Tourism ministry takes aim at naked national park visitors

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism has urged the public to report acts of public indecency within national parks, saying they are looking into possibly blacklisting those found in contravention.

This comes after a picture of naked tourists taking photos at the crest of the Big Daddy Dune at Sossusvlei in the Namib-Naukluft National Park were widely shared on social media earlier this week.

A local daily newspaper yesterday reported that visitors to Sossusvlei were shocked when they came across naked people in the park.

Ministry spokesperson Romeo Muyunda says the ministry is extremely shocked about the incident, labelling it as public indecency and in violation of park rules and regulations.

Muyunda in a statement yesterday appealed to those that come across violations of the law, or park rules and regulations, to report it to the ministry or the police so that swift action can be taken.

“We condemn this action strongly. We can look into the possibility of blacklisting them from entering any of our parks,” he said.

“It is a punishable act, according to the country’s laws. When this had been brought to our attention, we were shocked at the extent to which people could go,” Muyunda said.

He added that the incident took place some time back and by the time they received the report, the tourists had left Namibia already.

“We condemn this type of action as it does not only go against our morals but also violates the country’s laws,” Muyunda said.

He further said tourists generally are law-abiding people, but there have been a few exceptions.