African Reservations

Waterberg Plateau Park is a national park in central Namibia encompassing the Waterberg Plateau, 68 km east of the town of Otjiwarongo. The Waterberg Plateau is a particularly prominent feature, elevated high above the plains of the Kalahari of Eastern Namibia. The plateau and some 405 km² of surrounding land were declared a Nature Reserve in 1972. The plateau is largely inaccessible so in the early 1970s several of Namibia's endangered species were trans-located there to protect them from predators and poaching to extinction. The programme was very successful and Waterberg now supplies other Namibian parks with rare species. In 1989, Black Rhino were reintroduced to the area from Damaraland, sparking a successful breeding programme of national and international significance for the species.

The Waterberg Plateau Park is ecologically diverse and rich and has over 200 different species of bird and some rare species of small antelope on the lower hills of the mountain.

Geologically, the oldest rock stratum is over 850 million years old and dinosaurs tracks were left there some 200 million years ago. The first human inhabitants were the San people, who left rock engravings believed to be several thousand years old. A small tribe of the San were still living their traditional lifestyle on the plateau until the late 1960s.