100 years of history builds
a flagship conservation area

The 22,270 square kilometers of Etosha National Park was once part of a much larger area known as Game Reserve Number 2 – established in 1907, when Namibia was the German colony of South West Africa. At that time an additional 70,000 sq km2, representing a large part of the Kunene region, made Etosha the largest game reserve on earth. 

Although political pressure in the 1960s resulted in Etosha being reduced to its current size it is still one of Southern Africa's finest and most important game reserves and home to 114 mammal species, 340 bird species, 110 reptile species, 16 amphibian species and, surprisingly, just one species of fish.

The Etosha National Park has also become Namibia’s flagship conservation area, attracting about 200,000 tourists annually, a huge increase on 1990, when about 36,000 people visited. Visitors can expect to see elephant, giraffe, rhino, lions and many buck species, and if they are lucky, leopard and cheetah.

Many of these animals were not recorded in park surveys conducted in the park’s early years. Lions were first recorded in 1912, elephants in 1946 while a population of black rhino was re-established between 1967 and 1977.

Etosha means "Great White Place", and the area is dominated by a massive mineral pan, covering around 25 percent of the park’s total area. The pan, originally a lake, now fills only temporarily, to a shallow depth and after heavy rain. However water in the Etosha Pan attracts thousands of wading birds including impressive flocks of pelicans and flamingos. More than a million flamingoes were recorded in 1977 after exceptionally heavy rainfall.

The perennial springs along the edges of the Etosha Pan draw large concentrations of birds, wildlife and game throughout the year, including the endangered Black Rhinoceros and the endemic Black Face Impala, while herds of elephants occupy the dense woodland on the south side of the Etosha Pan.

A legend about the formation of the Etosha Pan tells how a village was raided and all the men slaughtered. A woman survivor cried until her tears formed a massive lake, which left a huge white pan when it dried up. A little-known fact about the Etosha pan is that it was used as a backdrop for parts of Stanley Kubrick’s classic science-fiction film – 2001: A Space Odyssey. Historic filming of the area’s indigenous population of Hai || om (then known as Kalahari bushmen) was made by an American expedition in 1925.

Namutoni Resort, where the centenary celebrations will take place, is one of three game viewing visitor sites in the park. A network of roads links the sites and provides access to some of the park’s waterholes. Namutoni is situated at the park’s eastern entrance and includes a picturesque old German fort built before the turn of the century as a police post, and later used as an army base and as a POW camp in the First World War, before being peacefully surrendered in 1915. The fort was converted into tourist accommodation in the late 1950s and remains popular today, particularly for the views from its watch tower, which include a floodlit waterhole for game viewing at night.

Other interesting milestones have included the first organized coach tour of the park (Easter weekend 1946) first recorded case of man-eating lions (1950); the formation of a specially-trained anti-poaching unit in 1988 – which immediately resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of black rhinos poached (from 23 to two over the next two years). In 1989, an airlift of several hundred flamingo chicks to sanctuaries in South Africa was organized after pan water levels fell, exposing their nests to predators.

Centenary celebrations have already generated positive publicity for the park, as well as increased appreciation to the role that parks and wildlife play in the national economy, national development plans and national heritage. The centenary is also being used to gain publicity for the importance of PAs at national events, trade fairs and at tourism expos, locally and abroad.

Assistance from UNDP-GEF project Strengthening the Protected Areas Network (SPAN) to the celebrations has included designing and printing the official logo for posters, pins and stickers; publishing a special edition of the project’s Sandpaper newsletter and a guide to the waterholes in Etosha National Park. The project has also collaborated on the production of special commemorative postage stamps and the design and distribution of a new park permit; provided technical assistance and support to the development of three new information centers; and assisted the organizing committee for the celebrations.