About the authors
ǂKîbagu Heinrich Kenneth |Uiseb (ORCID 0000-0002-5284-9917) is a geographer by training with expertise in wildlife conservation and ecology, and community-based approaches to natural resources management. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in geography, environmental studies and political studies from the University of Namibia; and a Master’s degree in environmental management with specialisation in biodiversity conservation from the University of the Free State in South Africa. He is currently the Head of the Wildlife Monitoring and Research Division in the Directorate of Scientific Services in the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, and has diverse research interest in the fields of conservation genetics, wildlife movement ecology, protected area management, large carnivore and elephant management, and human-wildlife interactions. He is studying the ecology of mountain zebra and plains zebra in Etosha National Park for his PhD. ǂKîbagu hails from Farm Stillewoning near Khorixas in Kunene Region.
Moses ǁKhumûb is a Haiǁom San who is a high school graduate and trained in Indigenous people’s rights through short advanced training courses from the University of Namibia and the University of Pretoria. Moses has occupied a number of high-level positions in southern African human rights organisations. He was the chairperson of the San peoples’ delegations to Southern African Development Community Civil Society NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations), as part of a southern African regional movement aimed at asserting Indigenous people’s rights in the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region. He was also a delegate to the Alta conference to draft what is known as the Alta outcome document of Global Indigenous peoples, to be presented to the United Nations Annual General Assembly.
Michael Bollig (ORCID 0000-0001-7133-6132) is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne where his key interests lie in the environmental anthropology of sub-Saharan Africa. His current research focuses on the social-ecological dynamics connected to large-scale conservation projects, the commodification of nature and the political ecology of pastoralism. He is the author of Shaping the African Savannah. From Capitalist Frontier to Arid Eden in Namibia (2020), Risk Management in a Hazardous Environment (2006), co-editor of African Landscapes (2009) with O. Bubenzer, Pastoralism in Africa (2013) with M. Schnegg and H.P. Wotzka, Resilience and Collapse in African Savannahs (2017) with D. Anderson and Environmental Anthropology - Current Issues and Fields of Engagement (2023), co-authored with F. Krause.
Mathilde Brassine grew up in Namibia and obtained her MSc in Zoology from Rhodes University in South Africa in 2012. Through her study subject, the black-backed jackal, she discovered an interest in the challenging issue of human-wildlife conflict. She returned to Namibia to join the tourism industry as a freelance tour guide, specialising in trips to the remote Kunene Region, where she became more familiar with the CBNRM (Community Based Natural Resource Management) conservation approach. In 2020, she joined TOSCO (Tourism Supporting Conservation Trust) which became the implementing support organisation for the newly reactivated Lion Rangers Programme. The Lion Rangers partner with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism and associated NGOs to mitigate human-lion conflict in north-west Namibia. Mathilde oversees programme administration including ensuring all Ranger field activities, training, funding, and use of the SMART system by the Lion Rangers.
Roger Collinson is a South African national living in Namibia, with over 40 years’ experience in wildlife conservation, in particular projects on community-based wildlife conservation. He has 10 years’ experience advising conservancies in north-west Namibia. He currently acts as a specialist advisor to Namibian NGOs in wildlife conservation.
Michael Shipepe David is a research consultant and a part-time lecturer at the University of Namibia, with an interest in landscape conservation and value chain assessment. His active involvement and participation in conservation has led to recent interest in multi-species entanglement, including the human-nature relationship. He holds a Master’s degree in Spatial Engineering from the University of Twente, Netherlands, and an Honours degree in Geo-Information Science from the University of Namibia. He is actively involved in conserving natural resources through different projects and activities such as capacity building for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Community-Based Organisations (CBOs), and in creating awareness about Environmental and Social Safeguarding (ESS) within the CBNRM sector.
Ute Dieckmann (ORCID 0000-0001-9640-6942) is an anthropologist at the University of Cologne and currently German Principal Investigator for Etosha-Kunene Histories (www.etosha-kunene-histories.net), supported by the German Research Foundation and the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. She has carried out long-term research in Namibia on colonialism, nature conservation and indigeneity. For many years, she has worked at the Legal Assistance Centre in Windhoek, doing research with and advocacy for marginalised and Indigenous communities in Namibia including coordinating the Xoms |Omis Project (https://www.xoms-omis.org/). She has edited Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa (2021) and co-edited Scraping the Pot? San in Namibia Two Decades After Independence (2014).
Welhemina Suro Ganuses was born in Sesfontein in Namibia’s Kunene Region, and has worked as a Khoekhoegowab-English translator and research facilitator for several projects in north-west Namibia, including Future Pasts (www.futurepasts.net) and Etosha-Kunene Histories (www.etosha-kunene-histories.net). She is an administrator for the rhino-monitoring NGO Save the Rhino Trust at the NGO’s base-camp near Palmwag Lodge in the Palmwag Tourism Concession, Kunene Region, and is also a Councillor for the Nami-Daman Traditional Authority.
John Heydinger (ORCID 0000-0002-8338-1771) is a co-founder and the Research Director of the Lion Rangers Programme (http://lionrangers.org/). Working in north-west Namibia, he partners with local communities and Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism on monitoring and conserving the desert-adapted lions.
Arthur Hoole is Canadian and has enjoyed a long and diverse career in park planning, wildlife conservation and environmental assessment. Early on he completed park planning assignments in Canada’s Banff National Park, Kluane National Park Reserve, and the Yukon and Nahanni National Park Reserve, among many other protected area planning and resource management projects in Western Canada. He then worked internationally, as a national parks advisor in Antigua and Barbuda, West Indies, followed by five years living in Zimbabwe as an advisor on natural resource management policies and programmes. These assignments engaged him with Indigenous and local communities and his work focused on Indigenous and local community governance in resource management and conservation. This experience culminated in his doctoral research interest in Namibia and the Etosha-Kunene region. He completed his PhD at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba, much inspired by his principal advisor Professor Fikret Berkes.
Dave Kangombe has been Chairperson for Orupupa Conservancy since 2021 and works for the Namibian NGO Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) in support of remote community conservancies in north-west Namibia.
Likeleli Zuvee Katjirua is a Namibian early career researcher and environmental advocate. Currently based in Windhoek, Namibia, Likeleli serves as a Research Assistant at the University of Namibia (UNAM), managing projects, conducting research, and providing crucial assistance. Likeleli’s journey began as an Administrative Assistant at the Center for Environment and Natural Resources (CENR), where she honed her organisational skills. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities and Social Sciences with a focus on Geography and Environmental Sciences from the University of Namibia (2018-2021), Likeleli is a proficient communicator in English and Afrikaans. Passionate about climate change, Likeleli actively participates in conferences and events, such as the 10th Conference on Climate Change & Development in Africa (CCDA-X). Likeleli is dedicated to environmental management and sustainable development for which she hopes to contribute research, communication, and interpersonal skills.
Stasja Koot (ORCID 0000-0001-8625-7525) has been working with Indigenous peoples in southern Africa, predominantly Namibia and South Africa, since the late 1990s, as a researcher and a practitioner in community-based tourism. He lived at the Tsintsabis resettlement farm between 2002 and 2007. He also conducted research there, as well as in the Nyae Nyae Conservancy and Bwabwata National Park. As an environmental anthropologist, his core focus is on political ecology with an emphasis on power dynamics in tourism and nature conservation. He has published about and currently works on capitalism, land grabbing, philanthropy, autoethnography, trophy hunting, branding, race, apartheid and ethnicity, wildlife crime, belonging, and development. He works at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, as an Associate Professor, Sociology of Development and Change Group, and since 2019 has been a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg, Department of Geography, Environmental Management & Energy Studies. His website is stasjakoot.com.
Selma Lendelvo (ORCID 0000-0002-9793-6950) is an associate research professor in life sciences, and currently the Director for the Centre for Grants Management and Resource Mobilization at the University of Namibia (UNAM) with research and project management experience spanning over 20 years. Her work and publications have mainly been on community-based natural resources management and rural development, including cross-cutting aspects such as gender and climate change. Selma also works closely with the government and other practitioners on the ground to strengthen natural resources management, conservation and community development in Namibia and beyond. She serves on the Namibia National Committee for the Rio Conventions, the Namibian Nature Conservation Board and the Namibia Association for CBNRM Support Organisations (NACSO). Her collaborations with regional and international partners have been instrumental in shaping and advancing her research and professional career.
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.
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.
Diego Augusto Menestrey Schwieger (ORCID 0000-0002-6874-9291) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne, Germany, with affiliations to the Namibia University of Science and Technology and Gobabeb Namib Research Institute. His work focuses on the collective management of environmental resources and infrastructures by agro-pastoral societies in Namibia, such as water and rangelands, using ethnographic methods and political ecology as an analytical perspective. He is currently engaged in collaborative, interdisciplinary research on the social-ecological implications of land degradation, desertification, and rangeland restoration in Namibia’s communal areas, and the future of pastoralism in the face of global climate change and the threat of ecological tipping points.
Jeff Muntifering (ORCID 0000-0002-5327-8896) was born and raised in Minnesota (USA) but has been primarily based in Namibia since 1999 where he has served as Science Adviser to Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) since 2003. His applied research, including his PhD, has helped inform a variety of innovative conservation and management policies including community-based monitoring programmes, rhino re-introduction strategies, behaviour change campaigns and sustainable eco-tourism protocols, and includes more than 25 scientific publications and book chapters. Jeff also co-founded a number of community-based projects in Namibia including the internationally renowned Conservancy Rhino Ranger Programme and the Rhino Pride Campaign which includes a suite of outreach and awareness initiatives ranging from Rhino Friends youth clubs to rhino-themed sports leagues. Recently, much of his time has targeted scaling up a community-led rhino conservation tourism model across Namibia, as well as sharing the Namibian experience in China and Nepal on designing and delivering community-led conservation and tourism programmes. Jeff is an adjunct professor at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), a guest lecturer at the Beijing Forestry University, and a research associate with WildCRU at Oxford University.
Siegfried Muzuma has been Chairperson for Ehi-Rovipuka Conservancy, Kunene Region, Namibia, for over 5 years.
Uakendisa Muzuma (ORCID 0009-0005-9636-0733) is a conservation biologist, working since 2008 for the Namibian government, in the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT): Directorate of Scientific Services. He is a National Carnivore Coordinator for Namibia, overseeing the monitoring, and research of large carnivores. His areas of interest include working with different stakeholders such as local communities, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on issues of carnivore conservation, particularly human-carnivore coexistence in multi-use landscapes. The latter is also the focus of his research. He has an MSc. in Environmental Management and is currently a PhD student at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa).
Vincent Nijman (ORCID 0000-0002-5600-4276) holds a professorial chair in Anthropology in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Oxford Brookes University, UK, and has worked as an independent biodiversity consultant for numerous national and international NGOs. Part of his research programme focuses on stakeholder and community engagement in conservation, addressing human-wildlife conflict, and regulating wildlife trade.
Elsemi Olwage is a Namibian Social Anthropologist, with a background in development studies and political and environmental anthropology. She is currently based at the University of Namibia as a post-doctoral researcher in the One Ocean Hub Project. Within this project she is focusing on histories of exclusion and erasure in Walvis Bay, and questions of memory, place, and culture within human rights and global paradigms of ocean governance. She conducted her PhD research in the Kunene Region in 2014-2016 on a land and grazing dispute. Her present and past research interests include post-colonial and post-apartheid land-relations, spatiality, and place-making, in both rural and urban contexts, and intersections with questions of social and environmental justice, institutional change, the politics of belonging, mobility and migration, ecology, and self- and grass-roots organisation. In recent years she has worked in the fields of both academia and consultancy.
Michael Schnegg (ORCID 0000-0001-9240-8836) is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Universität Hamburg. His work engages anthropology with a range of disciplines to better understand how people collectively enact and make sense of the world. To do so, he combines long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico and Namibia with conceptual philosophical work and modelling.
Ruben Schneider (ORCID 0000-0003-2022-0636) is a Lecturer in Sociology at Robert Gordon University and Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. Rooted in political ecology, his research uses an ethnographic approach to examine local experiences of global interventions for conservation, security, and development. His doctoral thesis The Inclusive Fortress analyses local experiences of militarised and community-based conservation in north-west Namibia in the context of a new wave of rhino poaching. It highlights both the promises and risks of combining militarised and community-based forms of wildlife conservation, while shining a light on how local people are able to transform global logics of environmental governance from below. Through partnerships and collaboration with the Namibian Government, NGOs, community organisations and the private sector, Ruben’s research aims to help promote more sensible, locally acceptable, and sustainable conservation interventions.
Sian Sullivan (ORCID 0000-0002-0522-8843) 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 researches 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).
Magdalena S. Svensson (ORCID 0000-0002-6149-0192) is a Lecturer in Primatology and Conservation at Oxford Brookes University, UK. She has extensive experience working on community-based conservation research projects in Africa, including in Angola, as well as in research projects on the ivory trade.
Michael Wenborn (ORCID 0000-0003-0493-1649) has worked and travelled in Namibia for 10 years. He is pursuing a PhD with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, UK, focusing on the elephant populations in the northern highlands of north-west Namibia, working closely with community conservancies and the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.