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Copyright

Kahingirisina Maoveka; Dennis Liebenberg; Sian Sullivan

Published On

2024-08-02

Page Range

pp. 257–270

Language

  • English

Print Length

14 pages

9. Giraffes and their impact on key tree species in the Etendeka Tourism Concession, north-west Namibia

Chapter of: Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast: Conservation Histories, Policies and Practices in North-west Namibia(pp. 257–270)
We report on a study that researched the impacts of browsing giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis) on trees important for pollinators––namely, Maerua schinzii (ringwood tree) and Boscia albitrunca (shepherd’s tree)––within the Etendeka Tourism Concession area to the west of Etosha National Park. Giraffe are selective browsers, and the tallest land animal. Historically, giraffe populations have been amplified here through translocations designed to enhance the tourism product of the concession, which is situated in mopane (Colophospermum mopane) savanna, semi-desert and savanna transition vegetation zones. Due to browsing by giraffe, M. schinzii and B. albitrunca trees develop a distinctive shape with only a small, round, high-up canopy of leaves above a very high browse line, with some trees dying as a result. The study also explored five different techniques to protect these trees from further browse damage by giraffes.

Contributors

Kahingirisina Maoveka

(author)

Kahingirisina Maoveka is originally from Botswana but now lives in Namibia. In 2013 she became a student at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), where she studied for a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Resources Management in Nature Conservation, during the course of which she pursued research at Etendeka Mountain Camp. Currently she is a student at the International University of Management, studying for a Bachelor of Education in Senior Primary Education.

Dennis Liebenberg

(author)

Dennis Liebenberg is a conservationist who has been the operator of the Etendeka Tourist Concession since 1991. His driving motivation is sustainability, which manifests in the way he has developed tourism on the concession. During the very high rainfall years of 1999 to 2011, he witnessed the rapid die-off of important evergreen trees through over-browsing, particularly the Ringwood tree and the Shepherd’s tree which are winter flowering trees, important for pollinators and key components of the ecosystem in the north-west of Namibia. When Kahingirisina Maoveka (lead author, Chapter 9) applied to do her field studies at Etendeka, Dennis took the opportunity to ask her to record what was happening to these trees in the concession.

Sian Sullivan

(author)
Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0522-8843
http://www.futurepasts.net/

Sian Sullivan is Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University. She is interested in discourses and practices of difference and exclusion in relation to ecology and conservation. She has carried out long-term research on conservation, colonialism, and culture in Namibia (www.futurepasts.net and www.etosha-kunene-histories.net), and also engages critically with the financialisation of nature (see www.the-natural-capital-myth.net). She has co-edited Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power (2000), Contributions to Law, Philosophy and Ecology: Exploring Re-embodiments (2016), Valuing Development, Environment and Conservation: Creating Values that Matter (2018), and Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis (2021).