‘Troubled Waters’ examines the various conflicting considerations that come up in a small Namibian coastal town when a port extension is planned. It tackles contemporary issues that many Namibians face, such as the very real need for jobs and development, which must be balanced by the sustainable use of the country’s resources. The Hanns Seidel Foundation provided the funding for ‘Troubled Waters’, enabling the Legal Assistance Centre to print around 10 000 copies which were distributed across the country, mainly at the coast and predominantly to schools to get the material into the hands of teachers.
The comic tackles complex climate change issues, such as planning developments in protected areas and what it means for sensitive ecological areas, and breaks it down into bite-sized chunks of information that can be easily understood by a wide range of Namibians. “My task was to write something on climate change and current issues that are relevant to Namibian society,” Mahnke said earlier this week. “Green hydrogen, offshore oil production and now also salmon farming – all these developments are talked about by politicians and many in society as if they are approved projects.
Yet many of these planned projects, which cause direct and indirect environmental harm, both in the short and long term, do not have the necessary permits in place,” he said. The use of the comic format to illustrate and break complex issues down into digestible pieces is both useful a.