Arid Climate, Adaptation and Cultural Innovation in Africa (ACACIA)

UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNECollaborative Research Centre 389

Key Research Interest: Man-Environment Interaction under arid conditions

Spatial Focus:

* Northeast Africa (Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Libya),

* Southwest Africa (Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Angola)

Time Focus:

the entire Holocene

Disciplines:

archaeology

linguistics

geography

botany

history

anthropology

egyptology

Key Hypothesis: Human societies rework their strategies of adaptationto an ecologically and (frequently also) politically instable environment continuously; natural resource management strategies as well as property rights are adapted to changing conditions.

Many case studies from arid Africa show that man has contributed to detrimental environmental changes (desertification; loss of biodiversity); however there have been attempts at all times and probablyin all societies to lower vulnerability and to ensure sustainable resource exploitation.

The key questions of ACACIA make an intense interdisciplinary perspective combining theories and methods from the natural and social sciences necessary.

Since the middle of the 19th century Africa‘s Arid Zones are affected fundamentally by global processes.

Historicizing man/environmentrelations makes the collaboration of historical sciences and cultural sciencesobligatory.

Reserves in Namibia in 1923

In southern Africa national parks as well as transboundary parks are founded and community based natural resource management is instituted. In northeastern Africa violence and the large scale armement of civil populations undermines governmental and international efforts; the influence of the state shrinks and anomic situations prevail .In many arid regions plans are contemplated and are carried out to builddams and/or channels for the production of electricity and irrigation.

In global visions Africa‘s arid zones are in need of international protec-tion and are developed as destinations for western tourists (ecotourism, holisticrange management)

Co-operation in southern Africa

Archaeology UCT & Wits

Desert Research Foundation, Namibia

PLAAS, UWC, NEPRU, NA

History, UWC, Anthropology, UCT

History, UNAM

Project Area A: Northeastern Africa - Holocene environmental and human history

A1 Climatic Change and Human Settlement between Nile Valley and the Central Sahara

A2 Wadi Howar - Prehistoric Occupation and Paleoenvironment

A3 Language and Cultural Change in NE Africa

A5 Environment and Society in Ancient Egypt

A6 Climate Change and Cultural History in the Ennedi/Chad

A7 Household Economy and Social Processes in the Ennedi/ Chad

Project Area B and C: Environmental Change, Settlement and Resource Management in SW Africa

B1 Migration, Settlement and Cultural History - Linguistic Sources

B4 Palaeoecology and Late Holocene Occupation in NW Namibia

B5 Soils, Colluvial, Alluvial and Aeolic Sediments as Evidence of Landscape Evolution

B7 Modelling Vulnerability in Kaokoveld - Remote Sensing

C1 Crisis Management and Risk Minimization

C10 Demographic, Economic and Social Transformations

C11 Landscape and Memory

C8 Ethnic Groups and Nationalities

Key Concepts: Hazards and Damages• Hazards, defined as ‘naturally occurring or human-induced

process(es) or event(s) with the potential to create loss, i.e. a general resource of danger.’ (Smith 1996:5). Environmental and socio-political processes may result in detrimental changes in an individual’s and household’s entitlements. While these changes do not result in easily noticeable losses they result in increasing vulnerability and the chance increases that future hazards have a disastrous impact.

• Damages result from hazards and are defined as any negative impact on entitlements and/or the well-being of individuals and groups. Damages are often unevenly spread within one population. The extent of damages is not only dependent on the severity of the hazard but also on the vulnerability of the household.

Key Concepts: Vulnerability and Risks

( Vulnerability is defined as „the expected damage as resulting from the expected environmental perturbations in view of the expected transformation and adaptation processes. (Corell, Cramer & Schellnhuber 2002:2)

( Risk relates to an unpredictable or hardly predictable event which has consequences that are perceived negatively. Risks are the culturally and socially embedded perceptions of future possible damages. A formal definition of risk implies:

– (a) it relates (i.e. a cognitive process of connecting phenomena) to a specific recognised event X

– (b) X brings about Y which is negatively evaluated (e.g. drought brings about livestock losses)

– (c) X lies in the future– (d) X is hardly predictable or unpredictable

Key Concepts: Resilience and Risk Minimization

• Resilience being defined as the ”capacity ... to tolerate disturbance without collapsing into a qualitatively different state that is controlled by a different set of processes” (a quality of a system!)

• Risk minimisation is based on the culturally and socially embedded assessments and perceptions of past and future damages. Risk minimisation may be based on conscious decisions or may be embedded in custom and refers to (a) attempts at eliminating the occurrence of negatively evaluated events, (b) to strategies to decrease vulnerability and (c) to limiting the impact of damages

once they have occurred (as activities of individuals and/or groups)

Key Questions

• How are hazards (how is vulnerability) generated within a system and how do external influences impact upon potential hazards?

• How are damages resulting from these hazards distributed within a population?

• How do social groups perceive, interpret and represent hazards, damages and vulnerability?

• Which individual/group strategies are applied to lower vulnerability (expand resilience) and to prevent damages?

19°

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O p u w o

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Sesfontein

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K a o ko O t a v i

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O p u w ob a d la n d s

0 50km

Angola

Kaokoland

Research on Vulnerability and Resilience in NW Namibia

Since 1995 ACACIA conducts research in NW Namibia.

Research on Vulnerability and Resilience in NW Namibia

• Data on settlement and environmental history for the entire holocene (archaeology, archaeobotany)

• Data on processes of environmental change (botany, geography)

• Data on demographic processes and household dynamics (anthropology)

• Data on environmental management and risk minizing strategies of local herders (anthropology)

Since 2002 an interdisciplinary group focusses on vulnerability and resilience

Trajectories of Vulnerability

• Demographic Processes• Environmental Decline (Desertification, Loss of

Diversity)• Entitlement Decline (Loss of Endowments, Loss

of Exchange Entitlements)• Drought• Livestock Epidemics

Trajectories of Vulnerability: Demographic Processes

Demographic Growth of different Namibia Groups

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Baster in Rehoboth (Lang 1998) Kaokoland (Bollig und Lang 2001)Ovambo (Notkola und Siiskonen 2000) Namibia gesamt (US Census Bureau)

Consequences of Increasing Fertility and Increasing Mortality not clear!

Trajectories of Vulnerability: Increasing Regional Herd

Fig. The dynamics of the Regional Herd of Kaokoland (1940-2000 )

172933

92607

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Num ber of

Cattle

Source: Directorate of Veterinary Services, Page 1976, van Warmelo 1951;

Over the last 20 years the regional herd increased dramatically due to natural growth, and an extension of boreholes

Trajectories of Vulnerability: Entitlement Decline - Trade

In* 1917 the South African Administration banned any form of trade across the border into Portuguese Angola but also trade to neighbouring regions: consequence decline and disintegration of a regional trade system.

Only since 1970s emergence of a livestock market due to war-economy.

Trade in livestock still hampered by Government Regulations (Red Line!), lack of access to capital for local traders, and lack of local infrastructure (e.g. lack of local abbatoir).

Trajectories of Vulnerability: Entitlement Decline - Land

• Herders lost repeatedly land due to government regulations; (reserve policy 1923, removal from southern Kaokoland 1929, removal from Kunene River 1940s, Etosha Park 1960s, redrawing of regional boundaries 1992, hydro-electric dam site?)

• Communal Land Tenure Reform adds to uncertainty but also holds potential for more decentralised decision-making at regional level;

Emergence of Conservancies, Institution of water-Point Committees, Introduction of Land-Board 2003

NDT – MET

IRDNC – MET

NNF, Rise – MET

(

NDF – MET, Nyae Nyae Dev.

IRDNC – MET

(

RISE – MET

RISE– MET

Source:

Nacso

The uncertainfuture of landrights:community basednatural resource management

„The Great Dream: to create an unbroken conservation zone stretching from Lake Victoria to South Africa“ (SAFRI 2002:53)

The uncertain future of land rights: large scale transboundary parks

Trajectories of Vulnerability: Drought

Fig. Climatic Variation, Kamanjab 1941 - 2001

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106,2

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Percentageof Deviationfrom Annual

Average

Drought is frequent in NW Namibia, minus 20% of precipitation results in about minus 80% of biomass-production in grass layer; Unclear how decadal drought affects plant communities!

Trajectories of Vulnerability: Drought

Fig. Losses of Cattle in 34 Households

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households

% of deviation

from meanloss of 14.5%

The Origin and Treatment of Disasters in Himba Worldview

Kinshipsolidarity

Patronage

Wealth andSocial Order

Transgression of Norms and Valuesand the Ancestral CodeMajor Disasters

Neither caused byDivine Being nor

by AncestorsMinor Household Centered

Problems and Individual MischiefCaused by Ancestors

Perception of disaster as aproblem of the kin group

Analysis of ancestral relations and possible transgressionsand recreation of harmony of ancestors and living in ritual

no further analysisand no further

treatment

The Perception of Hazards & Vulnerability:

Alternative views have become prominent: churches, development agencies, political parties diseminate different views on the causation of hazards.

The Perception of Hazards & Vulnerability

• No clear-cut relation between general frames of interpretation on the perception of specific disasters: perceptions are connected to the physical properties of hazards as to more general worldviews and the specific social and cultural embeddedness of individuals.

• Population pressure was only rated as a problem of outsiders immigrating into the region;

• Detailed local knowledge on vegetational change. However: Degradation is attributed to rainfall decline but not to increase in stock-numbers.

• The loss and denial of exchange entitlements rated as the most serious impediment to economic development.

Strategies of Risk Minimization - Management of an acute crisis

• Local Level: Higher Level:• Increased Slaughter Drought Aid• Intensive Food-Sharing Supp. Food Livestock• Substituting Food• Increased Mobility • Increased Sales• Ritual

The choice of specific strategies

at local level depend on household assets, labour availability, previous accumulation of economic, social and symbolic capital

In drought years

(1) nomadic moves are more frequent (2) grazing reserves are used (3) extra-territorial migrations are carried out

Case studyPastoral nomadism

Grazing orbit

Rainy season settl.

Move to dry season pasture

10 km

Strategies of Risk Minimization - Increasing Resilience

• Diversification

• Social Networks

• Protection of Key Resources

• These „buffering mechanisms“ are anchored socially and culturally. Common denominator: short term benefits are given up for medium and/or long term benefits.

• Resilience is a socially generated collective good!

Increasing Resilience: Diversification

Fig. The Growth and Decline of Cattle, Goats and Sheep Herds

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Fig. The Himba Network

Increasing Resilience: Social Networks

c. 30% of livestock production invested into social networks

High degree of cohesiveness

Network dominated by few central actors

Increasing Resilience: Protection of Key Resources

• There is a clearly defined group of users which qualifies for the exploitation of a resource.

• Himba and Herero herders have well spelt out set of rules of „good grazing“

• Councils channel internal decision making on resource use. • Local bigmen take on the cost of sanctioning.• Local systems of resource management have been tolerated

by the state.• Danger: Local elites may usurp exclusive land-titles under

new legislation.