News

It was four days before Christmas - the “dry season” for newspapers – and media houses had a hard time finding stories. A sudden invitation by the Police command in Windhoek to a press conference about a ‘strange object’ that had landed in northern Namibia turned matters around instantly.

The Namibian Government has banned plastic bags in national parks and nature reserves as from 22 November 2018. Visitors and their vehicles will be searched at park entrances. A spot fine of N$500 (about 32 Euros) must be paid, when found with forbidden plastic bags inside a park by officials. Alternatively, a prison term of up to six months could be ordered or both a fine and imprisonment.

Over large parts of Namibia the sky has a greyish white tinge during August and September. From a plane you will definitely notice the layer of smog which hovers up to 12000 feet (3657 metres) above sea level, or about 2000 metres above the ground. Countless bushfires, some of them huge, are the reason for the greyish white sky and for air pollution at levels high above the ground – especially in north-eastern Namibia and in neighbouring Angola, Zambia and Botswana.

Fish wardens of the Sikunga Conservancy pulled an illegal net containing 341 fish from a tributary of the Zambezi in September this year (2018). The tributary, known as the Kalimbeza Channel, is a fish sanctuary on the Namibian side of the river. The fish wardens wage a relentless battle against illegal fishing activities.

The Hosea Kutako International Airport will receive N$245 million for upgrades, while petrol and diesel prices increased by 50 cents and 70 cents respectively. The Rössing uranium mine in the Erongo Region, will be sold to China. Namibia’s inflation rate rose to 5.1 percent in October, up from 4.8 percent in September, the National Statistics Agency reported this month. 

The Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism MET has responded to recent appeals to secure the survival of the wild horses of the Namib. In a press release published on 26 November 2018, they acknowledged that the drought of the five past years and the predation by a pack of spotted hyenas brought the wild horses population on the brink of extinction.

It is not a surprise that Gondwana Collection is on this mountain biking roller-coaster for the second time, with two social and two competitive teams entered. Furthermore, Gondwana looks forward to welcoming cyclists at the Langer Heinrich water point for a quick stop, drink and snack.   

The eggs of tadpole shrimps, or triops, can survive in the dusty soil of arid areas for years. The young shrimps hatch when heavy rain showers leave pools of water which do not dry out within a few days. These living fossils have inhabited the earth for more than 250 million years. They are a genus of small crustaceans in the order Notostraca. According to the Namibia Biodiversity Database, only two species are known in Namibia: Triops cancriformis, the tadpole shrimp, and Triops granarius.

Few Namibian clubs are old enough to have celebrated 100 years of existence, but The Windhoek Club was fortunate enough to do so on October 6th, 2018. A Centenary Dinner was held for business members and guests involved in the Namibian economy on the Maerua Roof Top, affording a spectacular view of Windhoek.