Abstract
Most studies and conceptualizations of tipping points in environmental and climatic systems have been conducted using natural science perspectives and approaches. Socio-scientific contributions—including Anthropology—are scarce. This has resulted in a limited understanding of the socio-cultural dimensions of tipping point phenomena at the local level. This paper contributes to ongoing discussion and provides an ethnographic study of local perceptions of desertification tipping points (DTPs) amongst Ovaherero pastoralists in Namibia’s semi-arid Okakarara constituency. Following a qualitative approach, this study shows that experienced farmers are aware of these phenomena and have accumulated extensive knowledge enabling them to identify and anticipate DTPs in different, complementary ways. The paper discusses how DTPs are managed in a communally farmed setting and presents the challenges that livestock farmers face in practical prevention of DTPs.
Highlights
Over the past 15 years, the notion of ‘tipping point’ (TP) has become a scientifically grounded concept epitomizing abrupt, drastic, and nearly irreversible changes in environmental systems ranging from local or regional relevance to major planetary sub-systems (Russill and Nyssa 2009; van der Hel et al 2018)
This paper offers the following three principal arguments: i) there is no direct translation of ‘desertification tipping point’ in Otjiherero, individual farmers are well aware of this phenomenon through lived experience
The data presented here were collected during 12 months of anthropological fieldwork between 2019 and 2020 to assess human factors linked to desertification tipping points (DTPs) in the region3
Summary
Over the past 15 years, the notion of ‘tipping point’ (TP) has become a scientifically grounded concept epitomizing abrupt, drastic, and nearly irreversible changes in environmental systems ranging from local or regional relevance (e.g. fisheries, rangelands) to major planetary sub-systems (e.g. the Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Amazon Rainforest) (Russill and Nyssa 2009; van der Hel et al 2018). Whilst anthropologists have produced a large body of literature covering a wide range of issues related to environmental degradation and climate change A noteworthy exception, Menestrey Schwieger Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice (2022) 12:3 is provided by Nuttall (2012) who advances two major critical arguments directed towards the TP literature: (i) that social change processes have been explained in environmentally deterministic ways whilst ignoring the role that socio-economic and political factors play in causing these changes and (ii) that little attention has been paid to peoples’ anticipatory knowledge, practices, and conceptualizations regarding TPs. This, according to Nuttal, has resulted in over-simplistic explanations of human-environment interactions and poor understandings of how people might perceive and adapt to future environmental shifts
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