In a momentous decision, Botswana’s Court of Appeal today quashed a ruling that denied the Kalahari Bushmen access to water on their ancestral lands.

With support from Survival, the Bushmen appealed a 2010 High Court judgment that prevented them from accessing a well which they rely on for water. The panel of five Appeal Court judges has found that:

• the Bushmen have the right to use their old borehole, which the government had banned them from using
• the Bushmen have the right to sink new boreholes
• the government’s conduct towards the Bushmen amounted to ‘degrading treatment’.
• the government must pay the Bushmen’s costs in bringing the appeal.