WINDHOEK – Strategies should be implemented sooner rather than later as by 2020 drought-hit Kunene could become an inhabitable and barren piece of land.
The year 2020 has been set as the National Action Programme (NAP3) to implement the United Nations’ Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
This stern warning was issued last week by Dr Axel Routhage, an internationally renowned Namibian expert on desertification and the owner of AgriConsult, when he addressed the first-ever Kunene desertification meeting that was held at Opuwo last week.
The Kunene Desertification Indaba (KDI) was called by the Kunene Regional Council (KRC), initiated by the outgoing Governor of the Kunene Region Joshua //Hoebeb, and it was supported by the new governor, Angelika Muharukua.
More than 60 delegates met at the Youth Centre hall in Opuwo last week to discuss why the northern Kunene Region is desertifying and what could be done to mitigate the desertification.
Desertification is the depletion of ecosystem services due to the degradation of natural resources, for example, declining grazing capacity, receding groundwater reserves and soil loss due to erosion.
Chiefs, headmen, senior tribal elders and advisors, local and regional officials and scientific experts were in attendance.
Representative of the Environmental Commissioner, Moses Moses pointed out that it is the Namibians’ constitutional obligation under Article 95 (l) of the Constitution to maintain ecosystems, essential ecological processes and biodiversity in Namibia and to utilise natural resources sustainably for the benefit of all present and future Namibians.
Methods to combat desertification are detailed in Namibia’s NAP3 to implement UNCCD.
Given this legal and institutional framework, the Indaba brainstormed the causes of desertification in northern Kunene.
Well-known causes such as over-utilisation of the rangeland because of high concentration of livestock, as well as continuous grazing and trampling by livestock were cited. Drilling boreholes in remote areas that encourages permanent settlement and over-utilisation of the area, cutting of trees and incorrect ploughing techniques were also highlighted as common causes of desertification in the region.
Chairperson of the KRC, Dudu Murorua explained that desertification is such a serious problem that its containment exceeds the ability of individuals and communities.
It requires the assistance of central government and international co-operation.
The problems of desertification, soil erosion and climate change are closely linked.
Titus Endjala, representing the Ambassador of the European Delegation to Namibia, explained that the EU is committed to restrict the increase in global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius.
To achieve this, the EU and its member states have provided €9.5 billion (about N$130 billion) of climate finance globally, including over €6 million to support eight projects that further mitigation of and adaptation to climate change in Namibia.
Among these is the project to combat desertification in the northern Kunene Region, implemented by AgriConsult Namibia and also supported by the FNB Foundation.
According to statistics, 168 countries in the world are affected by desertification, which in Africa alone has wiped out 4 to 12 percent of agricultural GDP due to deteriorating environmental conditions.
Every year, an area equivalent in size to three Switzerlands is lost worldwide to desertification.
FNB has therefore introduced a number of green technologies to its banking services, among others paperless ATM transactions to save trees.
Mildred Kambinda, the Deputy Director of Extension in the North-West (MAWF), emphasised that lowering the vulnerability of rural populations to worsening environmental conditions is critical as global warming is expected to make Namibia hotter and drier with more violent rainstorms that may result in more serious flooding.
In fact, people lost their lives recently in northern Kunene because of unexpected floods in erosion-prone areas.
Staff at the ministry’s seven agricultural development centres in northern Kunene will play their part to raise awareness of the problem among local farmers and conservancy members. Anti-desertification measures dovetail neatly with the minimum till-policy recently adopted by the Ministry in its comprehensive programme of conservation agriculture.
In addition, the Soil Conservation Act, which gives the Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry wide-ranging powers to encourage land users to apply crop and grazing rotation and soil-stabilising measures, needs to be more actively applied to assist local communities with combatting desertification.
The Indaba deliberated on what could be done about the problem of desertification in northern Kunene. Application of modern and water-wise agricultural production and rangeland management techniques were identified as a priority, requiring exposure and intensive training and mentoring of local land users (farmers and conservancy members).
Encouraging alternative livelihoods that are not based on the land and thus make people less dependent on degrading natural resources were another option.
This requires skills development and the “seeding” of appropriate industries (for example, dress-making, tourism, service industries) that can employ local people at a living wage, in accordance with Namibia’s Vision 2030 to be an industrialised, knowledge-driven society in a few years’ time.
The role of the NCCI, NBII, SME and Development Bank to facilitate SME development in the Opuwo area was highlighted in this regard. This requires the electrification of rural areas as access to electricity enables people to move away from an agricultural existence.
The irony that is the Kunene produces about 40 percent of Namibia’s electricity and all of its hydro-power, but that most of its rural areas are still not electrified because electricity is exported from the region, was pointed out. Delegates felt, “common resources” lead to “common neglect”, (also called “the tragedy of the commons”.
This needs to be addressed by enforcing existing laws that encourage owners of large herds (more than 150 large or 800 small stock) to leave communal grazing areas and acquire their own farms under the resettlement policy and affirmative action loan scheme.
Finally, Disaster Risk Management Committees were urged to become more active in solving problems on the ground.
The Indaba noted that there is a lot of indigenous, traditional and modern knowledge about desertification in the communities and officialdom of the northern Kunene.
Local people are aware of the problem as it impacts their livelihood negatively and they are suffering the consequences of their desertifying environment. They are eager to do something about it.
It was thus resolved that under the leadership of the governor’s office, a strategy to counter desertification and promote sustainable land management in the northern part of the Kunene Region should be designed in follow-up meetings. This strategy should make use of the opportunities offered by NAP3 such as offering Kaokoveld as a focal landscape to halt and reverse degradation and desertification, and to strengthen communities and ecosystems to mitigate the impacts of drought (outcome 4 of NAP3, by 2024).
This requires that financial lending and grant making facilities of NAP3 are used to support communities and small farmers to implement sustainable land management (outcome 5 of NAP3, by 2017).
Research and tertiary education institutions and extension services should similarly mainstream research on sustainable land management and climate change science in support of adaptation and mitigation techniques (outcome 6 of NAP3, by 2020).