WhyAfrica Road Trip Report 2025

This year WhyAfrica took the backroads of South Africa, southern Namibia, Lesotho and Eswatini on our annual road trip to focus on southern Africa’s full complement of natural resources, including minerals, soil, water, energy, sun, wind, biodiversity and its world class national parks.

The Orange River has its source in the Maluti Mountains of Lesotho, and it releases tonnes of soil and alluvial diamonds into the cold Atlantic between the towns of Oranjemund and Alexander Bay on the West Coast of South Africa and Namibia.

The Orange River (or Senqu, as it is called in Lesotho) has a profound impact on the entire region, including Johannesburg, Gauteng and the Witwatersrand Basin. Without the waters of the Senqu River, which gets diverted from the highlands of Lesotho into the Vaal River system, mining and industrialisation in Johannesburg would not exist.

South Africa and Namibia’s massive alluvial diamond industry has its roots in the Senqu, and the mining industry in South Africa’s arid Northern Cape Province would have been mothballed even before it began had it not been sustained by water from the Orange River.

Moreover, the modern-day Orange River and its tributaries have eroded overlying rock over eons, exposing manganese, iron ore, copper, zinc 4 and lead deposits that were once buried deep underground. The Orange River is a critical lifeline that snakes through the desert landscapes of South Africa and Namibia, feeding the growing human needs. Yet, after so many years, humans are still not able to grasps its full significance.

Camping and visiting eight of South Africa’s national parks (most of them close to or on the banks of the Orange), three national parks in Eswatini and one in Southern Namibia, again brought home the crucial importance of these remote and unique landscapes, and the value of Africa’s biodiversity and natural assets.

As demand for critical minerals and food increases across the globe, managing the environmental impacts of mining, agriculture and energy projects, especially where it encroaches upon these natural areas and water systems, will become increasingly important in the future.

This collision point doesn’t necessarily have to be a battle ground. During our 45-day overland road trip we drove 9000km, visited 35 project sites and interviewed more than 50 people. This included visits to 17 mining sites, some of them in the most remote regions of southern Africa and others either very close to, or even in national parks, and on the banks the Orange River