OBJECTIVES

Study Aim

The outline of the interdisciplinary research study concerning the local environmental knowledge is to improve the understanding of a sustainable resource management in arid and semiarid zones of Namibia. The objective of the anthropological research is to contribute to the knowledge of sustainable range management.
In the centre of the anthropological research the local human-environment-knowledge is seen as a protagonist-based approach: The expert-knowledge of OvaHerero pastoralists should be viewed as a strategy of decision making, i.e. adopting and rejecting management options on the basis of perceived indicators.

Research Interest

The local knowledge of OvaHerero pastoralists will be examined in a fieldwork of a three-months period at the beginning of the dry season regarding:

• Strategies of spatial and temporal mobility and of riskminimisation
• watersupply and water availability
• building of boreholes
• amount and use of cattle posts
  

2. Structural organisation of the cultural domain “vegetation, soil and pasture“ of OvaHerero pastoralists

• the classification of plants for animal nutrition
• the perception of soil and other environmental characteristics as possible classification criteria
• the selection of plants and soil for animal nutrition and its quality ranking including the seasonal characterstics
• the local perceptions of climate and its variability. In particular the amount and variability of annual rainfall (the intervals between rainfall events, the perception of rain scattering and the amount of rainfall)

3. Local perception of environmental change and emic causalities

• Perception of erosion and degradation and its consequences for range management
• Causes for environmental change from emic point of view

4. Environmental History of selected pastures

The perception of vegetation development from emic point of view and changes of range management concerning the years since drought in 1981.

 

5. Together with Jenny Eisold: Synthesis of local and scientific knowledge

Anthropological and ecological data are compared and synthesized to gather new insights concerning range management and decision making processes regarding mobility. By contrasting the data of the emic and etic view, the similarities and differences between the scientific knowledge and local knowledge on range management will be shown. That will lead to synergetic effects between both concepts of knowledge, to a better understanding of local management strategies and concepts of sustainable land management.
The results will be incorporated into a discussion about criteria for a sustainable management of Namibia’s Mopane savannas.

 

With the help of the field data local perception, interpretation and explanation of ecological processes in the highly stochastic and sensitive environment of African savannas will be analysed. This should lead to a conceptualisation of the essential elements of range management. Hence it is intended to improve the understanding of criteria and indicators guiding the herdsmen in their decision towards spatial and temporal aspects of herd- magagement.

 

Methods

The challenge lies in the examination of mostly unconscious knowledge, structures and classifications. The methods therefore include elements of the Cultural Domain Analysis:

Location

A settlement of OvaHerero pastoralists in the emerging Orupupa Conservancy in north western Namibia serves as research area.