Sian Sullivan, Professor of Environment and Culture, shared her research at Ongava Research Centre, Namibia. Ongava – meaning rhino –  a private wildlife reserve just south of Namibia’s flagship conservation area, Etosha National Park.

 Researchers at the Centre also enjoyed a screening of Sian’s recent film collaboration, Lands That History Forgot: Three Journeys With Nami-Daman Elders in North-west Namibia. This film arose through detailed on-site oral history research with Indigenous elders in the Palmwag Tourism Concession, the Skeleton Coast National Park, and the Sesfontein and Anabeb Conservancies; and has been deeply supported by the Nami-Daman Traditional Authority.

Sian’s  co-edited book, Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast: Conservation Histories, Policies and Practices in North-west Namibia, has over 900 full-text downloads since its publication in August. 

Etosha-Kunene, from “pre-colonial” to German colonial times

We outline “pre-colonial” and German colonial structuring of “Etosha-Kunene”, leading in the early 1900s to the institution of formal game laws and game reserves as key elements of colonial spatial organisation and administration. We review the complex factors shaping histories and dynamics prior to formal annexation of the territory by Germany in 1884. We summarise key Indigenous-colonial alliances entered into in the 1800s, and their breakdown as the rinderpest epidemic of 1897 decimated indigenous livestock herds and precipitated enhanced colonial control via veterinary measures and a north-west expansion of military personnel. A critical and collaborative Indigenous “uprising” in the north-west in 1897–1898—known variously as the Swartbooi or Grootberg Uprising—was met by significant military force, disrupting local settlement and use of the area stretching from south of Etosha Pan towards the Kunene River. It resulted in the large-scale deportation of inhabitants of the area, who were brought to Windhoek for mobilisation as forced labour for the consolidating colony. An intended outcome was the clearance of land for appropriation by German and Boer settler farmers, a process that also contributed to establishing a massive game reserve in Etosha-Kunene in subsequent years. The proclamation of “Game Reserve No. 2” in 1907 can be seen as the beginning of a long and varied history of formal colonial nature conservation in Etosha-Kunene, whose shifting objectives, policies and practices had tremendous influence on its human and beyond-human inhabitants.