The oldest inhabitants of southern Africa, the Gana and Gwi Bushmen of Botswana, are set to lose historic rights to ancestral lands after a controversial change to the country's constitution.
The Bushmen have lived in the Kalahari desert for 20,000 years, but the Botswanan government claims that the tribesmen are endangering wildlife in parts of the Kalahari. Ministers also claim that the cost of providing water to the tribes is too great and the authorities have forced at least 243 Bushmen to move to "relocation camps" outside the desert.
In response, the Bushmen challenged the government's right to evict them in court, basing their argument on a key clause in the Botswana constitution, which protects Gana and Gwi Bushmen's ancestral land within the central Kalahari game reserve. The scrapping of the clause, halfway through the case, appears designed to ensure that the Bushmen cannot win in court.