Botswanas national monuments and protected areas

475,Correspondent,, | Sunday May 15, 2016 00:00

Old Palapye was gazetted as a National Monument in 1938, and falls under the jurisdiction of the National Museum and Monuments. Old Palapye is located within the Tswapong region in the Central District. The settlement is 20 kilometres to the east of Palapye Town. The name Palapye was originally spelled as ‘Phalatswe’ which means the ‘place of impalas’.

The name was borrowed from the prominent hills north of Malaka on the northwest rim of the Tswapong Hills. Old Palapye was established by Khama III and was destined to be the capital of Bamangwato people in 1889. What is visible today in Old Palapye are the structures for trading stores, elementary school, prison and churches, all of European architectural design. It was an area blossoming into a city estimated to have had 30,000 people in 1892. Old Palapye is one of Botswana’s hidden treasures because of the beauty of its natural landscape.

In 2006 the place was declared a national monument. During its hey days in the 1800s, Old Palapye was said to be the second most important city to western traders after Kimberly in South Africa. Some historical monuments, such as the remnants of the 120 year old Palapye church and the forgotten British cemetery, however still stand up to this day making Old Palapye a significant tourist attraction.  One of the most popular features of the site is the remains of the London Missionary Society (LMS) church built with red earth bricks between 1891 and 1894.

The LMS area covers the remains of the church, Khama III’s house, the well and the European settlement. The area is dominated by a succession of red to buff coloured sandstones and quartzitic sandstones. Old Palapye is a multi-faceted site that has an occupation record that spans from the Early Stone Age to contemporary times.

The area of the former market place is very well preserved. There is a stone building which is partially collapsed thought to have served as a shop for the town. To the east of the shop, remains of a long stone wall and a circular enclosure are found. To the north of the shop are remains of a homestead thought to belong to the traders who owned the shops. There is a particularly fascinating house foundation showing that the owner of the homestead was somebody endowed with horticultural skills. Terraces in the area suggest the presence of elegant gardens with flowers and possibly fruit trees.

The prison is also built from brownish-pink coloured sandstones shaped like bricks. The Old Palaype trail largely constitutes four gorges of outstanding natural beauty. The Phothophotho Gorge derives its name from water that falls gently onto a boulder to make a unique sound from which the Setswana name Phothophoto is derived. The perennial waters of Phothophotho are considered to be the sole reason why the Bangwato chose to abandon Old Shoshong and settle in the Tswapong areas. The Motetane Gorge flows in an east-west direction thr ough pink to buff coloured sandstone cliffs.

There are some rock paintings at this site consisting of an antelope and some geometric designs. Bakwena Gorge is characterised by clear water flowing over sandstone boulders. The persistent flow of water has produced some wave ripple marks on the sandstones. Oral traditions collected at Malaka suggest that the area in which the gorge is located belonged to one man called Malake (Malaka is named after him).

He was the first chief of the surrounding area where Malaka is located. Legend suggests that Bakwena came into this area with an intention to steal Malake’s livestock. Malake is believed to have instructed his soldiers to launch an attack on Bakwena. They drove them down the stream, killing a reasonable number of Bakwena warriors. The remaining Bakwena withdrew and fled down the hill using the stream as a path. The wounded Bakwena warriors died in the battlefield and their blood is believed to have flown down the stream resulting in the area being named madi a Bakwena. This literally means blood of the Bakwena.

This area is now known as Bakwena gorge. Borotelatshwene (translated from Setswana means “where Baboons urinate”) Gorge is a place where as legend has it baboons converge to deposit their urine and droppings. Borotelatshwene comprises of sandstone rocks which are light pink in colour and the folk-lore attributes the ubiquitous black leaching as baboons waste, but is more likely to be geochemistry related.

A wide range of mammals can be found in this area. These include antelopes such as kudu and duikers. Small animals such as tree squirrels, rats, rock hyrax, rock monitor lizards and geckos inhabit the gorge. Laughing doves, helmeted guinea fowl, yellow billed hornbill, greater honey guide, quaelea birds, southern masked weavers and sparrows are seen in trees along the gorge. Southern masked weaver nests are found hanging on trees on the shade side of the stream.

The site is in a bushland with several important plants. Woody plants in this area include lavender fever-berry, sickle bush, sjambok pod, mountain nettle, Transvaal sesame bush, knob thorn, marula, paperbark corkwood, jacket-plum, white raisin, syringa, apple-leaf, umbrella thorn, large fever-berry, velvet sweet berry, false marula and kudu-berry, castor-oil plant and wild coffee.

 

Tswapong Hills

Tswapong Hills occupies an area of about 750 square kilometres and is situated in the Central District in north-east Botswana, about three hours’ drive north of Gaborone. The largely sandstone and quartzite hills lie at an altitude of between 850-1,000 metres above sea level. The Tswapong Hills lie in the hardveld of eastern Botswana, 30 kilometres east of the town of Palapye. They arise from a sandy plain dominated by mopane woodland. The hills, which extend for 67 kilometres  in an east–west direction comprise gorges with precipitous cliffs and seasonal streams, and exposed rock faces around the edge of the hills and along some watercourses.

The main Gorge was formed by numerous seasonal rivers fed by natural springs up in the hills, which carve deep into the steep-sided hills and cliffs of the area. The springs form permanent waterfalls which plummet down into deep pools below, fringed by a variety of unique mosses and ferns found nowhere else in Botswana.

The streams and pools found in the Gorge provide excellent habitats for small fish and crabs, which serve as food for the abundant birdlife with over 330 species being recorded.

The Cape vulture, (of global conservation interest), currently breeds at three sites within the Tswapong Hills; Bonwalanong, Manong Yeng and Kukubye. It is believed that the species has probably bred there for well over a century.

In the 1980s, the number of breeding pairs increased from 240 in 1984 to 325 in 1992, although the total number of birds appeared to be declining. Bonwalanong, having undergone a large increase since 1989, was the most important breeding site in 1992, with over 200 pairs, and Manong Yeng then supported around 90 pairs. Nine nests were also found at Kukubye in 1992. As of  2001, the decline in numbers of the Cape vultures appears to have halted. There are now more than 600 non-breeding pairs and 300 breeding pairs.

Bird species are abundant amongst the hills, including red-headed weavers, brown-headed parrots, grey-headed bush shrike, white-browed sparrow weavers, emerald-spotted wood doves and black cuckoos. Others include yellow and red-billed hornbills, crimson-breasted shrike, paradise fly catchers, masked weaver and red-chested cuckoos.

As night falls, the sounds of crickets and cicada are interrupted occasionally by a pearl-spotted owlet, African scops owl and freckled nightjar. The call of laughing doves and crested francolin take over in the early hours of the morning. The hills within Goo-Moremi Gorge are frequented by such species as leopard, hyena, kudu, bush buck, porcupine and large variety of butterfly species. The cliffs above the Gorge provide shelter for baboons, rock rabbits and dassies.

 

Moremi-Manonnye Gorge

Moremi-Manonnye Gorge is one of the most spectacular gorges found in Botswana and is located in the Central District about 67 kilometres east of Palaype. The conservation area measures 1,000 hectares and is managed by the Moremi-Mannonye Community Trust. The Moremi village, a couple of kilometres to the south, lies in a bend of the Lotsane River, a seasonal tributary of the Limpopo River, just north of the dramatic Tswapong Hills.

Mononnye means “vulture” in Setswana and the Gorge has been home to Cape vultures for over a century. It is one of only two major Cape vulture colonies in Botswana and there are estimated to be about 300 breeding pairs.

The Moremi Gorge is fault controlled and has been created by the weathering of 1,700 milllion year old Pre-Cambrian Tswapong Hills quartzites. The site is now a protected area and includes kudu, red duiker, zebra, eland, rock rabbits, klip-springer and warthogs. Situated deep within the hills, which can only be reached by a rather vigorous climb, Moremi Gorge is the source of three permanent waterfalls.

The first two are smaller, but fan out into large waterholes, whilst the uppermost falls is a full ten-metres high, giving rise to arresting scenes of clear water cascading over rocky outcrops, then collecting in a deeply hidden, lushly vegetated, fern-fringed lagoon.The Moremi region was once the home of the Bapedi/Batswapong people, who inhabited the area centuries ago, and were ruled by Kgosi Mapulane in the early 1800’s. As a result of this, Goo-Moremi Gorge is rich in historical and archaeological findings. One of the springs which lie in the rocky area served as a source of water for Bapedi and their livestock. 

Various historical remains such as the grave of Kgosi Mapulane and his sons, as well as the original village and school can be found in the area. The Gorge has formed part of the Goo-Moremi community’s life for many years being a place where the ancestral spirits (badimo) stay.  Traditionally and even today, communication with the badimo has always taken place with the use of the Komana (community members living in the village similar to soothsayers) who are responsible for interpreting the wishes and concerns of the Badimo.

At 2am on the morning of 13th July, 1980, a loud rumbling was heard by the villagers of Goo-Moremi as a giant boulder fell into the lower part of the gorge. The stone falling is seen to be the sign that someone of great importance had passed away. Indeed, that very morning, Sir Seretse Khama, the first President of Botswana, had passed on.

 

Khama Rhino Sanctuary

Established in 1992, the Khama Rhino Sanctuary (KRS) is a community based wildlife project set up to assist in saving the vanishing rhinoceros, restore an area formerly teeming with wildlife to its previous natural state and provide economic benefits to the local Botswana community through tourism and the sustainable use of natural resources. Covering approximately, 85 square kilometres of Kalahari Sandveld, the sanctuary provides prime habitat for white and black rhino as well as over 30 other animal species and more than 230 species of birds.

KRS was first mooted in 1989 due to growing concern over the then escalating rhino poaching situation in Botswana. Both black and white rhino – once abundant in Botswana – were, during the early 1980s, on the brink of local extinction, despite their having been granted protected status as far back as 1922.

Led by the Bangwato paramount Chief, Lt. Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama, now President of Botswana, and other conservationists, the people of Serowe conceived the idea to form a sanctuary to protect the remaining rhinos in Botswana, and hopefully give them safe haven to reproduce and gain numbers. The first four white rhinos were reintroduced into the sanctuary from the Chobe National Park in 1992.

Mike and Jeremy Brook

*Taken from a new book called,

Wild About Botswana