Our common ancestors Flora Blommaert

Talking land issues of San groups (Ju|’hoan, Hai||om and Khwe) in Namibia and the effort of protecting the indigenous right over the San’s ancestral land, with the help of the NGO Legal Assistance Center. Flora talks to Ben, a consultant legal practitioner whose mission is to inform communities on their rights, marking areas and boundaries and helps the national land law to be implemented.
The San people have been chased off their ancestral land by white settlers and pastoralists since the last 400 years, resulting in today’s extremely restricted habitats, going from communal land, over national parks, to resettlement farms. Their land is still under a constant threat of illegal livestock grazing, illegal settlements and fencing

Human-wildlife conflict, the inevitable problem if livestock farming communities and wildlife are sharing territory. Flora talks to Marnus Roodbol, a wildlife conservationist from South Africa.
As a consultant for the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, he spent 3 years in Namibia, driving around Nyae Nyae and Khaudum National Park, to look for liontracks, with the great help of the Ju|’hoan mastertrackers. Currently Marnus work with Endangered Wildlife Trust in South Africa.
Email Marnus at marnusR@ewt.org.za if you want to get in touch.

Origin, resettlement, cultural and ecological changes in the lives of the Ju|’hoansi Bushmen: Flora talks to Dr. Robert K. Hitchcock, professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, co-founder of the Kalahari Peoples Fund and (co-)author of several books and articles that reflect on the challenges and changes in the lives of the indigenous San peoples of Southern Africa.
Hitchcock sheds light on the passage of outsiders who have entered the Nyae Nyae area in Namibia in the past century and on the various attempts to deal with cultural changes.
Book: The Ju/’hoan San of Nyae Nyae and Namibian Independence: Development, Democracy, and Indigenous Voices in Southern Africa.
www.kalaharipeoples.org

Welcome to “our common ancestors”.
Each episode I will invite an expert to share their experiences in the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, where they do work amongst the indigenous communities of the Bushmen, also called San people.
This podcast will give you a versatile view on the indigenous group and their environment through the eyes of anthropologists, conservationists, researchers and locals.
With this show I hope to create awareness about one of the most marginalised communities worldwide and why it is important to give voice to their stories.