Windhoek — With every new conservation area we are moving a small step closer to Gert Joubert's mad but dashing idea of turning the entire country into one large game camp.

As most would know, Gert Joubert of Erindi Game Ranch flashed around some money in the local media for several consecutive years, claiming that he will continue his one-man crusade until government realises tourism is the only viable long-term development option for us. So much for Joubert's ideas.

Meanwhile Mr Joubert carries on in his own way implementing his grandiose plan by using Erindi as a showcase for his point of view. Erindi is now arguably one of the leading private game reserves in southern Africa, but it took lots of money and lots of land to get it there. And I am fairly certain it is creating a not insignificant revenue stream in the overall Joubert Empire.

Which brings me to the Mangetti National Park. This piece of bush was proclaimed a while back and officially launched this week. To me it encapsulates some of the most progressive ideas about integrated community development and conservation. But it has some serious shortcomings and I think, only once the real spending starts, will the new caretakers realise what they have bitten off. Whether they will be able to chew and swallow it, remains to be seen.

In essence, the Mangetti game camp is a small piece of land. In my mind, it is far too small for a national park. I have been in smaller parks, like Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya for instance, but the rainfall there must be twice as much as in the southern parts of the Kavango Region. According to the ministry's official figures, Mangetti is about 41 000 hectare. This is somewhat bigger than a private game camp but as a comparison, it is about 25000 hectares smaller than Erindi

Slightly more than 150 km to the east is Khaudum National Park. This undeveloped piece of African real estate is a true wilderness area, I believe kept intentionally in that condition by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism to discourage all but the most zealous visitors. The importance of Khaudum in my consideration is that it is approaching 400,000 hectares, is not entirely fenced, remote enough not to cause trouble with the neighbours and big enough to constitute a balanced ecological unit and it has huge expanses of open surface water in the wet months. It also has a spillover corridor bigger than the actual park.

Literally none of these conditions apply at Mangetti. It is too small to provide its own ecological balance, it is in close proximity of fairly large communities, it has virtually zero natural surface water, in fact it is a flat piece of dry bush. There are no natural topographical features one can exploit to make it more tourist attractive. And worst, on its north western corner runs the contentious Mangetti Block, - all farms allocated after independence to people I suspect do not know where a cow's udder sits, or what it is for.

I support the Mangetti initiative one hundred percent. The fact that it will be managed by the Kangwari Tribal Council means its benefits will go directly to the community (I hope). Yet, its fences will become crucial if it were not to turn into the exclusive hunting ground of a few fatcats, and I hope the Tribal Authority realises it is going to take a couple of million dollars to develop a lodge, which is a necessity to make real money from it. And it is going to take a concerted community conservation effort to ensure that extremely valuable game like sable, roan and rhino actually remain the property of Mangetti National Park.

In the back of mind I see a focussed small park, developed along the lines of a bouquet destination like Sabie Sands in South Africa, offering discerning thick-walleted visitors an exclusive, close-up almost-authentic bush experience.

But I also see a scenario where game that costs in the region of a million dollar apiece, like sable, and rhino quickly departing out the back fence to some fat daddy's game ranch. And I see human animal conflict when the inexperienced Tribal Authority allows the fences to deteriorate, or they are simply stolen by the locals in the area.

Setting up a game park on paper is one thing. Managing that park, developing it, and securing it against intrusion and against game escaping in an area where collecting bush meat is the norm, is quite a different matter. And once the high value game arrives, I hope we shall see them and their offspring alive and not as bleached skulls at the park entrance.