This is Boscia.
From family land to a living sanctuary in the Highveld.
This is where our purpose took root.
Letting the Wilderness Unfold.
Boscia Beginnings.
Our story reaches back more than a century, when the land was known as Farm ‘Gras’ for its dense, endemic, and nutritious sweet grasses of the Gras Schmidtia group, such as Silky Bushman and Kalahari Feathergrass. Founded by the Woerman family as a sheep farm, it moved to the steady rhythms of working land for decades.
After the sheep became less profitable, the farm was sold and saw many hands. Each season took more from the land and by the late 1990s, the land had grown bare and exhausted, from years of exertion and no rest. When it returned to family hands in 1998, the work of renewal began; waterholes were drilled, rusted fences cleared, and endemic game restored for its new birth as an ethical hunting farm.
Boscia in 2024 after 7 years of the Namibian drought.
The Origin of Our Promise
Boscia, also known as the Shepherd Tree, often called a Tree of Life, is one of Namibia’s most important trees. Its roots reach deep and its leaves hold all year, feeding browsers like giraffe and kudu when times are scarce.
That is our promise; to care with the same sustainable steadiness.
Longing for Healing.
Founding Purpose.
During the drought of 2013–2021, we witnessed profound loss across the savannah, where 95% of game was lost.
Guided by a deep appreciation for Namibia’s wild heart and a vision for a more regenerative future, we made a conscious commitment to restore and honor the earth, the water, and all beings.
From then on, our work became clear – healing the land, the wildlife, and the children who call it home.
Closing the hunting chapter, we opened a space of belonging for wildlife to thrive, for communities to grow, and for guests to reconnect with meaning and abundance.
Healing the land goes hand in hand with its people. Our director, Anja, with the children of Omomas — restoring nature grew into uplifting the community that calls it home.
Their Journey Home
Early Rewilding Milestones
Once lost to grassland conversion and faltered nesting habitats, secretary birds are now finding their way home. By restoring grasslands and reducing human
pressure, we’ve created space for these raptors to thrive again.
These insect-loving canids are survivors. They’ve faced immense pressures from human-wildlife conflict and persecution on small-stock farms. We’ve taken to preserving expanses of short grassland and creating safe den sites, that have welcomed back their playful presence.
When food thinned and waterholes dried, giraffe ranged wider and fed on drought-hardy trees by the riverbeds. We brought Angolan giraffe back with careful habitat work—protecting key trees, opening safe paths, and keeping water pans undisturbed. And today, we’re seeing calves on the ground, only made possible with years of rehabilitation.
During the years of the drought, our leopard tortoises’ resilience was tested as water and vegetation grew scarce. Yet, even beyond the drought, they remain vulnerable to poaching, like many of our wildlife, which is one of many reasons we work to protect them by restoring native grasses and forbs around shallow pans, maintaining gentle water edges, and avoiding all ground work on known nesting stretches after the first rains.
Growing Roots.
“I first set foot on Namibian ground at age 22, working in the Kalahari. The light, the endless sky, the stillness of the bush, and the warmth of the people, left me deeply connected to this place.
When Boscia first came into my life, in 2000, that connection grew into responsibility. Moved by the health crisis of the time, I felt the urge for social change, and small acts of care grew, through many helping hands, into the restoration of community spirit.
Every project since has been about listening to that call: to heal, reconnect, and grow together.”
Anja, Boscia’s Voice & Vision
Our Community.
Together with Pro Namibian Children, our wider impact journey began at the school next door, Omamas Care Centre, and has since blossomed into long-term Heart Projects supporting education, food security, and local livelihoods.
The Gardens of Hope began, like so much at Boscia, with bare soil and a vision to give back.
They’ve grown into a living classroom, where indigenous fruits and vegetables return to nourish guests and provide harvests for local families who grow alongside us. From these roots, we’ve made sure that Boscia has become a place where healing the land, the people, and the community are all part of the same story.
