Deforestation and Reforestation in Namibia

Emmanuel Kreike, PhD (2006) in Forestry, Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and PhD (1996) in History, Yale University, is Associate Professor of History at Princeton University. He authored Re-Creating Eden: Land Use, Environment, and Society in Southern Angola and Northern Namibia (Heinemann, 2004).

• ContentsAcknowledgments ixAbbreviations xiiiMaps xvPhotos xvii1. Approaches to environmental change Models of environmental change The modernization paradigm The declinist paradigm The inclinist paradigm Paradoxes of environmental change 2. Tree castles and population bombsTree castles and insecurity on the eve of colonial conquest Portuguese violence and population fight into Ovamboland Internal migration in South Africa’s OvambolandTree castles and deforestation in the 1920s to 1940s Colonial concerns about overpopulation and deforestation in the 1950sPopulation growth in Ovamboland Woody vegetation resources by the close of the twentieth century3. Conquest of Nature: Imperial political ecologiesThe political ecology of insecurity Indirect environmental ruleThe colonial conquest of Nature: Direct environmental rule 4. Fierce species: Biological imperialism Invading microbes and virgin soil epizootics Invading microbes and virgin soil epidemics A plague of donkeys: Fierce invading equines Fierce indigenous creatures on the rampage 5. Guns, hoes and steel:Techno-environmental determinism Guns Steel tools Steel plows Guns and steel in north-central Namibia 6.Naturalizing cattle culture: Colonialism as a deglobalizing and decommodifying forceThe cattle complex and environmental degradation Ovambo cattle as global commodities Cattle, culture and nature Overstocking and biological time bombs Colonial barriers: Conservation and fences Grazing pressure and desertification Livestock and deforestation Commodification, deglobalization and deforestation 7. The Palenque paradox: Beyond Nature-to-Culture Bush cities and the bush ‘Bushmen’ and the bush 8. The Ovambo paradox and environmental pluralismDeforestation in Ovamboland Reforestation in OvambolandEnvironmental pluralism: Multiprocessual asynchronous environmental change Bibliography Index