Reviews of Kalahari Bush Breaks

If travellers are driving from Ghanzi, in Botswana, to Windhoek, in Namibia, the the distance usually dictates that they have an overnight stop somewhere in the middle. Somewhere around the Namibian town of Gobabis. 'Kalahari Bush Breaks' has a very convenient place on this road - and so is often chosen for an overnight stop for its convenience.

This traveller is right that there is hunting done on this guest farm. In common with many guest farms in Namibia, Kalahari Bushbreaks have cheetah, leopard and plenty of antelope on their property, but no lion. Hence a limited amount of hunting is done to manage the game numbers – typically a maximum of about 10 hunters per year, who never stay in the lodge at the same time as our ‘photographic’, non-hunting, guests. It’s usually the farm’s older animals are either left for nature to take its course, or made available for hunting.

In fact, sustainable hunting like this is part of the economics of most of Namibia’s guest farms. In the last 15-20 years, many of Namibia’s traditional guest farms have abandoned farming cattle and turned instead to game farming. They have learned that the revenue from ‘photographic’ tourism, when combined with limited sustainable hunting, is a much more economic choice.

This move has resulted in Namibia’s natural game species being reintroduced to large swathes of the country – and hence much larger populations of most game species. Witness the fact that, like similar game farms, Kalahari Bushbreaks also capture game live, and sell it live to other game reserves – often ones which are just starting to reintroduce the native animals.

It’s great news for the population of Namibia’s wild animals, and has resulted in a reduction in the area being used for commercial cattle farms. This is development which Expert Africa generally applauds: it’s good the for land, it’s good for the livelihood of many Namibian people and it’s great for our visitors; so we’re very pleased to be supporting this move from cattle to game even in a very small way.