Towards Soft Boundaries: International cross-border tourism development in SA’s arid areas
Abstract
Atkinson, D (2007a), Towards Soft Boundaries: International cross-border tourism development in Southern Africa’s arid areas, Arid Areas Programme unpublished report.
Introduction
In the central hinterland of South Africa, Botswana and Namibia lies a vast arid area. This area is known as the Karoo (in the south-central parts), Namaqualand in the west, Richtersveld and Namib in the north-west, and Gordonia, Bushmanland,Griqualand, and the Kalahari in the north. For the purposes of this paper, we will refer to these areas as the “Nama Karoo”, which is the ecological name for the area consisting primarily of small desert shrubs and grasses. “Karoo” is an ancient Bushman word (the “San people”), meaning “dry place”. This area straddles four provinces in South Africa (Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Free State), and stretches into the sovereign states of Namibia and Botswana.