08 Sep 2013

The Department of National Museum Monuments and Art Gallary and Botswana Tourism Organisation are working round the clock to finalise logistics on how construction of lodges at Tsodilo Hills can be operated.

The National Museum's principal curator, Gertrude Matswiri revealed when briefing the media about the Tsodilo World Heritage Site and its benefits and opportunities brought by World Heritage status.

She said it was the intention of the museum to construct some more campsites and lodges in future as the site had become the focus of tourism and economic development as well as improved livelihoods for the people. 

She said there were a lot of activities going on at the site and that listing had brought in infrastructure development for the site and that had created jobs, as 13 people were employed full time, 11 of which were locals.

Matswiri said four more people were to be employed on one year renewable contracts as custodians noting that casual jobs were also created every year to maintain fire break for the site, the fence and trails within the site. She said the site had also developed new partnerships and project, citing Botswana, South Africa, Mexico, Mozambique Rock Art Collaboration project.

She explained that tourism created jobs for the local people, created opportunities for revenue or income generating activities for the local people; crafts, guiding, operating of camp sites and lodges.

Regarding Tsodilo Community Initiative Project, Matswiri observed that it has improved the livelihoods of local people through provision of water for people as two boreholes had been drilled and provided standpipes in the village. 

Another benefit is the establishment of a Craft Centre for the craft makers to sell their crafts. The project also assisted in the construction of two camp sites which started operation in June 2013.

Matswiri said from the beginning of June to the end of August this year, the trust managed to generate over P100 000 from camping and entrance fees.

She said currently beside subsistence livelihoods that the local people rely on; the only form of employment is through the World Heritage Site. Other livelihood improvement activities also came as a result of the Community Initiative Project.

Tsodilo Hills World Heritage Cultural Landscape is located in the northwest corner of Botswana and it was declared National Monument in 1927 and a World Heritage Site in December2001. The significance of the site is its cultural site of outstanding universal value.

The hills are an impressive natural quartsite structures that rise majestically from ancient sand dunes to the east and a dry fossil lake to the west, resulting in them being called inselbergs. 

With one of the highest concentrations of rock art in the World, Tsodilo has been called the ‘’Louvre of the Desert’’. Over 4,500 paintings are preserved in an area of only 10 square kilometers of the Kalahari Desert.  The archaeological record of the area gives a chronological account of human activities and environmental changes over at least 100,000 years.

Local communities in this hostile environment respect Tsodilo as a place of worship frequented by ancestral spirits. Ends