Sustainability of livestock farming in the communal lands of Southern Namibia

Abstract

The impacts of livestock farming in southern Namibia's communal areas are investigated. Small stock farming is ubiquitous in this semiarid region, and provides many people with their only source of wealth and income. It is traditionally thought that livestock grazing negatively impacts on the vegetation resource. Using both interviews and interpretation of sequential aerial photographs, veld (a South African word descriptive of the general vegetation and soils within an area) resilience and changes in vegetation composition and cover were analysed. Results provide contrasting evidence. Resilience is illustrated by good plant regeneration after the 1999±2000 rainy season, an observation that provides support for a disequilibrium interpretation of the landscape, suggesting that productivity here is primarily event driven and not unduly impacted by grazing pressure. Additional, contradictory, results show that vegetation composition has indeed changed in the communal lands, from predominantly palatable perennials to unpalatable annuals. Localized areas of degradation are also evident. Using sequential aerial photography, comparison of land units under commercial tenure (1970) with the situation subsequent to incorporation into Namaland (1998) indicates an increase in bare soil from 6Á3 to 11 per cent over the time period in question. This increase is attributed to, among other factors, increased pressure form livestock grazing. Although separating anthropogenic factors from other biophysical ones is dif®cult, it is argued that appropriate management practices should be employed that take into account both the veld's resilience and the observed localized degradation and species composition changes.

Impact of different grazing systems on diversity, abundance and biomass of beetles (Coleoptera), a study from southern Namibia

“…Although a high resilience is ascribed to the area (Kuiper & Meadows 2002), we conclude that uncontrolled grazing leads to land degradation, which accounts for the impoverished flora and fauna of Nabaos in comparison to Gellap-Ost. Although there was a greater frequency of bushes at Nabaos, they were smaller than at Gellap-Ost, therefore space and floral dietary resources were reduced (Hoffmann & Zeller in press).…”

Scaling up ecohydrological processes: Role of surface water flow in water‐limited landscapes

“…The main topographical features of the study area are flat regions, as well as regions with gentle and precipitous slopes [ Kuiper and Meadows , 2002]. Perennial grasses (e.g., Stipagrostis uniplumis ) dominate the herbaceous vegetation if the rangeland is in good condition but are replaced by annual grasses (such as Schmidtia kalahariensis ) and unpalatable shrubs (like Rhigozum trichotomum ) when rangeland is heavily utilized [ Kuiper and Meadows , 2002]. The most important land use in the communal area (Nabaos) and the Research Station (Gellap Ost) is small stock farming.…”

“…Gellap Ost has 160 purposely understocked camps (0.05 SSU – small stock unit ha −1 ), where animals graze in a rotational system. Resting periods of camps (no grazing) of at least one year prevent overgrazing [ Kuiper and Meadows , 2002]. In contrast, Nabaos is managed under a communal land tenure system where livestock movement in the area is not controlled and overstocking (0.2 SSU ha −1 ) has a strong impact on the rangeland resource.…”

The Economic Contribution of Pastoralism: Case Studies from the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa

“…Since 1990 there has been excellent work on the performance of the country's commercial ranching sector (for which there is good longitudinal data; Lange, Barnes and Motinga 1997), but -as best we can determine -no comparable work on indigenous African production systems. New work on livestock in the communal areas has instead focused on environmental impact assessment and on debates about the natural resource management capabilities of rural communities (for an introduction to this literature see the citations in Kuiper and Meadows 2002). Commercial assessments of particular livestock-based industries are also biased towards the commercial ranch sector that has traditionally supplied these industries (Directorate of International Trade 2001).…”