Architects of nature

304 Pages·2006·5.6 MB·English

ARCHITECTS OF NATURE:
ENVIRONMENTAL INFRASTRUCTUR AND
THE NATURE-CULTURE DICHOTOMY

Emmanuel Kreike
Promotor: Prof. dr. ir. M. Wessel, Hoogleraar Tropische Plantenteelt

Co-promotor: Dr. ir. K.F. Wiersum, Universitair hoofddocent,
leerstoelgroep Bos- en natuurbeleid

Promotiecommissie:

Prof. dr. P. Boomgaard, Universiteit van Amsterdam

Prof. dr. K.E. Giller, Wageningen Universiteit

Prof. dr. J.W.M. van Dijk, Wageningen Universiteit

Dr. P. Hebinck, Wageningen Universiteit

Dit onderzoek is uitgevoerd binnen de onderzoekschool CERES
Emmanuel Kreike

ARCHITECTS OF NATURE:
ENVIRONMENTAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND

THE NATURE-CULTURE DICHOTOMY

Proefschrift
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
op gezag van de rector magnificus
van Wageningen Universiteit,
Prof. Dr. M.J. Kropff
in het openbaar te verdedigen
op 19 september 2006
des namiddags te half twee in de Aula
Kreike, Emmanuel (2006)
Architects of Nature:
environmental infrastructure and the Nature-Culture dichotomy

Ph.D. thesis Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
ISBN 90-8504-444-8

Key words:
environmental agency; environmental change; measuring of environmental change;
paradigms of environmental change (modernization, declinist, inclinist); indigenous
knowledge and science; Nature-Culture; processes of change; Palenque paradox;
Ovambo paradox; levels of analysis; wild-domesticated.
CONTENTS

Preface……………………………………………………………………………..viii

1. Paradigms of Environmental Change……………………………….…………1
-Paradigms of Environmental Change…………………………………………………………2
-The Modernization Paradigm………………………………………………………………….2
-The Declinist Paradigm………………………………………………………………………..5
-The Inclinist Paradigm……………………………………………………………………….12
-Pathways of Environmental Change…………………………………………….………...…15
-Objective of the Study………………………………………………………………..……...17
-Structure of the Study…………………………………………………………..……………19
2. Paradoxes of Environmental Change……………………………….………..23
-The Palenque Paradox………………………………………………………………………23
-The Ovambo Paradox……………………………………………………………………….31
3. Unraveling the Paradoxes: Case Study, Methodology, and Sources……….35
-The Environment and History of Ovamboland ………………..…………………………..35
-Unraveling the Paradoxes: Research Design and Methodology …………………………..41
-Unraveling the Paradoxes: Sources ……………………………………….……………….44
4. In the Beginning: Nature, Culture, and Benchmarks ………………………51
-Nature, Culture, and Forest in the Late 1800s Floodplain Region …………………….…..51
-Wild Bushmen and the Eastern Wilderness……………..…………………………………57
-Wild Ovamboland and Wildlife……………………………………………………………63
-Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….69
5. Tree Castles: Forests and Populations……………………………………….71
-Tree Castles and Security on the Eve of Colonial Conquest……………………………….73
-Portuguese Violence and Population Flight into Ovamboland ………..…………………...76
-Internal Migrations in South Africa’s Ovamboland………………………………………...78
-Eastern Ovamboland: Settlement beyond the Floodplain…………………….………….…83
-Tree Castles and Deforestation in the 1920s to 1940s………………………………………85
-Colonial Fears about Overpopulation and Deforestation in the 1950s ...…………………..89
-Traditional Conservation and Scientific Conservation……………………………………..91
- Population Growth in Ovamboland……………………………….……………………..…94
-Population Pressure and Woody Vegetation Consumption…………………………….…..96
-Woody Vegetation Resources by the End of the 20th Century..…………………….….…..98
-Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………....101
6. The Cattle Complex: Culture, Commerce, and Deforestation…………….103
-The Cattle Complex……………………………………………………………………….104
-Animal Commodities……………………………………………………..……….………107
-Livestock as an Environmental Threat…………………………………………………….110
-A Livestock Population Explosion?…………………………………………….…………111
-Livestock Consumption, Sale, and Loss……………..……………………………………114
-Grazing Pressure and Overstocking……………………………………………………….116
-Colonial Barriers: Conservation and Fences………………………………………………118
-Colonial Fences and Cattle Transhumance Patterns………………………………………119
-Differentiating Livestock Ownership and Management…………………………………..121
-Smallstock Management…………………………………………………………………...127
-Livestock and Deforestation……………………………………………………………….128
-Livestock and Woody Vegetation Browsing……………………………………….……...129
-Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………136
7. Deforestation.…………………..……………….……………………….……137
-“The hoe determines the borders of the field”…………………………………………….137
-Shifting Cultivation?………………………………………………………………………138
-Farm Size and Forest Clearing…………………………………………………………….141
-More People and More Land Clearing, 1950s-1990s……………………………………..144
-Plows and Deforestation…………………………………………………………………..146
-Village Forest Reserves …………………………………………………………………..150
-Trees Preserved in Fields………………………………………………………………….152
-Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………155
8. Architects of Nature: Day-to-Day Reforestation.…………..………………157
-Fruit Trees at the Turn of the 19th Century………………………………………………...159
-Fruit Trees and People……………………………………………………………………..161
-The Fruit Tree Frontier……………………………………………………………………...166
-Farms and Fields: Tree Nurseries………………………………………………………….174
-Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………178
9. Organic Machines: Colonial Science, Culture, and Nature………….…….181
-Colonial Science and Environmental Planning…………………………………………….183
-Colonial Science and Colonial Practice……………………………………………………185
-Colonial Dams and Indigenous Knowledge………………………………………………..185
-Creating a Colonial Hydraulic Society……………………………………………………..188
-Colonial Water Technology and Environmental Change…………………………………..189
-Well and Water Hole Technology………………………………………………………….195
-Colonial Science and Plantation Forestry……………………………………….………….198
-Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….204
10. Environmental Infrastructure………………………………………..………207
-Woodland Coppice, Clones, and Environmental Infrastructure ……………………………208
-Water Harvesting and the Environmental Infrastructure …………….…..………………...220
-Refugees, Migrants and the Absence of an Environmental Water Infrastructure…….……223
-The Land and Environmental Infrastructure: Making Soils Fertile………………………...226
-Paying for Environmental Infrastructure……………………………………………………232
-Land Fees…………………………………………………………………………………...235
-Land Tenure and Deforestation…………………………………………………………….237
-Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….238
11. Conclusion…………………………………………….……………………….241

Bibliography………………………………………………………….………..….255

Appendix 1. Selected Trees and Bushes by Ovambo-English-Latin Names………………………..269
Appendix 2. Fodder Trees and Bushes by Latin-Ovambo Names………………………….….……273
Appendix 3. Chronological Highlights……………………………………………………………..275

Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………….277
Samenvatting………………………………………………………………………………………...283
Biography……………………………………………………………………………………………291
LIST OF MAPS

Map 1 The Ovambo Floodplain………………………………………………….36

Map 2 The Ovambo Floodplain c. 1900………………………………………….52

Map 3 Wildlife Migration Corridors……………………………………………..68

Map 4 The Ovambo Floodplain c. 1915…………………………………………77

Map 5 Expansion into Wilderness Areas, 1910s-196…………………………….79

Map 6 Settlement Expansion into Eastern Ovamboland……………………….…84

Map 7 Livestock and Transhumance……………………………………………123

Map 8 Ovamboland Hydrology…………………………………………………194

PREFACE

This study is the fruit of a bountiful environment that has been fertilized by
many. The tree that bore it has its taproot at Wageningen University. I am grateful to
the Social Science Research Council, New York for allowing me to use part of my
doctoral dissertation fellowship to study tropical agriculture, forestry, and
environmental sciences at Wageningen. There, Professor Adriaan van Maaren seeded
the idea for a forestry dissertation. Promotor Professor Marius Wessel and Co-
promotor Dr. Freerk Wiersum provided intellectual guidance and challenged me to
prune what initially began as a bush of information into a cultivated dissertation. The
Department of Forest and Nature Conservation Policy at Wageningen University and
the CERES Research School for Resource Studies for Development supplied me with
a Summer Fellowship and research funding, which allowed me to work closely with
advisers and colleagues at Wageningen University.
Other roots are embedded at Yale University, where Professors Robert Harms,
James Scott, and the late Robin Winks triggered my interest in the dynamics of
environmental change. At Ogongo Agricultural College in Namibia, Haveeshe
Nekongo, Arne Larssen, Carlos Salinas and their colleagues and students contributed
greatly to the project, not in the least through assisting in developing and
administering the OMITI household survey. The support of the Namibian Directorate
of Forestry, the Dutch Embassy in Namibia, and IBIS-Denmark made the OMITI
survey financially and logistically possible.
The informal and formal discussions with inhabitants of the historical region
of Ovamboland, Namibia, were also invaluable. Their generous efforts to educate me
about the region’s environment was greatly facilitated by Jackson Hamatwi’s
linguistic skills and his intimate knowledge of Ovamboland’s bush trails. Many in
Namibia welcomed me in their homes and shared their ideas with me in addition to
the elders who I interviewed. I would especially like to thank Dr. Peter and Jane
Katjavivi, Bishop and Sally Kauluma, the late Michael Hishikushitja, Father
Hamutenya of Odibo, and Joseph Hailwa, the Director of the Department of Forestry.
Princeton University provided the nurturing environment where the study
came to fruition. My colleagues from the department of history and the Princeton
Environmental Institute provided critical feedback and support. I was also fortunate to
be afforded the opportunity to present my findings to fora of colleagues through the
ix
CERES Research School for Resource Studies for Development and the African
Studies Association. Various archives, including those of the Holy Ghost
Congregation in Paris, France, the United Evangelical Mission in Wuppertal-Barmen,
Germany and especially the National Archives of Namibia provided rich soil. The late
Brigitte Lau and Werner Hillebrecht, respectively the former and the current director
of the National Archives of Namibia, were immensely helpful.
Light is critical to creating and sustaining physical and intellectual life. I am
grateful to my parents, my teachers, and my fellow students for instilling me with a
love for study and to my grandparents Paulus and Adriana Tak for instilling in me a
love for the land. My father, Hermanus Kreike passed away before I could complete
and defend the dissertation but I know he is with me in spirit. My children Hermanus
Clay and Eleanora Grace, and, above all, my spouse Dr. Carol Lynn Martin are my
sun and moon. It is to Carol that I dedicate this study.