The South West Nature Reserve, better known as the National Botanical Garden, is located in the heart of Windhoek. The area was originally earmarked as a nature park, but lack of funding resulted in this project not materialising. In 1990, the National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) moved into the buildings adjacent to the reserve and developed the area as a botanical garden funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (MAWF), to which the NBRI belongs.