The Sperrgebiet is a diamondmining area in southwestern Namibia, in the Namib Desert. It spans the Atlantic Ocean-facing the coast from Oranjemundon the border with South Africa, to around north of Lüderitz, a distance of north. The Sperrgebiet, renamed , extends to around inland, and its total area of, makes up three percent of Namibia's land mass. However, mining only takes place in five percent of the Sperrgebiet, with most of the area acting as a buffer zone. Members of the public are banned from entering most of the area, despite the creation of a national park there in 2004.
History
In September 1908, the German government created the Sperrgebiet in its colony of German South West Africa, giving sole rights for mining to the Deutsche Diamantengesellschaft. In 1915, during World War I, South African forces led by General Jan Smuts and Louis Botha, the South African Prime Minister, invaded the country. The South Africans defeated the Germans, taking control of modern-day Namibia, including the Sperrgebiet. The owner of the mine, De Beers, had total control of the area until the 1990s, when the Namibian government purchased a fifty-percent stake. They formed a joint partnership called the Namdeb Diamond Corporation.
Nature
The mining area close to Bogenfels is called "Pocket Beaches" which is one of Namdeb's northern coastal mines.The Sperrgebiet has a diverse range of flora and fauna, due to little human intervention in the area for 100 years. Forty percent of the landscape is desert, thirty percent is grassland, and twenty-eight percent is rocky. Roter Kamm, an impact crater in the southern Namib Desert within Sperrgebiet, has a diameter of. The area includes the Tsaus Mountains, Mount Aurus, Mount Heioab, Mount Höchster, the Klinghardt Mountains and the permanent water spring Kaukausib. The highest point of the Sperrgebiet is. There are 776 types of plants in the Sperrgebiet, with 234 being endemic to southwest Namibia, despite the Orange River being the only permanent water supply in the area. A study has shown that climate change will affect the plant life in the area, specifically in the Succulent Karoo. Drier winters may lead to the extinction of these plants, as they are endemic to the Sperrgebiet. According to Morgan Hauptfleisch, a scientist who works at the Southern AfricanInstitute for Environmental Assessment, the Sperrgebiet "is the only arid biodiversity hotspot and this makes it a very special area". It has more biodiversity than anywhere else in Namibia, supporting animals such as the gemsbok, springbok, and brown hyena. Bird species resident in the Sperrgebiet include the African oystercatcher, the black-headed canary, and the dune lark.
National park and recent history
The Sperrgebiet was designated as a national park in June 2004, and is now named Tsau ǁKhaeb National Park. De Beers still controls the area, but will relinquish control to the Namibian Ministry for Environment and Tourism once a management plan for the park has been completed. It is also a proclaimed diamond area which needs thorough control so as to keep possible diamond theft at bay. In April 2008, the 500-year-old wreck of a ship named Bom Jesus containing Iberian coins, bronze cannons, copper, and ivory was found in the Sperrgebiet. Under Namibian law, the Namibian government is entitled to all the items found on board. These items will be showcased at a museum in Oranjemund once the museum has been constructed. There are several ghost towns in the Sperrgebiet, built in the late 19th century, the best known of these being Kolmanskop and others including Pomona and Elizabeth Bay. The wind has partially excavated a number of half-mummified bodies at a graveyard outside one of these ghost towns.
