Deforestation in the Owambo Region, North Namibia, Since the 1850s

2009

whose moral and intellectual support has been very important. I am also grateful to Dick Foeken and Jan-Bart Gewald of the African Studies Centre (Afrika-Studiecentrum), Leiden; to two anonymous readers commissioned by the ASC and Brill; as well as to Gavin Lewis, Carol L. Martin, Joed Elich from Brill, and Markus Wiener from Markus Wiener Publishers for their invaluable advice in turning the manuscript into a book. Tsering Wangyal Shawa, GIS Librarian at the Geosciences Library, Princeton University, helped me with the maps.

Deforestation and Reforestation in Namibia, 2009

whose moral and intellectual support has been very important. I am also grateful to Dick Foeken and Jan-Bart Gewald of the African Studies Centre (Afrika-Studiecentrum), Leiden; to two anonymous readers commissioned by the ASC and Brill; as well as to Gavin Lewis, Carol L. Martin, Joed Elich from Brill, and Markus Wiener from Markus Wiener Publishers for their invaluable advice in turning the manuscript into a book. Tsering Wangyal Shawa, GIS Librarian at the Geosciences Library, Princeton University, helped me with the maps.

Colonial conservation in north-central Namibia between the 1920s and 1950s was effective in stabilizing wildlife populations. Ironically enough, however, successful wildlife conservation contributed to severe deforestation. The colonial administration created a large game preserve, prohibited the hunting of royal game, and disarmed the local population. Without firearms, villagers relied heavily on elaborate palisades and fences to protect themselves, their animals, and their crop fields from wildlife predation. Internal migrants and large numbers of refugees from neighboring southern Angola constructed new palisaded homesteads, with fields shielded by fences, and cut down much of the woody vegetation cover in the places they settled.

Overseas Development Institute London [email protected] N.B. This paper was prepared for the Natural Resource Perspective Series of the ODI, but was never published after I left in 2002. Hence the format. I haven't updated it, but it still seems worth distributing. A debate over the extent and significance of deforestation in West-Central Africa, and by extension other regions of the tropical world, has been under way since the early colonial period. Typically, forest officers argued that 'desertification' was spreading southwards and the cause was the destructive agricultural practices of peasant farmers, notably slash-and-burn agriculture. This view was challenged in the 1990s in the publications of James Fairhead and Melissa Leach who argued that West African landscapes have been 'misread', that levels of deforestation are not at the crisis

Global Ecology and Biogeography, 1999

2007

2018

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Science of The Total Environment, 2012

The influence of both local and global drivers on long-term changes in the vegetation of Namibia's extensive rangelands was investigated. Fifty-two historical photographs of the Palgrave Expedition of 1876 were rephotographed and used to document changes over more than 130 years, in grass, shrub and tree cover within three major biomes along a 1200 km climatic gradient in central and southern Namibia. We showed that patterns of change are correlated with mean annual precipitation (MAP) and that below a threshold of around 250 mm, vegetation has remained remarkably stable regardless of land-use or tenure regime. Above this threshold, an increase in tree cover is linked to the rainfall gradient, the legacies of historical events in the late 19th century, subsequent transformations in land-use and increased atmospheric CO 2. We discuss these findings in relation to pastoral and settler societies, paleo-and historical climatic trends and predictions of vegetation change under future global warming scenarios. We argue that changes in land-use associated with colonialism (decimation of megaherbivores and wildlife browsers; fire suppression, cattle ranching), as well as the effects of CO 2 fertilisation provide the most parsimonious explanations for vegetation change. We found no evidence that aridification, as projected under future climate change scenarios, has started in the region. This study provided empirical evidence and theoretical insights into the relative importance of local and global drivers of change in the savanna environments of central and southern Namibia and global savanna ecosystems more generally.

1986

Forests and forestry play a wide range of varied roles in the West African ahe el.' In addition t o a multidimensional protective function, they serve important productive functions in farming systems across the region. Principal elements include: fuelwood and charcoal representing more than 90 percent of rural energy consumption, building poles and construction timber, substantial although as yet poorly quantified contributions to both human and animal nutrition, as well as medicinal plants and a range of other important nonwood products. Considerable attention and substantial resources have been devoted to forestry developnlent in the Sahel over the past decade, attention based on the role of foresty in addressing interrelated concerns of environmental degradation (or "desertification") and the "other energy crisis." It has become increasingly clear over the past several years that much of what was being attempted was not working well. A good deal of effort has now gone into assessing the experience with forestry development across the region. Thls is reflected in a rapidly expanding literature of country and regional sector studies, issue-specific analyses, and project evaluations. 2 We have sought in this issue of Rural Africana to use the experience gained over the past decade in forestry development as a point of departure for exploring in as much detail as is possible in a volume of this size selected issues that are considered key to placing future forestry programs in the West African Sahel on a more sound and secure footing. As is to be expected, these issues are not uncontroversial-some are currently subjects of considerable discussion and debate. It is hoped that the presentations here will serve t o knrich that discussion and debate by contributing t o a clearer understanding of both the options and the challenges that lie ahead.

Global Ecology and Biogeography, 1999

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.