Humans, Livestock, and Lions in Northwest Namibia
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Humans, Livestock, and Lions in northwest Namibia A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY John Moore Heydinger IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Adviser: Professor Susan Jones, DVM PhD December 2019 Copyright 2019 John Moore Heydinger M a p o f n o r t h w e s t N a m i b i a s h o w i n g i F Figure 1: Rivers, relevant historical and contemporary boundaries, towns, settlements, and places of interest mentioned in the text. Created by author. i DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to John Steenkamp, Wandi Tsanes, Alfeus Ouseb, Jendery Tsaneb, and Leonard Steenkamp. Thank you so much for your time, friendship, and helping make Wêreldsend home. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Emily O’Gorman, my adviser at Macquarie University has read more of this dissertation, in more differing forms, than any other person. Her comments have improved it immeasurably. I thank her tireless efforts. Thanks also to Sandie Suchet-Pearson who read numerous drafts of chapters and papers and provided important feedback. Thank you to my adviser at the University of Minnesota Susan Jones for her trust, feedback, and encouragement. Thanks to Craig Packer for bringing me into the world of lions and for visiting northwest Namibia. Thanks to Nicholas Buchanan for IRB assistance. Thanks to the rest of my committee at the University of Minnesota, Mark Borrello, Jennifer Gunn, and Dominic Travis. Thanks to my external readers. Thanks to past advisers: George Vrtis and Tsegaye Nega at Carleton College. Mike Meadows and Graeme Cumming at the University of Cape Town. Thanks to numerous anonymous reviewers for their time and comments on improving chapters one, two, and appendix 1. Thanks to Farhana Haque, Julia Knoll, and Emmie Miller for ensuring I never ran afoul of various administrations. Thanks to Molly McCullers for Odendaal archival material. Thanks to Bernard Moore for his work digitizing a wide array of Namibian primary sources. Thanks to Michele Elborough for opening her home in Kings Langley to us. Thanks to my friends in Cape Town for support, listening, and a place to stay: Matthew and Catherine Lewis, John McCoy and Joy Waddell, Mark Samuel, Megan Banner, Nils and Keren Middlekoop, Ant Pascoe, Jonno Luies, and Nicky Lloyd. Thanks to Amber and Jason Nott for a place to rest and chat in Windhoek. Thanks to Gloria Shitthongela for keeping me in the country. Thanks to Werner Wasserfall for keeping us on the road. Thanks to Alphy Koruhama for refining some Otjiherero translations. Thanks to the staff of Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation for supporting and partnering in this research: Willie Boonzaaier, John Kasaona, Winette Jansen, and Philemon Mwala in Windhoek and the staff of IRDNC Opuwo for space to work, sleep, and wait. Thanks to the Northwest Lion Working Group. Thanks to the staff at the Natural Selection Obab camp. Thanks to the communities of Anabeb, Puros, and Sesfontein conservancies. Thanks to Titus Runguundo, Useil Naub, and Karuhpere Musaso for facilitating surveys. Thanks to Fritz and Birgit Schenk for being the first supporters of the Lion Ranger efforts. iii Thanks to all the Lion Rangers: Kooti Karutjaiva, Ronald Karutjaiva, Phineas Kasaona, Steven Kasaona, Colin Kasupi, Pienaar Kasupi, Rodney Tjiara, Berthus Tjipombo, Uaperuako Virere, Langjohn Watokwia, Jackson Wazungu, and all the Rangers in-training. Thanks to the Rapid Response Team Leaders: Cliff Tjikundi, Linus Mbomboro, German Muzuma, and Allu Uararavi. I am looking forward to more time together. Thanks to Jeff Muntifering and Basilia Shivute for invaluable insights. Thanks to Philip Stander. An inspiration. Thanks to Uakendisa Muzuma and Kenneth //Uiseb at the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for your trust and partnership going forward. Thanks to Garth Owen-Smith and Margie Jacobsohn for your friendship, lessons, and a place to stay. To Russell and Tina Vinjevold: I cannot thank you enough for your support, thoughts, and friendship. Thanks to my family at Ossipee for interest, encouragement, and space to write. Thanks to my sister, Erin, and to Brad, for braving the Hoanib with us. Alexandra Wattamaniuk: I could not have done this without your support. Finally, which should have been first, I thank my parents. iv ABSTRACT Humans, livestock, and lions have inhabited shared landscapes in northwest Namibia for hundreds of years. Currently, human-lion conflict (HLC) threatens pastoral livelihoods and the viability of the region’s desert-adapted lion population. In this dissertation I examine the history of human-livestock-lion relationships in the region. The goal is to create historically-informed solutions to HLC that are locally-inclusive. Drawing on archival, scientific, and governmental material, as well as social surveys and oral histories that I have performed, this is the first time that the disparate sources on human-livestock-lion relationships in northwest Namibia have been unified. While scholars of African environments have problematized interpretations of Africa’s environmental colonial and postcolonial past, this is the first work to examine human-predator relationships as a fulcrum for understanding colonial and postcolonial politics and the current challenges of conserving African lions. As a document informing ongoing conservation interventions, this is the first attempt to explicitly frame applied lion conservation activities within historical contexts, critically assessing livestock as mediators of human-lion interactions. I begin by showing how the precolonial and early-colonial experience of the region’s ovaHerero people was mediated through the control of livestock. I then examine how colonial era policies remade, and were aided by, the geography of predators. The effects of apartheid on the region’s wildlife showcase some of the important legacies of colonial-era policies. I then reveal the long history of human-lion interactions with particular emphasis on the transformative role of livestock. I then focus on the behavior and ecology of the desert-adapted lions, highlighting important contrasts with other lion populations and emphasizing how recent monitoring induced a paradigm shift. Finally, I center ongoing HLC within communal rangelands as experienced by pastoralists and suggest one way of reframing HLC that is founded in local perspectives. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Map of Northwest Namibia………………………………………………….…………... i Dedication……………………....……..…………………………………………………..ii Acknowledgements………………..…….……………………………………………… iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….v Table of Contents ………………….………………..….…………...............................v i List of Figures…….……………..…….………………………………….……………..v iii Timeline……………………………………………………………….…..………………ix Abbreviations, Permits, & Support……………..…..…………..………..…………….. x Introduction….……………………………………………….…………………………....1 Chapter 1: Eserewondo Ozongombe: livestock as sites of power and resistance in Kaokoveld, Namibia, 1800s-1940s…………………..…………..30 Chapter 2: Vermin: predator eradication as an expression of white supremacy in colonial Namibia, 1921-1952………………………..….……...58 Chapter 3: The Social Causes and Environmental Effects of Apartheid in Etosha-Kaokoveld, 1948-1970s………………………….……………. 81 Chapter 4: Lions in Northwest Namibia: Etosha and the northern Namib, 1800s-1990s………………………………………..………………120 Chapter 5: The Desert-adapted Lions of the Northern Namib, 1980s-2010……………………………………………………..……………..151 Chapter 6: Desert-adapted lions and CBNRM, 2010s-?......................................184 Conclusions: Looking Forward…Looking Back…………………………...………..216 Bibliography……………………………………………….……………….………......224 Appendix 1: Publication: Desert-adapted lions on communal land.….…………. 241 Appendix 2: NWLWG 2020-2022 Interim Quota Recommendations ….……….. 250 Appendix 3: Historical Etosha and northern Namib lion population trends.....….257 258 vi Appendix 4: Institutional Research Board approval……………….….……………. 258 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Map of Northwest Namibia……………………………………………………………..i Figure 2: View of Wêreldsend……………………………………………………..……….……. 3 Figure 3: Muhona Katiti and Harunga………………...…………………………….…….……45 Figure 4: Cocky Hahn and dead lion…………………..……..………………………….……. 58 Figure 5: African wild dog………………………………………………………………..………63 Figure 6: Vermin Clubs’ records, 1934………………………………………………………... 70 Figure 7: Desert-adapted lioness, northwest Namibia…………………………………….… 72 Figure 8: Map of native reserve boundaries, 1963……………………………………….…..98 Figure 9: Map of boundaries proposed by Odendaal Commission…………………….….. 98 Figure 10: Visualization of changing Etosha boundaries…………..………………….….....99 Figure 11: Cover of African Wild Life Supplement, 1971…………………………….……..101 Figure 12: Ken Tinley…………………………………………………………………….……..101 Figure 13: Blue wildebeest near Etosha pan………………………………………….……..111 Figure 14: Drawing of lions attacking a giraffe……………………………………………… 120 Figure 15: Last known image of a wild Barbary lion……………………………………...... 126 Figure 16: ‘Lion-Man’ of Twyfelfontein………………………………………………….…….129 Figure 17: ‘Man-Eaters’ of Tsavo……………………………………………………………...136 Figure 18: Shortridge’s map of lion distribution in South West Africa, 1934……….……..139 Figure 19: Unknown woman, two children, and dead lion, Ovamboland, 1925….………139 Figure 20: Viljoen’s map of lion distribution in Kaokoveld, 1980…………………………. 147 Figure 21: Map of lion range expansion in northwest Namibia, 1995-2015……..………..153 Figure 22: Philip Stander, 2019………………………………………………………………..156 Figure 23: Lions on communal