Ecotourism in Namibia

Want vast landscapes of desert scrub and granite boulders? The chance to learn ancient bush techniques? Rare glimpses of endangered species in their own environment such as the elusive black rhino or desert elephant? A lack of other tourists crowding your space? Consider an ecotourism trip in  Namibia's Damaraland - a vast area of Namibia situated about three hours North East of Swakopmund.

The co-founders of Work Travel Volunteer volunteered with Elephant Human Relations Aid (EHRA) and fell in love. On a rotation of two weeks, one week is spent assisting locally employed builders to build stone walls around farmers' water pumps. This prevents the desert elephants from destroying them if water in wells is scarce.

The second week is spent with a local guide tracking the elephants and camping under the stars. EHRA also follows a responsible travel ethos - they employ local people, they work directly with the local community to educate them about their local environment and the part desert elephants play in it (a big problem at the moment is a lack of respect for both the environment and the elephants in Damaraland) and they use low impact camping methods.

"If happiness could be defined and bottled, it would have been the evening we spent in the Damaraland desert, camping under the stars with an open fire and bottle of beer, having just witnessed the greatest sunset ever seen and best of all, having spotted a rare black rhino" said one of EHRA's volunteers. Travel moments like that could only happen in Damaraland.

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