Land use issues in neighbouring Namibia

AllAfrica.com reports on the dispute in Namibia's west Kavango area between Oshiwambo-speaking cattle farmers and the Kwangali tribal authority in Kavango Region over cattle grazing rights. Oshiwambo-speaking farmers with reported 60,000 cattle grazing illegally in west Kavango are refusing to obey evictions orders made in late November. Further south, in the Otjozondjupa Region, four new communal area conservancies were gazetted. Meanwhile the Namibian Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA) is pressing the Namibian government to address delays in allocation of hunting concessions.

Paying for water

A recent posting on the ELDIS site mentions a report by ActionAid, arguing against water rates in the context of World Trade Organization GATS negotiations pressure to open water delivery markets to foreign organizations. The report uses examples from South Africa to make the point that privatization in the water sector can have an adverse effect on the poorest communities. The WTO discusses the issue in its GATS Fact and Fiction site. Avoiding rate shock : making the case for water rates, a study sponsored by the AWWA Water Utility Council also argues the other side. It is available in HOORC's library.

HOORC seminar: paleo-environments

HOORC Professor Sue Ringrose and Research Fellow Phillipa Huntsman-Mapila will describe their work on paleo-environments at a seminar this coming Monday 28th November 2005. Professor Ringrose will present an overview of palaeo-environmental research in the Okavango region and Phillipa will talk about palaeo-environments and climate variability in the Lake Ngami basin. The seminar will be held at the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre Seminar Room, Shorobe Road, Sexaxa, Maun. You can find other work by HOORC researchers Ringrose and Huntsman-Mapila in the University of Botswana catalogue.

HOORC seminars share information and knowledge among the broader research community in the Okavango region.

Local government congress

HOORC Research Fellow Phillipa Huntsman-Mapila has alerted us to the upcoming ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) World Congress 2006, Out of Africa - Local Solutions for Global Challenges to be held in Cape Town from 27 February to 3 March 2006. The programme includes sessions about governance for sustainable communities, climate protection, water governance and management, biodiversity protection, sustainability management instruments, and sustainable procurement. A call for papers for the pre-conference Researchers’ Symposium on Sustainable Human Settlements and their Governance, to take place on 24-25 February 2006, is circulating. Contact Lynn O’Neill, University of Cape Town - Environmental Evaluation Unit, Phone: + 27-21/ 650 2866, Fax: +27-21/ 650 3791
Email: iclei_ct@enviro.uct.ac.za.

ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability, is an international association of local governments and national and regional local government organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development.

Costs and benefits of protected areas study

The ELDIS service alerted us to Protected Areas, Wildlife Conservation and Local Welfare, a working paper by Anne Borge Johannesen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The paper uses a bio-economic analysis of protected area expansion against a southern and eastern African research background to conclude that, depending on the economic conditions, protected area expansion may reduce the degree of wildlife conservation and the welfare of the local people. The paper makes reference to Integrated Conservation and Development Projects, an analysis of the assumptions and implications of programmes like the ODMP. This paper, an chapter in Making Parks Work, can be found in HOORC's library.

Boundary crossing parks meeting

HOORC Associate Professor Larry Swatuk recently took part in the meeting, Parks for Peace or Peace for Parks? Issues in Practice and Policy, sponsored by the the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The meeting explored the potential for transboundary conservation areas dedicated to the promotion of peace and cooperation to help resolve conflicts and protect the environment. Larry spoke about efforts in southern Africa to reconnect fragmented protected areas and to solve environmental problems in the region. He pointed out that creating working peace parks that protect the environment and promote democracy requires additional considerations that are often overlooked. Read more about transboundary conservation issues in HOORC's library:

Sharing water : towards a transboundary consensus on the management of the Okavango River Basin final report

Transboundary rivers, sovereignty and development : hydropolitical drivers in the Okavango River basin

Transboundary protected areas : the viability of regional conservation strategies

Transboundary environmental negotiation : new approaches to global cooperation

Beyond boundaries : transboundary natural resource management in Sub-Saharan Africa

New in HOORC's Library: Southern African Parks in Transition

Work from the IUCN's Southern African Sustainable Use Specialist Group was used to create Parks in Transition: Biodiversity, Rural Development and the Bottom Line, a collection of papers that draw on insight from case studies and synthesize them into lessons to guide park management in transitional economies. Figures and tables draw comparisons among the seven countries of the southern African region -- for example, percentage land apportionment by tenure, changes in gross value of international trophy hunting and biodiversity ranking -- as background to a discussion of accountability in resource management. Botswana's experience with community based natural resource management is highlighted in Chapter Four. You can find the book in HOORC's library.

Joint venture tenders for Okavango controlled hunting areas

The Okavango Jakotsha Community Trust and the Xhauxhwatubi Development Trust have this week advertised in The Ngami Times invitations for tenders from Botswana registered companies for joint venture arrangements for the management of the Photographic Community Controlled Hunting Area NG24 and Community Multi-purpose Controlled Hunting Area NG49 repectively, for a five year period. Deadline for delivery of the tender documents to the Northwest District Council is December 2nd, 2005. Management of Controlled Hunting Areas falls within Part III of the Botswana Wildlife Conservation and National Parks Act. The act, the advertisement and a description of the management and planning process for these areas in the report, Management plans for controlled hunting areas allocated to communities in Ngamiland WMAs, can be found in the HOORC library.

Rainwater

It is pouring outside HOORC for the second day in a row, changing the look of the landscape even before green grass begins to show. The francolins and hornbills have taken shelter and library visitors come in dripping. The runoff pipe is pouring forth, making us think about how to take advantage of the brief water wealth of this season. India's Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) runs a rainwater harvesting site that includes a runoff calculator for all the Indian states and water harvesting related links. Closer to home, the Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Network (SEARNET) will hold its Ninth SearNet Conference: 28th November - 1 December 2005, Definining Rainwater Harvesting Pathways beyond 2006, in Kigali, Rwanda. Last year's conference was held in Gaborone, following formation of the Botswana Rainwater Harvesting Association (BORHUA) in early 2004. Other Internet resources include the Global Development Research Centre's The Web of Rain, and OneWorldAfrica's rainwater harvesting page.

New in HOORC's Library: Participatory Learning and Action

HOORC has received Number 51 of the International Institute for Environment and Development's series, Participatory Learning and Action. The issue contains two articles especially relevant to the ODMP's work, River management in Bangladesh: a people's initiative to solve water-logging and Participatory landscape analysis for community-based livestock management in Vietnam. In Bangladesh, villagers identified the causes of the problem and initiated an engineering solution while in Vietnam the Mountain Agrarian Systems Programme assisted local people in capturing local knowledge about grazing areas in a GIS system. You can read the articles in HOORC's library, courtesy of ODMP funding.

World Lake Conference

The 11th World Lake Conference was held in Nairobi from October 31st to November 4th 2005, with the theme, Management of Lake Basins for their Sustainable Use: Global Experience and African Issues. The conference, a biennial event, was organized by the International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC) and the Kenyan Ministry of Water Resources Management and Development. The conference saw the launch of the United Nations Environment Programme's Atlas of African Lakes, a publication that compares and contrasts satellite images of the past few decades with contemporary ones to show changes taking place in African catchments and wetlands.

Vegetation "must-read" resource

Vegetation of Southern Africa , edited by R.M. Cowling, D.M. Richardson and S.M. Pierce is a core resource for those working on the Vegetation Resources Management component of the Okavango Delta Management Plan. The 615 page volume , compiled from work by forty-eight Southern African experts, is the first comprehensive account of the region's vegetation, so clearly written and free of jargon that it was featured in a review on the Humanities and Social Sciences H-Net online forum:

"The main part of the book is part 2, "Biomes," a discussion of the discrete entitities that comprise the various vegetation zones (or eco-regions). Here, and in ten detailed chapters, each of southern Africa's biomes is considered, explained, and analyzed in terms of structure, functions, boundaries, environmental drivers, and processes. There are separate themed chapters on coastal vegetation, freshwater wetlands, and marine vegetation. Part 3 ("Ecological themes") consists of eight chapters. Dealing with issues like fire, herbivory, and species diversity, it also includes humans directly in the story, and this is narrated in terms of human use of plants and human impacts on vegetation (agriculture, population growth, plant introductions, and conservation policy and practice)."

The book has a glossary of terms and two indexes, one by subject matter and the other by biota and taxa. Helpful illustrations, maps, and graphs appear throughout the book. The Okavango Delta is featured in Chapter 14, Freshwater Wetlands.

You can find the book in HOORC's Library.

HOORC at Water Symposium

The Sixth WARFSA/ WaterNet Symposium, in collaboration with the University of Swaziland, was held at Ezulwini in Swaziland from 2 – 4 November, 2005 on the theme, ‘Water for sustainable socio-economic development, good health for all and gender equity’. We hear that HOORC Senior Research Fellow Barbara Ngwenya won the best poster presentation and that HOORC associate Phemo Kgomotso was one of three winners of the 'best young scientist' award for her paper on water governance in Ngamiland. WaterNet -- a regional network of university departments and research and training institutes specialising in water-- holds the annual Water Symposia, jointly organised with the Water Research Fund of Southern Africa (WARFSA), as a platform for water professionals in Southern Africa to discuss advances in research and education related to integrated water resources management.

Identifying snakes using HOORC’s Library collection

Photo from Botswana Dept. of Tourism

Today there is a puff adder snoozing against the south wall of HOORC’s main brick building. Its presence has prompted a run on the library’s field guides. We have one in the main collection, Branch's Field Guide to Snakes and other Reptiles of Southern Africa, and several more in the Peter Smith Collection: Isermonger’s Snakes of Africa, Johan Marais’ Snake versus Man, John Visser’s Snakes and Snakebite, Fitzsimons' Snakes of Southern Africa and Broadley's 1975 Snakes of Rhodesia.

Ugandan wetland controversy

A news story from Uganda reports that the Ugandan National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and the Kampala City Council are struggling to resolve conflicting interests related to the Nakivubo Swamp, a wetland near at the mouth of Lake Victoria that protects the lake from the polluted Nakivubo channel carrying effluent and sewage from Kampala. Cultivation and human settlement have reduced the size of the wetland to an estimated 20 per cent of it its size from 30 years ago. The swamp was the first wetland reserve to be gazetted in Uganda and will be the location of a site visit by participants in the upcoming 9th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties for the RAMSAR Convention, 8-15 November 2005.