There is a disturbing contrast along South Africa’s remote west coast.
The 800km (500 mile)-journey north from Cape Town starts with views of outstanding natural beauty which as the long road rolls on, and the northern border approaches, dissolve into a pockmarked lunar-like landscape.
And the scars left by a lucrative diamond-mining industry are not just physical.
The impoverished local Nama community living amid the environmental degradation in the far north-west of South Africa – also known as Namaqualand – wonder what has happened to the riches their land has yielded.
Some of the hundreds of millions earned went on to build the country, but not much, it seems, stayed within the area.
The Nama, who straddle South Africa and Namibia, are descended from the indigenous nomadic peoples – the Khoi and the San – seen as the original human inhabitants of this part of the world.
Despite winning a legal battle over land and mining rights more than two decades ago in Richtersveld, which is part of Namaqualand, many in the community argue that they are yet to see any benefit.
Andries Joseph shown from the waist up. He is wearing a grey padded coat and plaid shirt, plus a baseball cap on his head.
Andries Joseph once worked in the diamond industry in Richtersveld, which is now in decline
Standing amid the wrecked empty shell of a former mineworks in the coastal border town of Alexander Bay, Andries Josephs, who worked here two decades ago before he was laid off, shakes his head.
“There’s no work, that’s the problem. The people have stagnated and everything has gone backwards. The buildings have collapsed. Unemployment is sky-high,” he says.
The diamond industry in this part of the region has declined in recent years, as most of the gems on the land are thought to have been found, leaving a trail of economic and social problems.
About a kilometre from this derelict mine is a residential area of a few houses, a broken-down church building and a hospital with some damaged windows, offering basic services.
The local authority’s development plan describes “dilapidated” water and electricity infrastructure as well as poor roads which affect access to things such as healthcare.
A century ago, the discovery by prospectors of precious stones south of the Orange River, which now forms part of South Africa’s border with Namibia, led to a diamond rush that changed the land forever.
But the Nama already knew of the gems.
“In our family, they used to teach the children to count with diamonds,” says Martinus Fredericks.
In 2012, Nama elders appointed him as their leader in South Africa. The 60-year-old says they urged him to fight for the return of their ancestral lands.