THE Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape is South Africa’s eighth site to be added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. This was announced at the 31st session of the World Heritage Committee in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape covers a 160 000ha area of mountainous desert in the Northern Cape. The World Heritage Committee said: “The extensive communal grazed lands are a testimony to land management processes which have ensured the protection of the succulent Karoo vegetation and thus demonstrates a harmonious interaction between people and nature.
Furthermore, the seasonal migrations of graziers between stockposts with traditional demountable mat-roofed houses, |haru oms, reflect a practice that was once much more widespread over Southern Africa, and which has persisted for at least two millennia; the Nama are now its last practitioners."
The other South African World Heritage sites are the Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park, uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park, Robben Island, Cape Floral Region Protected Areas, Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, Vredefort Dome and the Fossil Hominid-bearing sites (Cradle of Humankind, Makapan Valley and Taung Skull Fossil Sites).
