Northeastern Namibia Research Articles

Relative abundance of a mesocarnivore in a human-dominated, semi-arid rangeland in Namibia

Mesocarnivores fill important roles in ecological communities globally, but their distribution and abundance are often understudied. Many species have historically been regarded as vermin and subject to lethal control due to their role in livestock predation. Identifying the factors influencing mesocarnivore populations can help disentangle their relationship within ecological communities and inform conflict mitigation and conservation priorities. To help identify these factors, we used camera traps to study the community of medium and large mammals in four communal conservancies of northeastern Namibia covering the wet and dry seasons using 99 and 97 camera trap stations, respectively. We modelled black-backed jackal (Lupulella mesomelas) abundance using the robust Royle-Nichols model. Black-backed jackal were widespread, with a mean per site abundance of 2.01 (SD=0.66) in the wet season and 2.41 (SD=0.49) in the dry season. Black-backed jackal showed seasonally contrasting covariate associations, with lower abundance in areas with medium and large-sized wild prey during the wet season, and higher abundance in areas with more villages and close to African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) dens in the dry season. We identified localized hotspots of black-backed jackal abundance during the dry season, which may indicate that when resources are scarce, black-backed jackals rely on anthropogenic food sources despite an elevated risk for conflict, and on carcass remains from African wild dog kills. These findings highlight potential drivers of mesocarnivore abundance that would be obscured in a conventional occurrence modelling framework, and illustrate how local abundance may be influenced by seasonal variability, wild and anthropogenic food sources, and a likely facilitative relationship with a large carnivore. Further investigations in areas with more complex carnivore guilds and higher density of dominant predators are needed to understand black-backed jackal-African wild dog interactions and impacts on population dynamics.

Wildlife corridors in a Southern African conservation landscape: the political ecology of multispecies mobilities along the arteries of anthropogenic conservation

The decline of biodiversity is a key topic in public discussions around the globe. These debates have triggered massive efforts to increase protected areas and to safeguard the corridors connecting them. The wildlife corridors dealt with in this article are mainly thought to facilitate the mobility of elephants and some other large herbivores (for example, zebra and buffalo). Wildlife corridors are not only essential for species connectivity but also an integral part of the booming ecotourism in north-eastern Namibia’s conservation landscapes. Coexistence infrastructure is meant to contribute to economic development and local incomes. Conservancies — community-based conservation organisations in the Namibian context — gazette corridors and market wildlife abundance to ecotourists, potential investors in tourism and commercial hunters. The coexistence of humans and wildlife is challenging, though. Human-wildlife interactions frequently result in damage, and often conservationist environmental infrastructuring runs against the aims of farmers to expand their fields for commercial crop production and to gain pastures for growing cattle herds. It also runs against other governmentally endorsed infrastructuring that brings tarred roads, water pipelines and boreholes. This article analyses contested wildlife corridors as part of a larger conservationist project in the western parts of Namibia’s Zambezi Region.

“We have that connection, we have love; we take wildlife as gifts from our ancestors”: relations between antelopes and Khwe in Namibia’s Bwabwata National Park

Wildlife plays significant roles in many societies that go beyond its ecological importance and economic rationale associated with conservation. This article examines the meanings of antelopes for the Khwe people in Bwabwata National Park in north-eastern Namibia. It underlines the importance that indigenous communities attach to wildlife and advocates for a more comprehensive understanding of human-wildlife relationships beyond ecological and economic values and the usual framing of conflicting relationships. The article explores how antelopes go beyond being merely “wild animals” to being intertwined in the lives and spaces of the Khwe. Drawing from secondary data, lived experiences and empirical data collected through qualitative methods of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions, we engage Khwe residents in Bwabwata National Park, including elders, traditional leaders and the management committee of the Kyaramacan Association. Our fundamental question is: what lessons can we draw from the relations of the Khwe with certain antelope species to foster coexistence in Namibia’s community conservation landscapes? Conceptually, we adopt the concept of mechanical solidarity, which emphasises a collective conscience based on shared knowledge, norms and values. We propose that integrating this approach into community conservation practices could enhance conservation outcomes.

Hunting the hippo: a brief history of wildlife hunting and the reconfiguration of animal-human relations in Namibia’s Zambezi region

The Zambezi region in north-eastern Namibia is located at the centre of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), an area that is endowed with a great variety of wildlife and managed not only to protect this asset but also to promote its proliferation and economic utilisation. In this contribution I consider the notion of hunting in Namibia and explore the realms of local hunting and trophy hunting from the turn of the twentieth century until today. Starting my journey with the depiction of hippo hunting in colonial times, I explore how a hunting narrative was created along the spectacle of hunting big game. Besides the glorification of hippopotami amongst white hunters and early European travellers, the modification of hunting practices that occurred alongside the reconnaissance of this region in the early twentieth century resulted in strong pressures on hippo populations — and wildlife more generally — and led to the strict regulation of all hunting practices in favour of trophy hunting and at the expense of local hunting. This colonial trajectory of hunting has played a major role in the planning and implementation of a conservation landscape that has strong effects on local livelihoods.

White-fronted Bee-eater Merops bullockoides increasing its presence along the Orange River in southern Namibia

The White-fronted Bee-eater Merops bullockoides is common in northeastern Namibia, in the Caprivi Strip. This paper reports the first records for southern Namibia, along the Orange River. The first record was made in 2010, in southeastern Namibia. By 2023, they were observed in small groups on seven out of 12 days on a canoe trip downstream of the 2010 sighting, as far west as Senderlingsdrift.

Transcultural nursing: a qualitative analysis of nursing students’ experiences in a multicultural context in North-Eastern Namibia

BackgroundCulture is a fundamental concept in healthcare settings due to the reason that care provided to patients is holistic and encompasses their perspectives on health, which are greatly influenced by the patients’ cultures. To prepare culturally competent nursing graduates, it is important to understand the experiences of students on transcultural nursing during clinical practice. However, there are limited studies that have explored experiences of students on transcultural nursing, specifically those located in multicultural societies. In addition, studies focus on experiences of international students who visit with student - exchange programme. Nevertheless, their experiences of transcultural nursing may differ since they are not residents and have limited exposure to transcultural nursing, and therefore cannot be generalized to undergraduate resident students. This study aimed to explore and describe transcultural nursing experiences of nursing students during clinical practice at an intermediate hospital in north-eastern Namibia.MethodsDescriptive and explorative qualitative designs were used, data were collected via individual interviews from 16 final year nursing students, who were sampled using maximum variation purposive and snowballing sampling. During data collection, an interview guide was used together with audiotape and field notes. Data analysis followed Tesch’s eight steps in qualitative coding process. Trustworthiness was ensured using four principles of Lincoln and Guba, Moreover, ethical clearance and permission were granted by research ethics committees from two institutions.FindingsFour main themes emerged as findings of the study are: nursing students’ exposure to different cultural practices and beliefs; personal feelings experienced by nursing students during transcultural nursing; challenges experienced by students during transcultural nursing; and nursing students coping mechanisms.ConclusionsNursing students had mixed experiences on transcultural nursing which touch on aspects such as exposure to cultural aspects, personal feelings, challenges, and coping mechanisms. These findings are useful in helping nurse educators, clinical mentors, students, and future researchers to understand experiences of students on transcultural nursing. Consequently, assist in enriching transcultural nursing issues in curricula and for adequate preparation of graduates to become culturally competent when providing nursing care.

Documenting the diversity of the Namibian Ju|’hoansi intestinal microbiome

We investigate the bacterial and fungal composition and functionality of the Ju|'hoansi intestinal microbiome (IM). The Juǀ'hoansi are a hunter-gatherer community residing in northeastern Namibia. They formerly subsisted by hunting and gathering but have been increasingly exposed to industrial dietary sources, medicines, and lifestyle features. They present an opportunity to study the evolution of the human IM in situ, from a predominantly hunter-gatherer to an increasingly Western urban-forager-farmer lifestyle. Their bacterial IM resembles that of typical hunter-gatherers, being enriched for genera such as Prevotella, Blautia, Faecalibacterium, Succinivibrio, and Treponema. Fungal IM inhabitants include animal pathogens and plant saprotrophs such as Fusarium, Issatchenkia, and Panellus. Our results suggest that diet and culture exert a greater influence on Ju|'hoansi IM composition than age, self-identified biological sex, and medical history. The Ju|'hoansi exhibit a unique core IM composition that diverges from the core IMs of other populations.

A new bullfrog from southern Africa (Pyxicephalidae, Pyxicephalus Tschudi, 1838)

ABSTRACT Four species of African bullfrogs are currently recognised. We describe a new species from southern Africa, which can be distinguished on the basis of morphology, advertisement call and DNA sequences. Morphologically it differs from other bullfrogs by a combination of characteristics including a tympanum that is smaller or equal in size to the eye, and smaller in diameter than the space between eye and tympanum, presence of a white dot on the tympanum, longitudinal skin ridges with speckling between dorsal mottles, pale vertebral line usually present, absence of cream coloured lateral stripes, absence of a pale interorbital-bar, upper jaw-barring absent or faint. It has been confirmed from north-eastern Namibia, southern Angola and north-western Botswana. Three further undescribed species are recognised but not formally named, pending further investigation. We confirm the genetic distinctiveness of P. angusticeps.

Feeding ecology and interactions with mammal hosts in a symbiotic genus of birds (Buphagus spp.) in Namibia

As the sole obligate symbiotic birds in Africa, oxpeckers offer a unique model for studying symbiotic relationships. Due to the multitrophic level they occupy and the context dependent foraging behavior they exhibit, the type of symbiotic relationship can be variable. In addition to providing a cleaning service to the host by removing ticks, oxpeckers frequently feed on blood, mucus, and saliva, inflicting potential damage on the host. Here, we used DNA metabarcoding on faecal samples to analyze the taxonomic composition of the trophic interactions of the Yellow-billed Oxpecker (Buphagus africanus) and Red-billed Oxpecker (B. erythrorhynchus) in northeastern Namibia. In contrast to conventional methods, DNA metabarcoding allows for a detailed identification of dietary resources encompassing both mammal hosts and consumed arthropods within the same samples. With this information, we examined differences in the diet composition between oxpecker species and localities, as well as the co-occurrence between host and arthropod species. Our findings revealed that oxpeckers predominantly source their diet from mammals, ticks, and flies; however, ticks and flies rarely co-occur in the diet of an individual. We observed variability among individuals in their feeding ecology, which is strongly correlated with locality and, to a lesser extent, with the mammal host. We noted a high degree of mobility between hosts within relatively short periods, with 32% of the samples showing traces of at least two mammal hosts. This study illustrates the dynamic foraging behavior of these specialized symbiotic birds, shedding light on their potential role in pest control services and disease transmission.

Smallholder agriculture in African dryland agroecosystems has limited impact on trophic group composition, but affects arthropod provision of ecosystem services

Agricultural intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss, but the majority of studies highlighting these threats come from industrialised agriculture in temperate countries of the global North. However, more than 30% of global food production is produced by smallholder farmers, particularly in Africa. We know very little about the impact of these farming practices on arthropod communities and associated ecosystems in dryland agroecosystems. We investigated the trophic group composition of arthropod communities (detritivorous, herbivorous, predatory & mixed feeders) and levels of associated ecosystem functions in replicated maize fields, paired adjacent natural bushveld habitats and the edge habitats between them in north-eastern Namibia and central-eastern Botswana during the dry and wet seasons. Predator activity densities differed significantly between habitats depending on the season, with higher numbers in natural habitats in the wet season but lower numbers in the dry season compared to maize fields. In general, edge habitats had higher numbers of predators than the other habitats. Predator attack rates on artificial caterpillars in both seasons and dung removal in the wet season were higher in habitats with natural vegetation (natural and edge). However, dung removal in the dry season and herbivory in the wet season were highest in the maize fields, the latter due to high level of fall armyworm infestation. Wet season multifunctionality was higher in natural habitats in Botswana, and to a lesser extent in Namibia, than in maize fields. Smallholder agriculture is not detrimental to decomposers, herbivores and mixed feeders compared to adjacent natural habitats, but may be detrimental to the provision of some ecosystem services. These results highlight the challenge of sustainably managing dryland agricultural land that is marginal for crop production, while providing smallholders with an optimal environment to benefit from the ecosystem services associated with arthropod communities. New conservation agriculture practices need to support the production of higher and more stable yields over time, while maintaining the limited impact of smallholder agriculture on biotic communities.

Oxpecker Host-Selection in the Salambala Conservancy, Northeastern Namibia

Oxpecker Host-Selection in the Salambala Conservancy, Northeastern Namibia

Teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of reading: Can they perpetuate inequalities in reading?

What teachers know about a subject that they teach and how well informed they are about the effective ways to teach it can affect the performance of learners in their classes. The aim of this study was to investigate teachers’ and principals’ perception about reading to examine possible factors that contribute to inequalities in reading. This study was conducted in four poorly resourced schools with low academic performance in the Zambezi region of north-eastern Namibia. The schools cater for learners from pre-primary to Grade 9, and most learners are from a low socio-economic background. Drawing on a componential interactive view of reading derived from the science of reading, a qualitative research method was used with two semi-structured interview guides (one for seven Grade 5 teachers and one for four school principals) in four schools, to investigate what the participants know about reading and how to teach it. The interview results show that the teachers and the principals had limited knowledge about teaching reading comprehension. The teachers tended to ‘do’ reading rather than teach it, and they did not provide necessary reading support to learners because they did not have enough knowledge and skills about teaching reading. The findings suggest that the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture needs to strengthen teacher development programmes and that teacher training institutions need to examine the quality of their training.

Valuing Nature in Global Production Networks: Hunting Tourism and the Weight of History in Zambezi, Namibia

Southern African ecosystems are threatened by biodiversity loss, but it remains highly controversial whether nature conservation can be successfully achieved by commodifying ecosystems through tourism or by withdrawing habitats from their integration into globalized production. This article contributes to the debate by applying the global production network (GPN) approach to analyze institutional dynamics and actors involved in the commodification of nature. While highlighting historical drivers of GPN articulation, we advance the GPN framework by integrating a practice-based perspective on value making. Based on archival research, qualitative interviews and quantitative data, this contribution examines the historical and current commodification of wildlife in the Zambezi region in northeastern Namibia. Under the umbrella of the community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) policy, the postapartheid government allows the regulated harvesting of individual animals for hunting tourism. This policy mobilizes wildlife as an endogenous natural asset that is embedded in the region. As a consequence, local institutions emerge that enable strategic coupling processes with the global hunting industry to initiate development trajectories in the remote region. The historical perspective, however, reveals that former elites are able to take advantage of these newly emerging opportunities and maintain a powerful position in the GPN until today. The analysis shows three mechanisms that drive the valuation of nature: local institution building, quota making, and revenue sharing. We conclude that the valuation of nature is a way of mobilizing regional assets through strategic coupling and gains realized from this commodification are used to build local institutions that ensure ongoing valuation.

Critical Care Nursing in a Resource-Constrained Setting: A Qualitative Study of Critical Care Nurses' Experiences Caring for Patients on Mechanical Ventilation.

Managing a patient on mechanical ventilation is a vital aspect of clinical scope in intensive and critical care units. In addition, it is a highly technical, intricate, dynamic task requiring extensive knowledge and skills. Little is known about critical care nurses' experiences caring for patients on mechanical ventilation in contexts where resources are constrained, creating an empirical gap in the available body of knowledge. This study explored critical care nurses' experiences caring for patients on mechanical ventilators at an intermediate hospital in northeastern Namibia. The study followed qualitative descriptive and explorative designs. The purposive sample included 13 critical care nurses who had cared for patients on mechanical ventilation for more than 6 months. Data were collected via individual unstructured interviews and analyzed using a reflexive thematic analysis approach. Four themes and eight subthemes emerged. Varied personal feelings, such as feeling proud, competent, exhausted, traumatized, overwhelmed, and concerns for patients' well-being were experienced by critical care nurses. Participants described learning from colleagues in the unit and expressed concerns about not having postbasic training in critical care nursing. Negative experiences included concerns about community members' misconceptions about critical care units and mechanical ventilators, and challenges with resources, personnel, and admission procedures. Critical care nurses in resource-constrained settings have positive and negative experiences caring for patients on mechanical ventilators. The findings have implications for the development of support systems for critical care nurses, including induction programs, competence enhancement, psychological support, the development of guiding documents for admission, patient preparation and sensitization of community members. There is a need for this study to be replicated in other resource-constrained contexts where specialized critical care nurses are available.

Additional multi-proxy stalagmite evidence from northeast Namibia supports recent models of wetter conditions during the 4.2 ka Event in the Southern Hemisphere

The 4.2 ka Event has generally been regarded as a period of decades to at most a few centuries in which comparatively dry conditions existed in the Middle East and more broadly across the mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere. This paper presents new stable-isotopic and petrographic observations from two previously-unreported U-Th-dated stalagmites from Dante Cave in northeastern Namibia. The results are most compatible with wetter conditions during the 4.2 ka Event, and wetness during the 4.2 ka Event is the only inference supported by evidence. These new results add to observations previously reported from a third Dante Cave stalagmite suggesting a comparatively wet 4.2 ka Event in which Africa's Tropical Rain Belt migrated southward and rainfall increased along the Congo Air Boundary and/or Kalahari Discontinuity. The new results support findings from three other locations in Namibia and Botswana, from at least seven other locations in the Southern Hemisphere, and at least one in southern China, that suggest a wetter rather than drier 4.2 ka Event in those regions. The pattern emerging from these sites generally agrees with recent modeling results indicating increased moisture over broad areas (but not all) of the Southern Hemisphere. This in turn suggests a 4.2 ka Event that was not a global drought but was instead a set of latitudinally-dependent responses to global-scale southward migration of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), and thus Africa's loosely linked Tropical Rain Belt, as a result of cooling of the Northern Hemisphere, which brought drier conditions to some areas and wetter conditions to others. • Like one before, two new stalagmites indicate wet 4.2 ka Event in northeast Namibia. • Layer-bounding surfaces and stable isotope data document the wet 4.2 ka Event. • Growing body of proxy evidence from Southern Hemisphere indicates a wet 4.2 ka Event. • Independent modeling supports proxy evidence of wet Southern Hemisphere 4.2 ka Event. • Tropical Rain Belt and ITCZ migrated southward with Northern-Hemisphere cooling.

Transcultural Nursing: A Qualitative Analysis of Nursing Students’ Experiences in a Multicultural Context in North-Eastern Namibia

Transcultural Nursing: A Qualitative Analysis of Nursing Students’ Experiences in a Multicultural Context in North-Eastern Namibia

Effect of a road on avian diversity in the Kalahari woodland

Roads may have negative or positive effects on wildlife. I surveyed birds along a c. 21 km transect alongside a road from Katima Mulilo to Ngoma bridge in the Zambezi Region, north-eastern Namibia, and on a second transect (control) parallel to the first one and 200–400 m away from the road. The habitat is Kalahari Woodland, partly transformed to cultivated fields. The number of bird species was similar on both transects (56 vs. 48 species; x2 = 0.62, p > 0.05), but the number of breeding pairs (overall population density) was much higher away from the road than close to it (409 vs. 283 pairs; x2 = 22.9, p < 0.01). The Shannon’s Diversity Index was very similar, while Pielou’s Evenness Index was identical in both transects compared. Five species (Blue Waxbill, Burchell’s Starling, Cape Turtle Dove, Fork-tailed Drongo and Grey-headed Sparrow) were dominant on both transects, while the African Grey Hornbill was dominant only on the transect away from the road, whereas the Red-billed Hornbill and Grey Go-away-bird were dominant only close to the road. Four species (African Grey Hornbill, Cape Turtle Dove, Meyer’s Parrot and White-browed Scrub Robin) had population densities significantly higher on the transect away from the road than close to it. However, population densities of nine other species did not differ significantly between the two transects. In general, the avian communities along and away from the road were similar, probably because traffic volume was rather low and the land cover on both transects was similar in terms of natural vegetation and degree of transformation.

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

In this paper, we argue that the relationship between nature conservation and warfare was and continues to be actualized through socio-technical relationships and shared infrastructures. We historicize “green militari zation”—defined as the use of military techniques, technologies and partnerships in the pursuit of conservation (Lunstrum 2014)—showing that the partnership between military and nature conservation in Southern Africa has a long and violent history. Our paper accounts for the entanglements of war and nature through a shared technological infrastructure used in north-eastern Namibia during the Namibian War of Liberation (1966–1989). In particular, we focus on the Mirage IIIR2Z, an aerial reconnaissance and ground-attack supersonic jet which provided both the South African Defence Force and the civil administration’s nature conservationists with aerial photography and remote sensing data. The spatial information produced jointly by the military and the civil nature conservation department was used to produce strategic maps, but also to fight invasive plants and protect wildlife. Our reading of green militarization against this background sheds light on the long-lasting connections between warfare, conservation and ecology along Southern African border regions and contributes to a novel understanding of the contemporary “war on poachers” through a study of the techno-scientific networks that made it possible. Since there is nothing inevitable about the way technologies emerge or change over time (Bijker and Law 1992), this paper develops an empirically grounded and sustained analysis of technological change in the domain of green militarization through three interlinked concepts: “multiple” (Law 2002), “shifting down” (Latour 1994; 1999), and “firming up” (Bijker and Law 1992).

Orbiviruses in biting midges and mosquitoes from the Zambezi region, Namibia.

The genus Orbivirus includes a variety of pathogenic viruses that are transmitted by biting midges, mosquitoes and ticks. Some of the economically most relevant orbiviruses are endemic to Namibia, like the livestock-pathogenic Bluetongue and African horse sickness viruses. Here, we assessed the diversity of orbiviruses circulating in the Zambezi region of north-eastern Namibia. A total of 10 250 biting midges and 10 206 mosquitoes were collected and screened for orbivirus infections. We identified Palyam virus (PALV) in a pool of biting midges (Culicoides sp.) sampled in the Wuparo Conservancy and three strains of Corriparta virus (CORV) in Culex sp. mosquitoes sampled in Mudumu National Park and the Mashi Conservancy. This is, to our knowledge, the first detection of PALV and CORV in Namibia. Both viruses infect vertebrates but only PALV has been reported to cause disease. PALV can cause foetal malformations and abortions in ruminants. Furthermore, a novel orbivirus, related to Kammavanpettai virus from India and Umatilla virus from North America, was discovered in biting midges (Culicoides sp.) originating from Mudumu National Park and tentatively named Mudumu virus (MUMUV). Complete genomes of PALV, CORV and MUMUV were sequenced and genetically characterized. The Namibian CORV strain showed 24.3 % nucleotide divergence in its subcore shell gene to CORV strains from Australia, indicating that African CORV variants vary widely from their Australian relatives. CORV was isolated in cell culture and replicated to high titres in mosquito and duck cells. No growth was found in rodent and primate cells. The data presented here show that diverse orbiviruses are endemic to the Zambezi region. Further studies are needed to assess their effects on wildlife and livestock.

Simultaneous circulation of two West Nile virus lineage 2 clades and Bagaza virus in the Zambezi region, Namibia.

Flaviviruses include a great diversity of mosquito-borne arboviruses with epidemic potential and high global disease burden. Several flaviviruses are circulating in southern Africa affecting humans and livestock, among them West Nile virus (WNV) and Wesselsbron virus. Despite their high relevance, no arbovirus surveillance study has been conducted for more than 35 years in Namibia. In this study we assessed the diversity of flaviviruses circulating in mosquitoes in the densely populated, semi-tropical Zambezi region of north-eastern Namibia. In total, 10,206 mosquitoes were sampled in Bwabwata and Mudumu national parks and Mashi and Wuparo conservancies and screened for flavivirus infections. A high infection rate with insect-specific flaviviruses was found with 241 strains of two previously known and seven putative novel insect-specific flaviviruses. In addition, we identified ten strains of WNV in the main vector Cx. univittatus sampled in the Mashi conservancy. Surprisingly, the strains fell into two different clades of lineage 2, 2b and 2d. Further, three strains of Bagaza Virus (BAGV) were found in Cx. univittatus mosquitoes originating from Mudumu national park. Assessment of BAGV growth in different cell lines showed high replication rates in mosquito and duck cells and about 100,000fold lower replication in human, primate and rodent cells. We demonstrate a wide genetic diversity of flaviviruses is circulating in mosquitoes in the Zambezi region. Importantly, WNV and BAGV can cause outbreaks including severe disease and mortality in humans and birds, respectively. Future studies should focus on WNV and BAGV geographic distribution, as well as on their potential health impacts in and the associated social and economic implications for southern Africa.