland for the ethnic San (or Bushmen). Despite this, a government was not established in the region.

The Namibian Bushmanland, like other homelands in South West Africa, was abolished in May 1989 at the start of the transition to independence.

The South African Bushmanland is an arid area inland from Namaqualand. It is probably the most inhospitable area in South Africa, arid and largely with infertile soil and highly saline groundwater. Its wildlife however, both fauna and flora, though sparse, are full of interest. Although the veld is too arid to bloom like that of the Wast Coast of Namaqualand, even when there is some spring rain, what does appear is highly unusual and often hauntingly beautiful. Vaalputs, a Nuclear waste repository, has been sited between Bushmanland and Namaqualand, and acts as a de facto nature reserve.

See also

• Apartheid