Commercial Livestock Farming Environmentally Viable Within the Orange and Fish River Catchment Area (Ofca) of Southern Namibia?

The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University , IS COMMERCIAL LIVESTOCK FARMING ENVIRONMENTALLY VIABLE WITHIN THE ORANGE AND FISH RIVER CATCHMENT AREA (OFCA) OF SOUTHERN NAMIBIA? Town Prepared by: Schalk van der Merwe Cape Prepared for: The Department of Environmentalof and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for obtaining an M.Phil degree in Environmental Science. Promotor: Professor Mike Meadows. University February 2001. ii ABSTRACT Commercial livestock farming has been identified as traditionally and spatially the most dominant land-use type in the Orange and Fish River catchment Area (OFCA) region of southern Namibia. Recent studies suggest that the commercial stockfarming sector is facing a crisis, as evidenced by many farms having become abandoned from productive utilisation, and by a widespread lack of operational capital within the sector. There are neither historical nor current baseline information relating to the productivity of the OFCA veld and a definite link between the current crisis and the possibly that it is suffering from the effects of having farmed the OFCA veld into a state of durable sub optimal productivity remains to be conclusively established. This current study has been undertaken in order to investigate such a possible link, and to reach a more definite conclusion with regards to the contribution of negative environmental feedback which may have arisen from commercial farming. Specifically, the study investigates the relationship between commercial livestock grazing regimes, possible associated resource degradation (losses in veld productivity and adverse structuring of botanical communities due to livestock grazing effects), and the current productive crisis within the sector. Town In as far as no assessments of stocking rates during pre-commercial livestock farming are available or may be arrived at, comparison with figures available for the commercial sector is not possible. An indirect method of generating commensurable historical points of reference has been developed in order to assess the possibility and portent of any associated environmental change. Working fromCape the basic assumptions that natural environments tend towards the most effiCiently possible trophic-cycling, that indigenous biota co-evolve in complex relationships of vitalof interdependence, and that processes in natural environments are per se sustainable, this study then set out to investigate the factors which define OFCA veld productivity, the patterns in which veld is being produced in spatio-temporal terms, and ultimately patterns of fodder-use in the OFCA in pre-commercial times. From a review of current literature, climatic factors are found to characterise the OFCA as an arid to hyperarid environment, with low, highly variable and unpredictable rainfall, with a pronounced drought-frequency,University and a general lack of natural surface water sources. Fodder production was therefore found to be low in terms of biomass production, and, due to rainfall patterning, highly variable and unpredictable in interannual terms. The occurrence of widely-interspersed and unpredictable exceptional rainfall seasons was found to have the effect of Significantly raising fodder-production values, and of making available some fodder species which otherwise do not Significantly occur within the OFCA veld. In order to infer patterns of pre-commercial fodder-use, the historic regimes of fodder use by indigenous game and traditional Nama pastoralists have been reconstructed in terms of structural aspects. To a large extent, reconstruction here is based on information contained in the accounts of historical observers of the OFCA during the period 1760 - ca. 1840. iii As a first step towards identifying fodder-use patterns in natural herbivory, the historical game suite has been reconstructed. From this reconstruction, eight species - two wild equinines and six species of medium (~ Springbok) to large ($ Buffalo) bovids - are identified as having historically been direct niche-competitors with domestic livestock, and to have largely disappeared as competitors from OFCA commercial lands. From what is currently known of these species - characteristics such as water-dependency, herd dis/ aggregation mechanisms, migratory behaviour, feeding requirements, ranging habit - probable patterns of fodder-use are then inferred. These patterns are found to closely reflect rainfall-driven patterns of utilisible fodder availability, with a characteristic tendency towards spatio-temporal flexibility in feeding movement and concentration, and with de/stocking closely mirroring de facto availabilities in viable fodder-stocks. On the assumption of co-evolvement, it was further found that the OFCA would have evolved in response to these utilisation patterns, and that these patterns would represent the most optimally sustainable regime of veld-use, in so far as allowing optimal conditions of fodder-productivity, and leaving the evolved veld-structure intact. Drawing on a scant supply of available literature in addition to historical accounts, a description of traditional (pre-Oorlam) Nama pastoral livelihoods is made. Nama population numbers were probably never high. Traditional Nama livelihoods are found to have rested on the principle of the production of sufficiency as opposedTown to (marketable) surplus. Access to pasture and surface water by various Nama groups was governed by an inclusive spatial framework. Two of the identified dominant livelihood strategies - stock breeding and hunting - are of direct relevance for this study. Low levels of technological intervention characterised both strategies. This ensured that Nama pastoralism had to adapt to natural patterns of fodderCape availability (correlated to rainfall incidence and the general accessibility of surface water sources), and aspects of de/stocking, migrational movements and droughtof responses were largely continuous with those of indigenous game. In terms of hunting, the weapons and techniques which were employed likely caused little durable impact on indigenous game stocks, and the broad OFCA veld - including areas which probably never used by Nama pastoralist - continued to be utilised under the evolved indigenous regime of herbivory. By further analysing the structural elements represented by the current regime of livestock farming, aSSOciated patterns of land (fodder) use are identified. The sector is characterised by spatiallyUniversity extensive use of the OFCA, sedentarised operations within a framework of private property-rights, and continuous inter-annual production in order to maintain necessary financial eqUity. Fundamental technological interventions in the landscape - the extensive erection of perimeter and internal fenCing, and the installation of artificial borehole-driven watering points - have the effect of disrupting the evolved migrational flows of indigenous game. Subsequently this opens up OFCA veld for the more or less exclusive use by livestock and releases pastures far from natural sources of surface water for use by livestock. From these findings, it is concluded that current land use is structurally discontinuous with evolved patterns of natural and traditional veld use. Furthermore, almost exclusive veld-utiliastion by typically monoculture livestock have replaced complimentary herbivory over a wide feeding spectrum of plants. All of these findings seem to point towards the conclusion that current commercial livestock farming activities may be structurally pre-disposed towards farming against the evolved grain of the environment, that damage to the veld-resource may have occurred, and iv that the sector is currently suffering from associated structurally-generated decreased fodder-production. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of a recent exceptional ra infall season, there was little observable evidence indicating significant adverse changes to the veld on commercial lands. This raises the question as to whether losses in productivity and structure have taken place; the finding reached in this current study is one of "inconclusive". While on the one hand this may indicate some efficacy in stock-management techniques, it is more likely the result of the inherent robustness of the native Karoo veld, and of the veld's tendency to respond intimately to rainfall patterns, above all other environmental determinants. In this analYSiS, current commercial livestock farming may structurally not be ideally suited to sustainably utilise OFCA pastures, but at any rate it does not seem to have pushed the veld beyond the brink of massive natural recuperation under suitable rainfall conditions. This study then investigates further determining factors to commercial stockfarming in the OFCA, and finds that the sector has suffered from some serious setbacks during the past two decades. Whereas the sector traditionally benefited from generous state subsidy, privileged access to South African markets, and a stable and lucrative karakul pelt market, conditions have radically changed since the Townbeginning of the 1980's. Specifically, commercial farmers are now largely responsible for providing

Load more