Skip to main content
Open Book Publishers

Etosha-Kunene Conservation Conversations: An introduction

Chapter of: Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast: Conservation Histories, Policies and Practices in North-west Namibia(pp. 1–20)

Export Metadata

  • ONIX 3.0
    • Thoth
    • Project MUSE
      Cannot generate record: No BIC or BISAC subject code
    • OAPEN
    • JSTOR
      Cannot generate record: No BISAC subject code
    • Google Books
      Cannot generate record: No BIC, BISAC or LCC subject code
    • OverDrive
      Cannot generate record: No priced EPUB or PDF URL
  • ONIX 2.1
  • CSV
  • JSON
  • OCLC KBART
  • BibTeX
  • CrossRef DOI deposit
    Cannot generate record: This work does not have any ISBNs
  • MARC 21 Record
    Cannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
  • MARC 21 Markup
    Cannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
  • MARC 21 XML
    Cannot generate record: MARC records are not available for chapters
Metadata
TitleEtosha-Kunene Conservation Conversations
SubtitleAn introduction
ContributorSian Sullivan(author)
Ute Dieckmann(author)
Selma Lendelvo(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0402.00
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0402/chapters/10.11647/obp.0402.00
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightSian Sullivan; Ute Dieckmann; Selma Lendelvo
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2024-08-02
Long abstractThis introductory chapter describes how the Etosha- Kunene Histories research project, for which this edited volume forms a key contribution, addresses the challenge of conserving biodiversity-rich landscapes in Namibia’s north-central and north-west regions, while reconciling historical contexts of social exclusion and marginalisation. This edited volume, originating from an international workshop held in July 2022, explores the intricate interplay between local and global events shaping the “Etosha Kunene” conservation landscape. The workshop featured diverse participants from Namibian institutions, international universities, and various conservation organisations. Our discussions emphasised the complex histories and contemporary dynamics of conservation policies, highlighting the tension between biodiversity protection and social equity. The volume is organised into five parts: historical policy analysis, post-independence conservation approaches, ecological management issues, the impact of historical contexts on contemporary landscapes and communities, and lion conservation within Community-Based Natural Resource Management frameworks. This work aims to contribute to sustainable and inclusive conservation practices that honour both the region’s natural and cultural heritage.
Page rangepp. 1–20
Print length20 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Sian Sullivan

(author)
Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0522-8843
http://www.futurepasts.net/

Sian Sullivan is Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University. She is interested in discourses and practices of difference and exclusion in relation to ecology and conservation. She has carried out long-term research on conservation, colonialism, and culture in Namibia (www.futurepasts.net and www.etosha-kunene-histories.net), and also engages critically with the financialisation of nature (see www.the-natural-capital-myth.net). She has co-edited Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power (2000), Contributions to Law, Philosophy and Ecology: Exploring Re-embodiments (2016), Valuing Development, Environment and Conservation: Creating Values that Matter (2018), and Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis (2021).

Ute Dieckmann

(author)
Anthropologist at University of Cologne
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9640-6942
https://www.xoms-omis.org/

Ute Dieckmann is an anthropologist at the University of Cologne and currently German Principal Investigator for Etosha-Kunene Histories (www.etosha-kunene-histories.net), supported by the German Research Foundation and the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. She has carried out long-term research in Namibia on colonialism, nature conservation and indigeneity. For many years, she has worked at the Legal Assistance Centre in Windhoek, doing research with and advocacy for marginalised and indigenous communities in Namibia and was coordinator of the Xoms |Omis Project (https://www.xoms-omis.org/). She has edited Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa (2021) and co-edited Scraping the Pot? San in Namibia Two Decades After Independence (2014).

Selma Lendelvo

(author)
Associate Research Professor at University of Namibia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9793-6950

Selma Lendelvo is an associate research professor in life sciences, and currently the Director for the Centre for Grants Management and Resource Mobilization at the University of Namibia (UNAM) with a research and project management experience spanning over 20 years. Her work and publications have mainly been on community-based natural resources management and rural development including cross-cutting aspects such as gender and climate change. Selma also works closely with the government and other practitioners on the ground to strengthen natural resources management, conservation and community development in Namibia and beyond. She serves on the Namibia National Committee for the Rio Conventions, the Namibian Nature Conservation Board and the Namibia Association for CBNRM Support organisations (NACSO). Her collaborations with regional and international partners have been instrumental in shaping and advancing her research and professional career.

References
  1. Bayart, J-F. 2009. The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity.
  2. Berry, H.H. 1997. Historical review of the Etosha region and its subsequent administration as a National Park. Madoqua 20(1): 3–10, https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA10115498_453
  3. Bollig, M. 2020. Shaping the African Savannah: From Capitalist Frontier to Arid Eden in Namibia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108764025
  4. Botha, C. 2005. People and the environment in colonial Namibia. South African Historical Journal 52: 170–90, https://doi.org/10.1080/02582470509464869
  5. de la Bat, B. 1982. Etosha. 75 Years. S.W.A. Annual: 11–26.
  6. Denker, H. 2022. An Assessment of the Tourism Potential in the Eastern Ombonde-Hoanib People’s Landscape to Guide Tourism Route Development. Windhoek: GIZ, https://www.irdnc.org.na/pdf/Report-Ombonde-Hoanib-Assessment-of-Tourism-Potential.pdf
  7. Dieckmann, U. 2003. The impact of nature conservation on the San: A case study of Etosha National Park. In Hohmann, T. (ed.) San and the State: Contesting Land, Development, Identity and Representation. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 37–86.
  8. Dieckmann, U. 2007. Haiǁom in the Etosha Region: A History of Colonial Settlement, Ethnicity and Nature Conservation. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien.
  9. Dieckmann, U. 2011. The Haiǁom and Etosha: A case study of resettlement in Namibia. In Helliker, K. & Murisa, T. eds. Land Struggles and Civil Society in Southern Africa. New Jersey: Africa World Press, 155–89.
  10. Dieckmann, U. 2020. From colonial land dispossession to the Etosha and Mangetti West Land Claim—Haiǁom struggles in independent Namibia. In Odendaal, W. and Werner, W. (eds.) Neither Here Nor There: Indigeneity, Marginalisation and Land Rights in Post-independence Namibia. Windhoek: Legal Assistance Centre, 95–120, https://www.lac.org.na/projects/lead/Pdf/neither-5.pdf
  11. Dieckmann, U. 2021a. Haiǁom in Etosha: ‘Cultural maps’ and being-in-relations. In Dieckmann, U. (ed.) Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 93–137, https://www.transcript-open.de/doi/10.14361/9783839452417-005
  12. Dieckmann, U. 2021b. On ‘climate’ and the risk of onto-epistemological ‘chainsaw massacres’: A study on climate change and Indigenous people in Namibia revisited. In Böhm, S. and Sullivan, S. (eds.) Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 189–205, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0265.14
  13. Eisen, J. and Mudodosi, B. 2021. 30x30 – A brave new dawn or a failure to protect people and nature? Green Economy Coalition 1 November, https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/news-and-resources/30x30-a-brave-new-dawn-or-a-failure-to-protect-people-and-nature
  14. Fletcher, R. 2010. Neoliberal environmentality: Towards a poststructuralist political ecology of the conservation debate. Conservation and Society 8(3): 171–81, https://doi.org/10.4103/0972-4923.73806
  15. Fletcher, R. 2017. Environmentality unbound: Multiple governmentalities in environmental politics. Geoforum 85: 311–15, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.06.009
  16. Foucault, M. 1991. Governmentality. In Burchell, G., Gordon, C. and Miller, P. (eds.) The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 87–104.
  17. Foucault, M. 2008. The Birth of Biopolitics, M. Senellart, M., Ewald, F. and Fontana, A. (eds.) London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230594180
  18. Hauptfleisch, M., Blaum, N., Liehr, S., Hering, R., Kraus, R., Tausendfruend, M., Cimenti, A., Lüdtke, D., Rauchecker, M. and Uiseb, K. 2024. Trends and barriers to wildlife-based options for sustainable management of savanna resources: The Namibian case. In von Maltitz, G.P., Midgley, G.F., Veitch, J., Brümmer, C., Rötter, R.P., Viehberg, F.A. and Veste, M. (eds.) Sustainability of Southern African Ecosystems Under Global Change. Berlin: Springer Nature, 499–525, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10948-5_18
  19. Heydinger J. 2021. A more-than-human history of Apartheid technocratic planning in Etosha-Kaokoveld, Namibia, c.1960-1970s. South African Historical Journal 73: 64–94, https://doi.org/10.1080/02582473.2021.1909120
  20. Heydinger, J. 2023. Community conservation and remote sensing of the desert-adapted lions in northwest Namibia. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 11: 1187711, https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1187711
  21. Hoole, A. and Berkes, F. 2010. Breaking down fences: Recoupling social-ecological systems for biodiversity conservation in Namibia. Geoforum 41(2): 304–17, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.10.009
  22. Ingold, T. 2011[2000]. The Perception of the Environment. Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003196662
  23. Joubert, E. 1974. The development of wildlife utilization in South West Africa. Journal of the Southern African Wildlife Management Association 4(1): 35–42, https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA03794369_3314
  24. Kalvelage, L., Revilla Diaz, J. and Bollig, M. 2023. Valuing nature in global production networks: hunting tourism and the weight of history in Zambezi, Namibia. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2023.2200468
  25. Kimaro, M.E., Lendelvo, S. and Nakanyala, J. 2015. Determinants of tourists’ satisfaction in Etosha National Park, Namibia. Journal for Studies in Humanities & Social Sciences 1(2): 116–31, https://journals.unam.edu.na/index.php/JSHSS/article/view/1008
  26. Koot, S. and Hitchcock, R.K. 2019. In the way: Perpetuating land dispossession of the Indigenous Haiǁom and the collective action lawsuit for Etosha National Park and Mangetti West, Namibia. Nomadic Peoples 33: 55–77, https://doi.org/10.3197/np.2019.230104
  27. KREA 2008. Kunene Regional Ecological Assessment Prepared for the Kunene People’s Park Technical Committee. Round River Conservation Studies.
  28. Lendelvo, S., Mechtilde, P. and Sullivan, S. 2020. A perfect storm? COVID-19 and community-based conservation in Namibia. Namibian Journal of Environment 4(B): 1–15, https://nje.org.na/index.php/nje/issue/view/4
  29. Lendelvo, S. and Nakanyala, J. 2012. Socio-economic and Livelihood Strategies of the Ehirovipuka Conservancy, Namibia. Windhoek: MRC/UNAM Technical Report.
  30. Lenggenhager, L., Akawa, M., Miescher, G., Nghitevelekwa, R., and Sinthumule, N.I. (eds.) 2023. The Lower !Garib – Orange River: Pasts and Presents of a Southern African Border Region. Bielefeld: Transcript, https://www.transcript-publishing.com/978-3-8376-6639-7/the-lower-garib-orange-river/
  31. LLF, WWF, IRDNC 2024. Legacy Landscapes Fund confirms long-term funding of USD 1 million per year to Namibia’s North-west: The Skeleton Coast-Etosha conservation bridge. Press Release, https://wwfafrica.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/240117-skeleton-coast-etosha-conservation-bridge-ll---press-release---llf-final.pdf
  32. Luke, T.W. 1999. Environmentality as green governmentality. In Darier, E. (ed.) Discourses of the Environment. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 121–51.
  33. MEFT 2021. Management Plan for Skeleton Coast National Park 2021/2022-2030/2031. Windhoek: Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, https://www.meft.gov.na/national-parks/management-plan-2-skeleton-coast-national-park-/3276/
  34. MET 2009. Tourism Scoping Report: Kunene Peoples Park. Windhoek: Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
  35. Miescher, G. 2012. Namibia’s Red Line: The History of a Veterinary and Settlement Border. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137118318
  36. Miescher, G. and Henrichsen, D. (eds.) 2000. New Notes on Kaoko: The Northern Kunene Region (Namibia) in Texts and Photographs. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien.
  37. Miescher, G., Lenggenhager, L and Ramutsindela, M. 2023. The lower !Garib / Orange River: A cross-border microregion. In Lenggenhager, L., Akawa, M., Miescher, G., Nghitevelekwa, R., and Sinthumule, N.I. (eds.) The Lower !Garib – Orange River: Pasts and Presents of a Southern African Border Region. Bielefeld: Transcript, 11–24, https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839466391-001
  38. Moseley, C. (ed.) 2010. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. Paris: UNESCO, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000187026
  39. Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  40. Pellis, A., Duineveld, M. & Wagner, L.B. 2015. Conflicts forever. The path dependencies of tourism conflicts: The Case of Anabeb Conservancy, Namibia. In Johannesson, G.T., Ren, C. and van der Duim, R. eds. Tourism Encounters and Controversies. Ontological Politics of Tourism Development. London: Ashgate, 115–38.
  41. Schnegg, M. 2007. Battling borderlands: Causes and consequences of an early German colonial war in Namibia. In Bollig, M., Bubenzer, O., Vogelsang, R. and Wotzka, H-P. (eds.) Aridity, Change and Conflict in Africa. Köln: Heinrich-Barth-Institut, 247–64.
  42. Sullivan, S. 2002. How sustainable is the communalising discourse of ‘new’ conservation? The masking of difference, inequality and aspiration in the fledgling ‘conservancies’ of Namibia. In Chatty, D. & Colchester, M. (eds.) Conservation and Mobile Indigenous people: Displacement, Forced Settlement and Sustainable Development. Oxford: Berghahn Press, 158–87, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782381853-013
  43. Sullivan, S. 2003. Protest, conflict and litigation: Dissent or libel in resistance to a conservancy in north-west Namibia. In Berglund, E. and Anderson, D. (eds.) Ethnographies of Conservation: Environmentalism and the Distribution of Privilege. Oxford: Berghahn Press, 69–86, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780857456748-008
  44. Sullivan, S. 2006. The elephant in the room? Problematizing ‘new’ (neoliberal) biodiversity conservation. Forum for Development Studies 33(1): 105–35, https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2006.9666337
  45. Sullivan, S. 2017. What’s ontology got to do with it? On nature and knowledge in a political ecology of ‘the green economy’. Journal of Political Ecology 24(1): 217–42, https://doi.org/10.2458/v24i1.20802
  46. Sullivan, S., !Uriǂkhob, S., Kötting, B., Muntifering, J. and Brett, R. 2021. Historicising black rhino in Namibia: Colonial-era hunting, conservation custodianship, and plural values. Future Pasts Working Paper Series 13 https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp13-sullivan-urikhob-kotting-muntifering-brett-2021
  47. Sullivan, S. and Ganuses, W.S. 2021. Densities of meaning in west Namibian landscapes: Genealogies, ancestral agencies, and healing. In Dieckmann, U. ed. Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa. Bielefeld: Transcript, 139–90, https://www.transcript-open.de/doi/10.14361/9783839452417-006
  48. Sullivan, S. and Ganuses, W.S. 2022. !Nara harvesters of the northern Namib: A cultural history through three photographed encounters. Journal of the Namibian Scientific Society 69: 115–39.
  49. Sullivan, S. Hannis, M., Impey, A., Low, C. and Rohde, R.F. 2016. Future pasts? Sustainabilities in west Namibia – a conceptual framework for research. Future Pasts Working Paper Series 1, https://www.futurepasts.net/fpwp1-sullivan-et-al-2016
  50. Suzman, J. 2004. Etosha dreams: An historical account of the Haiǁom predicament. Journal of Modern African Studies 42: 221–38, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X04000102
  51. Táíwò, O. 2023. It never existed. Aeon. 2023, https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-pre-colonial-africa-is-vacuous-and-wrong
  52. Tipping-Woods, D. 2023. Sharing space: Communities lead the way to a new era of landscape-scale conservation. World Wildlife Magazine Summer 2023, https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/summer-2023/articles/sharing-space
  53. Tsing, A.L. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400830596
  54. Wilson, E.O. 2016. Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life. New York: Liveright.
  55. WWF 2018. Living Planet Report. Gland, Switzerland: World Wide Fund for Nature, https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/living-planet-report-2018