The impacts of people and livestock on topographically diverse open wood‐ and shrub‐lands in arid north‐west Namibia

Abstract

fears of degradation in this area relate more to ideology than evidence. In particular, it is argued 1. It is generally considered that the open that factors conferring resilience and persistence on woodlands of north-west Namibia are experiencing both the environment and the regional herding widespread degradation due to over-use of resources economy are obscured by: (1) disregard for the by local herders.implications of spatial and temporal scale in 2. Data are presented regarding community interpretations of ecological data; (2) a conceptual floristics, diversity, density, cover and population adherence to equilibrium dynamics that stresses structure for woody vegetation. These are analysed density-dependent impacts of people and livestock in relation to abiotic factors of topography and over and above the role of abiotic factors in substrate, and to settlement impacts represented constraining and driving primary productivity; and indirectly by distance from settlement and directly(3) remnants of a colonial ideology, which tends to by measures of branch cutting and browsing.view 'traditional communal farming' practices as 3. None of the vegetation indices upheld predicted environmentally degrading. patterns of degradation except on a small scale, confined to within settlements. Moreover, in nearly Key words. Open woodland degradation, desertification, pastoralism, policy, scale, biotic and all cases, local settlement effects were within the range of variability observed at larger scales. abiotic factors, traditional communal farming, Namibia. 4. It is concluded that continuing perceptions and Pokot and Turkana. ODI Social Forestry Network Paper, Group, Anthropology Dept, UCL, particularly Dan 6b. Brockington, Guy Cowlishaw, Alan Dangour, Hilda Behnke, R. (1993) Natural resource management in pastoral Kiwasila and Emmanuel de Merode, for discussion Africa. Paper presented to the UNEP workshop on and encouragement; to Rick Rohde, Pat Craven, Linda listening to the people: social aspects of dryland Baker and John Paterson for friendship and support in management, December 1993, Nairobi. Namibia; to Ruwenzori office services for a supportive A.B. (1990) Communal land use and the 'tragedy of the commons': some problems and development respectively. This paper was written with the further perspectives with specific reference to the semi-arid support of a British Academy Post-doctoral regions of Southern Africa. J. Grassld Soc. Sth. Afr. 7, Fellowship.

Global assessment of the non‐equilibrium concept in rangelands

“…Degradation is common in the presence of key resources and water sources, which are considered a precondition for grazing under semiarid or arid condition (Fensham et al 1999, Bestelmeyer et al 2006. A typical example of a stable key resource is the forage available in wet meadows located within rangelands (Buttolph and Coppock 2004); in addition, local degradation typically occurs around water sources (Hanan et al 1991), settlements (Sullivan 1999), nomad tents (Evans and Geerken 2004), and stock posts (Zhao et al 2007). Although the presence of key resources or water sources may lead to degradation, this does not necessarily imply that the non-equilibrium concept per se is incorrect.…”

Knowing, farming and climate change adaptation in North-Central Namibia

“…In so doing, we show how local agro-ecological knowledge has permitted farmers to build enduring resilience to adverse climate impacts. We warn against, however, romanticisation: current farming practice is implicated in land degradation processes in North Central Namibia; although, we argue, to what extent remains unclear (Kreike, 2010;Newsham and Thomas, 2009;Sullivan, 1999).…”

“…Nor does the report give much attention to abiotic drivers of landscape change. This is especially pertinent given work done in Northwest Namibia that re-examined claims to land degradation purportedly caused by livestock farming, and found little or no evidence to support them (Sullivan, 1999;Ward et al, 2000).…”

“Mathematics maybe, but not money”

“…Our thinking is shaped by three main influences. First, we draw on prior experience by one of us of measuring plants and vegetation assemblages in the course of quantitative ecological field research and multivariate statistical analysis Sullivan et al, 1995;Sullivan 1999). We combine this experience of abstracting, objectifying and quantifying entities of the natural world with an 'anthropology of nature' that highlights cultural differences in how naturesbeyond-the-human are understood and become known by people in diverse circumstances globally (Descola 2013;Kohn 2013;Sullivan, 2013aSullivan, , 2017b.…”