Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast: How Conservation Histories and Cultural Heritage Concerns May Inform the Landscape Approach in Northwest Namibia

Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast examines the conservation histories and concerns of one of southern Africa’s most iconic conservation regions: the variously connected ‘Etosha-Kunene’ areas of north-central and north-west Namibia. This cross-disciplinary volume brings together contributions from a Namibian and international group of scholars and conservation practitioners, working on topics ranging from colonial histories to water management, perceptions of ‘wildlife’ and the politics of belonging. Together, these essays confront a critical question: how can the conservation of biodiversity-rich landscapes be reconciled with historical injustices of social exclusion and marginalisation? The book is organised in five parts: the first provides a historical backdrop for the book’s detailed case studies, focusing on environmental and conservation policy and legislation; the second investigates post-Independence approaches to conservation; the third focuses on ‘Etosha-Kunene’ ecologies and related management issues; the fourth explores how historical circumstances shape present conservation and cultural landscapes; and the fifth addresses contemporary complexities of lion conservation and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). By offering a comprehensive overview of evolving conservation boundaries, policies and practices in the region, this timely volume paves the way for the future design of conservation initiatives that more fully consider and integrate historical and cultural knowledge and diversity. Essential reading for conservation practitioners, policymakers, and academic researchers alike, this volume also serves as a valuable resource for university students interested in conservation studies and histories of conservation.

We review conservation policy and legislation and its impacts under the territory’s post World War 1 administration from Pretoria, prior to the formalisation of an Independent Namibia in 1990. We trace the history of nature conservation in Etosha-Kunene during the times of South African government. In the initial phase ‘game preservation’ was not high on the agenda of the South African administration, which focused instead on white settlement of the territory, requiring a continuous re-organisation of space. After World War 2 the potential of tourism and the role of ‘nature conservation’ for the economy was given more attention. Fortress conservation was the dominant paradigm, leading to the removal of local inhabitants from their land. Shifting boundaries of Game Reserve No. 2 characterised the 1950s up to the 1970s: part of Game Reserve No.2 became Etosha Game Park in 1958 and finally Etosha National Park in 1967, which in its current size was completely fenced in 1973. The arid area along the coast was proclaimed the Skeleton Coast National Park in 1971. Alongside these changes new allocations of land following the ideal of apartheid or ‘separate development’ were made, ‘perfecting’ spatial-functional organisation with neat boundaries between ‘Homelands’ for local inhabitants, the (white) settlement area and game/nature. Land, flora and fauna, and people of various backgrounds were treated as separable categories to be sorted and arranged according to colonial needs and visions. A new impetus towards participatory approaches to conservation began to be initiated in north-west Namibia in the 1980s, prefiguring Namibia’s post-Independence move towards community-based conservation.

For five decades, academics and architects have been debating the subject of historical conservation techniques. Nowadays, much of building activities take place in historic areas. Most of the architects and interior architects are engaged to renovation or restoration of historical buildings. Architectural education is considered to be a complex process. Teaching the historical cultural heritage and conservation of historic structures constitutes an important part of architectural education. So, it is essential for students of architecture and interior architecture to be aware of the philosophy of conservation of historic cultural heritage. The course of “Historic Cultural Heritage and Conservation” which is about cultural heritage and principles, takes place in the undergraduate curriculum in the architecture and interior architecture departments of Izmir University. By this course knowledge of conservation, and restoration techniques were introduced. While students were taking this course also they were working on a studio project about a case study of an historical building. This paper considers the students’ approach to conservation and reuse of old warehouse building, in the scope of studio project. The aim of this paper is to show how the students were referred to conservation techniques on their studio projects while taking “Historic Cultural Heritage and Conservation” course.

Drylands cover approximately 40% of the Earth’s land surface and are home to over a quarter of the global population. Despite the deficit of surface water, rare but strong precipitation events are the fundamental driver for geomorphic activity in arid regions. A quantification of the frequency and magnitude of episodic river discharge is essential for a robust characterization of flood hazards and, thus, better understanding of the poorly studied hydromorphodynamics in deserts. However, observation data from gauges are sparsely distributed and, if existent, often do not cover a sufficiently long seamless time series or feature extensive gaps. This applies, for instance, to the remote Northwest Namibia, where more than a dozen ephemeral rivers drain the Kunene Highlands towards the Skeleton Coast, yet daily river flow data for a period of several decades is only available from the Hoanib.Hence, we propose a workflow based on the Landsat multispectral satellite imagery archive to detect flood events and their spatial impact since 1984 in a high resolution (30 m) for the entire Kunene Region (~144 km²). To cater for the limitations related to a revisit time of 16 days and potential impracticality of scenes due to cloud cover, we calculated spectral indices allowing for the detection of both inundated areas during flooding (e.g., Normalized Difference Water Index) and effects sustained after flood recession (e.g., Tasseled Cap Wetness to detect increased soil moisture). The large remote sensing dataset is processed via cloud computing using the Google Earth Engine. As a novel approach, we try to implement a frequency analysis directly in the Google Earth Engine environment after attributing the spectral imprints of floods to their magnitudes. For this purpose, a statistical relationship is developed between the daily record of the gauging station at the Hoanib and the spatiotemporal multispectral surface characteristics along the river course and floodplains. By transferring this relationship to the other ephemeral streams, spatially highly resolved recurrence intervals for areas affected by floods of different magnitudes can be derived for the entire Kunene Region.

Conservancies in the Skeleton Coast Iona Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) in North West Namibia and Southern Angola face several challenges in regards to the management of ecosystem's and wildlife. Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC), lack of livelihood opportunities and lack of formal involvement in sustainable resource management of valuable wildlife and flora are such challenges. The current TFCA eco-system and wildlife management methods seem to be inadequate and exclusive of indigenous communities. As a result, the Skeleton Coast Iona (SCIONA) project, aims to strengthen cross-border ecosystem management and wildlife protection by co-designing and implementing conservation monitoring technology. Considering that previous technologies were developed without the input of indigenous communities, we postulate that technology appropriation be facilitated through a systematic co-design process that reflects the joint meaning of the process.

This chapter focuses on interactions between two animal species critical to the ecosystems of Etosha-Kunene, namely mountain zebra (Equus zebra, specifically the subspecies E. z. hartmannae) and plains zebra (E. quagga, specifically the subspecies E. q. burchellii). Large herbivore species are increasingly restricted to fenced protected areas with artificial waterpoints, a situation that limits their opportunities for dispersal and access to natural water sources. This restricted movement may lead to genetic consequences including disruption of gene flow, inflation of “inbreeding”, and the loss of rare alleles supporting local adaptation and genetic fitness. In Namibia’s large protected area of Etosha National Park, mountain zebra are restricted to the dolomite ridges in the far western section of the park while plains zebra occur throughout the park. Historically, the overlap in range of the two zebra species was limited, as plains zebra confined their movements to the southern and eastern edges of the Etosha Pan during the dry season, and to the open plains west of the Pan during the rainy season. Due to fencing and new waterpoint creation, this extended overlap of these two previously geographically separated species creates a potential conservation problem in the form of hybridisation between the two species. This chapter reviews what is known about the hybridisation of these two species, and considers implications for conservation and for future research.

Groundwater quality and associated hydrogeochemical processes in Northwest Namibia

The Palmwag Tourism Concession comprises more than 550,000 hectares of the Damaraland Communal Land Area in Kunene Region. To the west lies the Skeleton Coast National Park. Otherwise, the Concession is situated within a mosaic of differently designated communal lands to which diverse qualifying Namibians have access, habitation and use rights: namely, Sesfontein, Anabeb and Torra communal area conservancies on the Concession’s north, north-east and southern boundaries, with Etendeka Tourism Concession to the east. Established under the pre-Independence Damaraland Regional Authority led by Justus ǁGaroëb, Palmwag Concession lies fully north of the vet fence/“Red Line” that marches east to west across Namibia. In the 1950s, however, the Red Line was positioned further north with part of the current concession comprised of a former commercial farming area for white settler farmers, the expansion of which was associated with evictions of peoples Indigenous to this area. The iterative clearance of people from this area also helped make possible the 1962 western expansion of Etosha Game Park, and followed by the establishment of a large trophy hunting concession between the Hoanib and Ugab rivers in the 1970s. Drawing on archive research, interviews with key actors linked with the Concession’s history, and on-site oral history with local elders through much of the Concession’s terrain, this chapter places the Concession more fully within the historical circumstances and effects of its making. In doing so, competing and overlapping colonial, Indigenous and conservation visions of the landscape are explored for their roles in empowering different types of access and exclusion.

Protected areas are considered essential for conserving large carnivores, although large carnivores also occur outside protected areas and have shared landscapes with humans for millennia. The Namibian Community-Based Natural Resources Management programme adopted in 1996 aims to devolve wildlife conservation practices and to benefit local people inhabiting communal areas. The programme is experiencing challenges, but has achieved some success in encouraging the coexistence of wildlife and rural communities on communal land. Because the programme is built upon human wildlife coexistence, however, human- lion conflict is also present. This has been a pressing concern, particularly regarding people’s willingness to coexist with dangerous animals such as lions. From a wildlife conservation perspective, a lack of monitoring of human settlement and livestock movement into conservancy areas zoned for wildlife is a concern. This chapter discusses current research from remote sensing of lion and goat movement using satellite- Global Positioning System collars, focusing on understanding goat movement ecology within designated wildlife areas. Information collected on goat movements within wildlife areas will be used to better manage the shared landscape in the perceived “corridor” between Etosha National Park and the Skeleton Coast National Park. The research shared here thus focuses on the “ lion- goat space”, contributing to evidence-based goat spatial habitat use in communal area conservancies to ensure appropriate deployments of human- lion conflict mitigation measures.

The history and development of cultural heritage conservation is a choice of the main body in charge or power. Based on the complex conditions of historical and cultural backgrounds, economic development levels, political systems, and development conditions of cultural heritage, different modalities are formed and adopted by different countries or regions. Being originated from the philosophies and activities of cultural heritage hundreds of years ago, the European countries faced these subjects in many ways, and right now have taken positive actions to manage and restrict each behavior about and around the cultural heritage. Among these countries, Italy is a long-time practitioner, a strong enforcer, and a major proponent of some new regulations and acts of conservation, but also the restoration of cultural heritage. Furthermore, it helps China to complete some cooperation activities of the conservation and restoration projects. Being absorbed some valuable experiences from Europe and learned the most useful lessons from Italy, the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage in China have been not too late at all, but have been developed to establish its own way to regulate and promote certain behind behaviors. As the terms from “antiquities” and “cultural relics”, then to “cultural prosperity” and “cultural heritage”, the fundamental conditions and a comprehensive system of the conservation and restoration in China have been described as well. With the development of the conservation theory, the Teoria del Restauro (Theory of Restoration) of Cesare Brandi gained great attention and has been translated in Chinese two times. While maintaining the aesthetic side of a work of art, this book is the first pioneer to pay attention to the authenticity and integrity of the historical and material level of conservation objects.

With the rapid development of digital visualization technologies, the visual value of cultural heritage is increasingly important, giving rise to new ways to interpret the true worth of heritage. Taking the case of geomedia as an example, the article aims to reflect on how the visual culture in historic conservation has been changed by way of exploring the new significance of cultural heritage and its historic conservation in the light of geomedia. Based on my fieldtrip study of the historic conservation of the Old City in Shantou, southeastern China, I claim that historic conservation of the Old City, assisted by visual activism from the ground up, reveals its close relation to geographical sites through digital knowhow of geomedia. The interaction between image pixels and physical space contributes to the process of continuous creation and recreation of the heritage sites experienced by viewers/visitors; they are sensorially enticed to blend multiple interpretations into their physical experience in real time and construct multivalent situations for their embodied encounter. These heritage sites, once saturated with location-based visual enactment, help perform an effective role as a connective node to integrate different temporal periods as well as different groups of actors in their drive to better the city’s future.

SemaranghasvarioushistoricalrelicsandculturalheritagesstretchingfromtheHinduBuddhist period to contemporary times. The cultural heritage has a strategic meaning in shaping the identity of the city and community in Semarang. With the existence of cultural heritage, society is expected to be able to absorb the values and meanings implied in it. The value is the value of care for the environment and the culture around it. However, community knowledge about the cultural heritages in Semarang City is constrained when information about historical relics is not presented systematically, comprehensively, and easily accessible. Therefore, through this research we aim to: (1) analyze the needs of the community related to cultural heritage information in Semarang City; (2) identify and inventory the existing cultural heritage in Semarang City; (3) developing a model of cultural heritage information system in Semarang City; (4) to analyze the effectiveness of cultural heritage information system model in Semarang City.

This paper seeks contemporary cultural heritage conservation principles by reviewing its history, starting from the 18th century, in practices, international documents, and the literature on this topic. It intends to lay a foundation to avoid damaging cultural heritages by misconducting conservation. This study first found that the conservation objects of cultural heritage include particularly important ones and general ones that are closely related to daily life, and they involve tangible and intangible aspects. Second, cultural heritage conservation involves document-based restoration when necessary as well as identifying the value of them to play their role nowadays. Third, integrating cultural heritage conservation within the context of sustainable development goals is essential for successfully balancing the relationship between the built and natural environments. Fourth, mobilising the public to participate in cultural heritage conservation enables the implementation of conservation to meet the expectations of the public, and may have a positive influence on people’s consciousness. Fifth, as a treasure, cultural heritage conservation is a global responsibility that involves conjoint cooperation. Sixth, more cultural heritage conservation interdisciplinary methods have been developed and could be applied, but this should be limited in order to not destruct their authenticity and integrity.

A History of Architectural Conservation expands knowledge about the conservation of ancient monuments, works of art and historic buildings. It includes the origins of the interest in conservation within the European context, and the development of the concepts from Antiquity and the Renaissance to the present day. Jokilehto illustrates how this development has influenced international collaboration in the protection and conservation of cultural heritage, and how it has formed the principal concepts and approach to conservation and restoration in today's multi-cultural society.This book is based on archival research of original documents and the study of key restoration examples in countries that have influenced the international conservation movement. Accessible and of great interest to students and the general public it includes conservation trends in Europe, the USA, India, Iran and Japan.

Italy is a point of reference for the conservation community worldwide, but it has yet to make a definitive leap towards preventive conservation. This paper examines some of the reasons to explain this, in the hope that this may be useful for other countries. After a brief look at the history of preventive conservation from Antiquity to the Second World War, two seldom-discussed Italian initiatives are presented: The Franceschini Commission (1964) and the Pilot plan for the programmed conservation of cultural heritage in Umbria (1976).