By Dhiladhila Magazine · Issue 10
A strategy conceived for export terminals also lands on Kolmanskop, Lüderitz and one of the country's most guarded tourism coasts.
Namibia’s hydrogen strategy is drawn in gigawatts and export tonnes, but on the map its southern cluster falls on a coast better known to travellers than industry. The prime site sits in and around Tsau //Khaeb, the former Sperrgebiet, reached through the diamond-era town of Lüderitz.
A coast few are allowed to see
Tsau //Khaeb is one of Namibia’s most restricted parks, most of it open only by permit and licensed operator. Its draws are particular: the ghost town of Kolmanskop, slowly filling with sand, and an arid flora of exceptional richness, more than a thousand plant species on a sliver of the country. Its appeal is stillness, not volume.
The strategy proposes, on part of that ground, turbines, solar fields and an export terminal. A management plan for the park had earlier pointed toward low-impact tourism as its natural use, and an industrial build sits awkwardly beside it.
The coast’s tourism value is its emptiness, which is precisely what an export build would fill.
What it means for travel
For the travel sector the signal is ambiguity, not alarm. Kolmanskop and Lüderitz remain the region’s anchors, and hydrogen may in time bring the flights, roads and beds a remote town has lacked. But industry can crowd the solitude that draws visitors, and the strategy does not yet say how the two will share the coast.
Whether hydrogen funds Lüderitz’s tourism or overwrites it is a choice not yet made.
For an operator, lodge owner or investor in southern Namibian tourism, the strategy is quiet notice that the region’s defining emptiness is now also an industrial address. The decision it raises is whether to plan for a Lüderitz remade around export logistics or to press early for the terms on which travel and hydrogen share one coast.
Sources: GH2 Namibia – media and downloads; Tsau //Khaeb (Sperrgebiet) National Park travel guide (SafariBookings); Tsau //Khaeb (Sperrgebiet) National Park (Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism)
