Departure from Indigenous Land Use System and the Consequential Impacts: A Case of Cuvelai Basin, North-Central Namibia

Abstract

Abstract:The Cuvelai Basin of north-central Namibia consists of unique seasonal wetlands made up of shallow pans locally known as Iishana (Oshana, singular) which form ephemeral network systems. The basin has relatively fertile soils encouraging human settlements. More than 40% of the country's population resides in the basin. Early settlers in the basin utilized indigenous knowledge to develop land use systems that were in harmony with biophysical characteristics of the area. Over the years, there has been a departure from these indigenous land use systems resulting in land management problems. A desktop study coupled with field observations was conducted to describe the indigenous land use systems of the Owambo people living in the basin, and to determine factors behind the departure and consequential impacts of this departure on sustainability of land uses. Possible ways of preventing erosion of this indigenous knowledge were given attention. The paper recommends that the Owamboindigenous land management system needs to be embedded within government policies and regulations and should be strictly enforced. There is also a need for designing strategic basin management plans that are a combination of both scientific and indigenous knowledge.

Impact of rice cultivation on evapotranspiration in small seasonal wetlands of north-central Namibia

“…E-mail: kotani@agr.nagoya-u.ac.jp *Present address: Sanyu Consultants Inc., Japan vast area of 800,000 ha, known as the Cuvelai system seasonal wetlands (Mendelsohn and Weber, 2011). Effective and sustainable land use and agricultural methods are required to adapt to the unstable and unpredictable variability in available water in this region (Niipele et al, 2015). To cope with both yearly and seasonally varying coverage of surface water, mixed cropping of flood-tolerant rice and drought-tolerant crops are promoted Iijima et al, 2016).…”

“…evaporation) and enhances the conservation of surface water, when compared to a cultivated wetland with natural vegetation . Furthermore, considering the yearly variability around iishana, more reliable water availability is expected for the small seasonal wetlands (oondombe) which are formed sporadically on slightly elevated areas between the shallow water channels, with the water traditionally being utilized for grazing and fishing (Niipele et al, 2015). Since the surface water of such small wetlands is important for both direct exploitation of the surface water and for underground water storage (Hiyama et al, 2017), the effect of agricultural use on water availability is critical to regional water cycles.…”