In February 2011, Botswana’s most powerful court ruled that the Bushmen have the right to access water inside their home in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

Cutting off their water supply was one of the tactics used by the Botswana government to stop the Bushmen returning to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

During the evictions the government capped the Bushmen’s only borehole and removed its pump, rendering it useless.

Those Bushmen who returned to the reserve, both before and after their court victory, were forced to survive on water they collected from ‘pans’ – rain-filled depressions in the sand, and from melons and roots. In the dry season, life was extremely difficult, and at least one woman died of starvation and thirst.

Bushmen children at Molapo in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, with melons which supply some of their water needs © Lottie Davies/Survival

Meanwhile, the government allowed a diamond company in the reserve to use as much water as needed, drilled new boreholes for wildlife with funding from Tiffany & Co, and allowed Wilderness Safaris to open a tourist camp in the reserve, complete with swimming pool.

In 2010, the Bushmen launched further litigation against the government in a bid to gain access to their borehole. The case was heard in Botswana’s High Court in June 2010 but the judge later dismissed their application.

The most recent ruling by the Court of Appeal quashes this decision, describing the government’s ‘degrading treatment’ of the Bushmen.

Now the Bushmen’s borehole in the community of Mothomelo has been reinstated, and they have access to running water after nine years.

Bushman girls enjoy water from the well at Mothomelo © Vox United/Survival

The Bushmen still fear that the government could once again close the borehole. However, they hope that a pledge by Gem Diamonds to construct boreholes for other communities in the reserve will be upheld this year.