The making of a conservation landscape: the emergence of a conservationist environmental infrastructure along the Kwando River in Namibia's Zambezi region

Abstract

The Kwando Basin of north-eastern Namibia is firmly embedded in current national and international conservation agendas. It is a key part of the world's largest transboundary conservation area, the Kavango–Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area, and the home of seven community-based conservation areas (conservancies) and three smaller national parks (Mudumu, Nkasa Rupara and Bwabwata). While conservation agendas often start from the assumption that an authentic part of African nature is conserved as an assemblage of biota that has not been gravely impacted by subsistence agriculture, colonialism and global value chains, we show that environmental infrastructure along the Namibian side of the Kwando Valley has been shaped by the impact of administrative measures and the gradual decoupling of humans and wildlife in a vast wetland. The way towards today's conservation landscape was marked and marred by the enforced reordering of human–environment relations; clearing the riverine core wetlands of human habitation and concentrating communities in narrowly defined settlement zones; the suppression of specific, wetland-adapted subsistence practices; and the elimination of unwanted microbes with the help of insecticides. The interventions in the ecosystem and the construction of an environmental infrastructure have created a unique conservation landscape in the Namibian Zambezi region, which provides the foundation for its popularity and success.

Complexities of multispecies coexistence: Animal diseases and diverging modes of ordering at the wildlife–livestock interface in Southern Africa

“…While these methods have proven effective in relatively isolated areas such as the island of Zanzibar, where tsetse flies were eradicated completely in 1997 (Vreysen et al, 2000), they remain largely ineffective in mainland Africa, even if removal of tsetse has been shown to result in a rapid, yet localized and often temporary increase in cattle in that region (Bollig and Vehrs, 2021). As the various tsetse experts we spoke with indicated, the different 'tsetse belts' of western, central, and eastern Africa, are interconnected and reach southward into the Zambezi river basin.…”

“…Accordingly, efforts to control human and animal trypanosomiasis, have been focused on the control of tsetse fly populations by aerial spraying insecticides from low-flying planes but also spraying of ‘infested’ bushlands by knapsack-fitted carriers of hand-pumps (e.g. the highly poisonous organochlorides Dieldrin and Endosulphan in the past) and setting up traps (Bollig and Vehrs, 2021; Kurugundla et al, 2012; Molefi, 2008; Skotnes-Brown, 2020). As advocated originally by the Organisation of African Unity and subsequently by the African Union, as well as the FAO, OIE, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and with the establishment of the Pan-African Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Campaign in 2001, this strategy has been oriented towards the eradication of the flies from the African continent—a strategy that reflects a view of insects (as opposed to disease-carrying ungulates) as ‘awkward creatures’ that are ‘beyond moral obligation’ (Bear, 2021: 1011).…”

Do Tar Roads Bring Tourism? Growth Corridor Policy and Tourism Development in the Zambezi region, Namibia

“…However, the declaration of nature reserves was mainly motivated by security considerations (Lenggenhager 2015). While first resettlements for the creation of conservation areas date back to the 1930s, the establishment of a state forest and the development of two game reserves, Mamili (today Nkasa Rupara) and Mudumu, caused further relocations during the 1970s and 1980s (Bollig and Vehrs 2020). The latter two areas were designated as nature reserves in 1989, setting a milestone for the creation of "an anthropogenic wilderness (ibid.…”

“…Parallel to the infrastructure development, conservation areas were declared: Western Caprivi was proclaimed a Nature Park in 1963 and in 1964 Katima Mulilo and its surroundings were granted the status of a nature reserve (Kangumu, 2011). While first resettlements for the creation of conservation areas date back to the 1930s, the establishment of a state forest and the development of game reserves, Nkasa Rupara and Mudumu, caused further relocations during the 1970s and 1980s (Bollig and Vehrs, 2020). The latter two areas were designated as nature reserves in 1989, setting a milestone for the creation of "an anthropogenic wilderness (ibid.…”

Left Button Picture, Right Button Bomb: Nature, Warfare and Technology in a Southern African Border Region

“…The "fight" against S. molesta was chronicled in reports produced from the late 1960s up to at least 1978 and documented in frequent aerial surveys. Regional expert networks were also established, and the South African Airforce provided planes, pilots and aerial photography, as well as interpreters, who documented and analyzed the distribution of the alien plant (Lenggenhager 2015, 475;Bollig and Vehrs 2021). The relationship between conservationists and the military intensified in this period, establishing a shared infrastructure of new knowledge, tools, weapons and technologies that could be deployed in the fight of a literal and metaphorical common enemy.…”