Hauke Vehrs - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Hauke Vehrs

Research paper thumbnail of Can Environmental Injustices be Addressed in Conservation? Settlement History and Conservation-Induced Displacement in the Case of Lyanshulu in the Zambezi Region, Namibia

Human Ecology

The Zambezi Region of Namibia is known for its vast conservation landscape, which is part of the ... more The Zambezi Region of Namibia is known for its vast conservation landscape, which is part of the world’s largest transboundary conservation area – the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA). Less known are the settlement histories of the communities displaced from their villages during the planning and implementation of this conservation landscape. We reconstruct the settlement history of two families that lived on two islands in the Kwando River and the adjacent riverbanks in today’s Mudumu NP, and we describe the circumstances that led to the designation of a national park in this region and the subsequent conservation-induced displacement. The evicted families increasingly protest and legally contest estrangement from their ancestral land, which is now a protected area. We argue that current nature-conservation efforts can succeed only if issues of past and present environmental injustices are comprehensively addressed.

Research paper thumbnail of Pokot Pastoralism

Examines how pastoral peoples imagine, or even design, their futures under the pressure of changi... more Examines how pastoral peoples imagine, or even design, their futures under the pressure of changing environments and large-scale government projects.

Research paper thumbnail of The Power of Dissonance: Inconsistent Relations Between Travelling Ideas And Local Realities in Community Conservation in Namibia's Zambezi Region

Conservation and Society, 2022

Environmental conservation is presented as a success story in Namibia's Zambezi Region where ... more Environmental conservation is presented as a success story in Namibia's Zambezi Region where conservation measures have led to an enormous increase in many wildlife populations. Complementary to historically exclusive fortress-conservation strategies, inclusive projects have gained prominence in the past few decades aiming to integrate local populations into conservation projects. Perhaps the most salient approach is community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), which sets ambitious goals of more participation, empowerment, and stewardship of local residents in the process of conservation. Despite its popularity in southern Africa, the CBNRM concept has met with criticism, especially with regard to the situations of many conservancy members. We aim to show that the idea of conservation, and the concept of CBNRM in particular, are in some respects detached from the lives of the conservancy members who are confronted with the effects and regulations of conservation measures. We therefore employ the notion of 'dissonance’ to describe the inconsistencies between the intended effects of the CBNRM concept and how it is perceived by conservancy members. Three aspects of dissonance are identified here. First, we draw attention to the limited opportunities conservancy members have to benefit from the thriving safari- and hunting-tourism industry. Second, despite successful conservation leading to increased wildlife populations, impacts of human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) and their repercussions for farming and livestock husbandry aggravate the dissonant relationship between conservancy members and the CBNRM concept. Third, we illustrate the discrepancies between the notion of the 'community’ in conservancies and the actual social organisation. Altogether, the inconsistencies between the travelling idea of conservation and its impact on local livelihoods will be demonstrated.

Research paper thumbnail of Spatial-temporal analysis of land-use and land-cover change in East Pokot, Kenya

Land-use and land-cover changes pose major challenges to local communities in many parts of the w... more Land-use and land-cover changes pose major challenges to local communities in many parts of the world. In the case of East Pokot in the Rift Valley of north-western Kenya, land-cover changes have a huge impact on livelihoods. While until the 1980s cattle husbandry was the prominent livelihood in the area, the socio-ecological dynamics of the past decades brought about major landscape changes. In this study, we present the land-cover changes over a period of 30 years (1985-2015), focusing on two processes in particular: the increasing bush encroachment in East Pokot (1), and the expansion of maize cultivation (2). The first process is identified as the land-cover change with the largest extent over the period of 30 years. The grass vegetation, which is essential for pastoral livelihoods and the successful rearing of cattle, has strongly declined and acacia bushes have encroached large areas all over East Pokot. The second process is a locally restricted process in the escarpment regi...

Research paper thumbnail of Dataset: Spatial-temporal analysis of land-use and land-cover change in East Pokot, Kenya

This data set contains a time series analysis of land use classifications from 1985-2015 in north... more This data set contains a time series analysis of land use classifications from 1985-2015 in northern Baringo County, Kenya. The region is located in one of the study areas of the CRC/Transregio 228: "Future Rural Africa: Future-Making and Social-Ecological Transformation". The analysis illustrates the land-use and land-cover changes over a period of 30 years in a region predominantly inhabited by Pokot pastoralists. The classification is provided in GeoTIFF and in ASCII format with a 30m spatial resolution.

Research paper thumbnail of Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Land Use Land Cover Change in East Pokot, Kenya

Research paper thumbnail of Gum Arabic as an Enterprise

Gum arabic is a tree resin obtained from Acacia senegal, an endemic tree species to the African S... more Gum arabic is a tree resin obtained from Acacia senegal, an endemic tree species to the African Sahel Zone. Recently, plantation cultivation of Acacia senegal has been introduced in Northern Nigeria and the 'modern' production of gum arabic is investigated by government institutions to promote future gum arabic production, alongside a thitherto predominant smallholder collection of gum arabic from so-called natural stands of Acacia senegal. The two ways of collecting or producing gum arabic - smallholder collection in natural stands and plantation cultivation of Acacia senegal - are compared referring to land and labour productivity. In contrast to the collection of gum arabic in natural stands, the production of gum arabic in plantation cultivation requires the implementation of several working steps that are not carried out in natural stands. Hence, the question is raised how these two ways of gum arabic production differ from each other and why the collection from natural...

Research paper thumbnail of The making of a conservation landscape: the emergence of a conservationist environmental infrastructure along the Kwando River in Namibia's Zambezi region

Africa, 2021

The Kwando Basin of north-eastern Namibia is firmly embedded in current national and internationa... more The Kwando Basin of north-eastern Namibia is firmly embedded in current national and international conservation agendas. It is a key part of the world's largest transboundary conservation area, the Kavango–Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area, and the home of seven community-based conservation areas (conservancies) and three smaller national parks (Mudumu, Nkasa Rupara and Bwabwata). While conservation agendas often start from the assumption that an authentic part of African nature is conserved as an assemblage of biota that has not been gravely impacted by subsistence agriculture, colonialism and global value chains, we show that environmental infrastructure along the Namibian side of the Kwando Valley has been shaped by the impact of administrative measures and the gradual decoupling of humans and wildlife in a vast wetland. The way towards today's conservation landscape was marked and marred by the enforced reordering of human–environment relations; clearing the...

Research paper thumbnail of Abundant herds: Accumulation, herd management, and land-use patterns in a conservation area

Pastoralism, 2020

North-eastern Namibia’s Zambezi Region became part of the world’s largest transboundary conservat... more North-eastern Namibia’s Zambezi Region became part of the world’s largest transboundary conservation area in the early 2010s: the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. While wildlife numbers and wildlife-based tourism are increasing rapidly in this conservation zone, cattle herds and livestock-based economies are expanding as well. More than conservation and wildlife-based tourism, cattle husbandry is a project of the local population and of the local elite in particular. Cattle are an expression of wealth and are regarded as a means of saving. At the same time, cattle can be used to plough fields, pull sledges, and produce milk and meat for home consumption and also for sale. Cattle also fulfil important social functions; they are necessary for bridewealth payments and are used in cattle loans with which wealthy herd owners furnish poorer relatives. Recent investments into self-financed boreholes have opened new rangelands for the wealthy, while the expansion of conserva...

Research paper thumbnail of Land-use and Land-cover Changes in Pastoral Drylands: Long-term Dynamics, Economic Change, and Shifting Socioecological Frontiers in Baringo, Kenya

Human Ecology, 2021

The ongoing fragmentation of pastoral drylands is a matter of concern throughout Africa. Using th... more The ongoing fragmentation of pastoral drylands is a matter of concern throughout Africa. Using the example of rangelands in northern Baringo County, Kenya, that were under uniform pastoral use until the late twentieth century, we trace land-use and land-cover changes (LULCCs) since the 1980s. Based on ethnographic, historical, and remote sensing data, we show how bush encroachment and dryland farming have led to the increasing modification and conversion of formerly open rangelands and the diversification of livelihoods. These LULCC dynamics are related to and driven not only by internal processes of socioeconomic change (e.g., sedentarization, changing rangeland management practices, growing markets for small stock, increasing stratification and cultural differentiation) but also by ecological processes such as wildlife defaunation and ecological invasions. Based on our findings, we suggest that a socioecological approach to Kopytoff’s notion of the internal African frontier can be...

Research paper thumbnail of Fauna, Fire, and Farming: Landscape Formation over the Past 200 years in Pastoral East Pokot, Kenya

Human Ecology, 2017

Fire was a key element of grass savanna formation all over eastern Africa. In the northern Baring... more Fire was a key element of grass savanna formation all over eastern Africa. In the northern Baringo plains, Pokot pastoralists prospered in the nineteenth century, coexisting with huge herds of wildlife. During the twentieth century, the savanna ecosystem changed from a grass-dominated to bush-dominated as a result of growing numbers of livestock and people, which brought not only elephant hunts but also intensive grazing and changing fire regimes. Subsequently, herders diversified their livelihoods, and these land-use changes in the East Pokot highlands led to the spread of the endemic plant Dodonaea viscosa (Sapindaceae) beyond its original habitat. Ingolds' concept of taskscape is applied here to illustrate a temporal, consecutive perspective of landscape transitions against the background of disappearing landscape agents (in this case large herbivores and fire).

Research paper thumbnail of Changes in landscape vegetation, forage plant composition and herding structure in the pastoralist livelihoods of East Pokot, Kenya

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2016

Oral evidence from pastoral Pokot on vegetation changes in the rangelands of northern Baringo Dis... more Oral evidence from pastoral Pokot on vegetation changes in the rangelands of northern Baringo District points to major changes in structure and biodiversity composition over the past century. A landscape of perennial grasses has turned into an Acaciadominated bush-land. Pelil (Acacia nubica), talamogh (Acacia mellifera), or anyua (Acacia reficiens), which characterise the pastoral landscape today, have increased rapidly since the 1950s. This article compares perceptions of current changes in grass compositions with former accounts, highlighting local assessments of declining high-quality grasses such as abrute (Brachiaria deflexa, Setaria homonyma) or puyun (Eragrostis cilianensis). The changes described are linked to a number of causal factors (high grazing pressure, restriction of pastoral mobility, increasing population numbers), allowing us to historicise the profound change in landscape vegetation. The costs and benefits of bush encroachment are also examined. The tremendous increase in goat numbers, and the sizeable growth of camel herds, is closely connected to the increased availability of fodder plants for browsers. The article concludes by contrasting the views expressed on landscape by Pokot elders with scientific accounts of environmental change.

Research paper thumbnail of Land-use changes and the invasion dynamics of shrubs in Baringo

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2016

In the semi-arid savannahs around Lake Baringo, Kenya, the recent spread of bush encroachment by ... more In the semi-arid savannahs around Lake Baringo, Kenya, the recent spread of bush encroachment by the invasive alien species Prosopis juliflora and the native Dodonaea viscosa has changed humanenvironment interactions. This article suggests how the spread dynamics of Prosopis and Dodonaea have operated. It also describes the strategies Baringo's peoples have adopted in the face of this dramatic bush invasion, relates these dynamics to current invasion theory, and analyses possible implications for Baringo's social-ecological systems. It is suggested that recent increased climate variability has triggered changes in land management and livelihoods around Lake Baringo, paving the way for bush encroachment and species invasion. The extent and speed of these changes has exceeded the capacity of local communities to adapt their productive systems, destabilizing the socio-ecology of the dryland savannahs around Lake Baringo and placing them in imminent danger of collapse.

Research paper thumbnail of Pokot Pastoralism

Research paper thumbnail of Can Environmental Injustices be Addressed in Conservation? Settlement History and Conservation-Induced Displacement in the Case of Lyanshulu in the Zambezi Region, Namibia

Human Ecology

The Zambezi Region of Namibia is known for its vast conservation landscape, which is part of the ... more The Zambezi Region of Namibia is known for its vast conservation landscape, which is part of the world’s largest transboundary conservation area – the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA). Less known are the settlement histories of the communities displaced from their villages during the planning and implementation of this conservation landscape. We reconstruct the settlement history of two families that lived on two islands in the Kwando River and the adjacent riverbanks in today’s Mudumu NP, and we describe the circumstances that led to the designation of a national park in this region and the subsequent conservation-induced displacement. The evicted families increasingly protest and legally contest estrangement from their ancestral land, which is now a protected area. We argue that current nature-conservation efforts can succeed only if issues of past and present environmental injustices are comprehensively addressed.

Research paper thumbnail of Pokot Pastoralism

Examines how pastoral peoples imagine, or even design, their futures under the pressure of changi... more Examines how pastoral peoples imagine, or even design, their futures under the pressure of changing environments and large-scale government projects.

Research paper thumbnail of The Power of Dissonance: Inconsistent Relations Between Travelling Ideas And Local Realities in Community Conservation in Namibia's Zambezi Region

Conservation and Society, 2022

Environmental conservation is presented as a success story in Namibia's Zambezi Region where ... more Environmental conservation is presented as a success story in Namibia's Zambezi Region where conservation measures have led to an enormous increase in many wildlife populations. Complementary to historically exclusive fortress-conservation strategies, inclusive projects have gained prominence in the past few decades aiming to integrate local populations into conservation projects. Perhaps the most salient approach is community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), which sets ambitious goals of more participation, empowerment, and stewardship of local residents in the process of conservation. Despite its popularity in southern Africa, the CBNRM concept has met with criticism, especially with regard to the situations of many conservancy members. We aim to show that the idea of conservation, and the concept of CBNRM in particular, are in some respects detached from the lives of the conservancy members who are confronted with the effects and regulations of conservation measures. We therefore employ the notion of 'dissonance’ to describe the inconsistencies between the intended effects of the CBNRM concept and how it is perceived by conservancy members. Three aspects of dissonance are identified here. First, we draw attention to the limited opportunities conservancy members have to benefit from the thriving safari- and hunting-tourism industry. Second, despite successful conservation leading to increased wildlife populations, impacts of human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) and their repercussions for farming and livestock husbandry aggravate the dissonant relationship between conservancy members and the CBNRM concept. Third, we illustrate the discrepancies between the notion of the 'community’ in conservancies and the actual social organisation. Altogether, the inconsistencies between the travelling idea of conservation and its impact on local livelihoods will be demonstrated.

Research paper thumbnail of Spatial-temporal analysis of land-use and land-cover change in East Pokot, Kenya

Land-use and land-cover changes pose major challenges to local communities in many parts of the w... more Land-use and land-cover changes pose major challenges to local communities in many parts of the world. In the case of East Pokot in the Rift Valley of north-western Kenya, land-cover changes have a huge impact on livelihoods. While until the 1980s cattle husbandry was the prominent livelihood in the area, the socio-ecological dynamics of the past decades brought about major landscape changes. In this study, we present the land-cover changes over a period of 30 years (1985-2015), focusing on two processes in particular: the increasing bush encroachment in East Pokot (1), and the expansion of maize cultivation (2). The first process is identified as the land-cover change with the largest extent over the period of 30 years. The grass vegetation, which is essential for pastoral livelihoods and the successful rearing of cattle, has strongly declined and acacia bushes have encroached large areas all over East Pokot. The second process is a locally restricted process in the escarpment regi...

Research paper thumbnail of Dataset: Spatial-temporal analysis of land-use and land-cover change in East Pokot, Kenya

This data set contains a time series analysis of land use classifications from 1985-2015 in north... more This data set contains a time series analysis of land use classifications from 1985-2015 in northern Baringo County, Kenya. The region is located in one of the study areas of the CRC/Transregio 228: "Future Rural Africa: Future-Making and Social-Ecological Transformation". The analysis illustrates the land-use and land-cover changes over a period of 30 years in a region predominantly inhabited by Pokot pastoralists. The classification is provided in GeoTIFF and in ASCII format with a 30m spatial resolution.

Research paper thumbnail of Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Land Use Land Cover Change in East Pokot, Kenya

Research paper thumbnail of Gum Arabic as an Enterprise

Gum arabic is a tree resin obtained from Acacia senegal, an endemic tree species to the African S... more Gum arabic is a tree resin obtained from Acacia senegal, an endemic tree species to the African Sahel Zone. Recently, plantation cultivation of Acacia senegal has been introduced in Northern Nigeria and the 'modern' production of gum arabic is investigated by government institutions to promote future gum arabic production, alongside a thitherto predominant smallholder collection of gum arabic from so-called natural stands of Acacia senegal. The two ways of collecting or producing gum arabic - smallholder collection in natural stands and plantation cultivation of Acacia senegal - are compared referring to land and labour productivity. In contrast to the collection of gum arabic in natural stands, the production of gum arabic in plantation cultivation requires the implementation of several working steps that are not carried out in natural stands. Hence, the question is raised how these two ways of gum arabic production differ from each other and why the collection from natural...

Research paper thumbnail of The making of a conservation landscape: the emergence of a conservationist environmental infrastructure along the Kwando River in Namibia's Zambezi region

Africa, 2021

The Kwando Basin of north-eastern Namibia is firmly embedded in current national and internationa... more The Kwando Basin of north-eastern Namibia is firmly embedded in current national and international conservation agendas. It is a key part of the world's largest transboundary conservation area, the Kavango–Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area, and the home of seven community-based conservation areas (conservancies) and three smaller national parks (Mudumu, Nkasa Rupara and Bwabwata). While conservation agendas often start from the assumption that an authentic part of African nature is conserved as an assemblage of biota that has not been gravely impacted by subsistence agriculture, colonialism and global value chains, we show that environmental infrastructure along the Namibian side of the Kwando Valley has been shaped by the impact of administrative measures and the gradual decoupling of humans and wildlife in a vast wetland. The way towards today's conservation landscape was marked and marred by the enforced reordering of human–environment relations; clearing the...

Research paper thumbnail of Abundant herds: Accumulation, herd management, and land-use patterns in a conservation area

Pastoralism, 2020

North-eastern Namibia’s Zambezi Region became part of the world’s largest transboundary conservat... more North-eastern Namibia’s Zambezi Region became part of the world’s largest transboundary conservation area in the early 2010s: the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. While wildlife numbers and wildlife-based tourism are increasing rapidly in this conservation zone, cattle herds and livestock-based economies are expanding as well. More than conservation and wildlife-based tourism, cattle husbandry is a project of the local population and of the local elite in particular. Cattle are an expression of wealth and are regarded as a means of saving. At the same time, cattle can be used to plough fields, pull sledges, and produce milk and meat for home consumption and also for sale. Cattle also fulfil important social functions; they are necessary for bridewealth payments and are used in cattle loans with which wealthy herd owners furnish poorer relatives. Recent investments into self-financed boreholes have opened new rangelands for the wealthy, while the expansion of conserva...

Research paper thumbnail of Land-use and Land-cover Changes in Pastoral Drylands: Long-term Dynamics, Economic Change, and Shifting Socioecological Frontiers in Baringo, Kenya

Human Ecology, 2021

The ongoing fragmentation of pastoral drylands is a matter of concern throughout Africa. Using th... more The ongoing fragmentation of pastoral drylands is a matter of concern throughout Africa. Using the example of rangelands in northern Baringo County, Kenya, that were under uniform pastoral use until the late twentieth century, we trace land-use and land-cover changes (LULCCs) since the 1980s. Based on ethnographic, historical, and remote sensing data, we show how bush encroachment and dryland farming have led to the increasing modification and conversion of formerly open rangelands and the diversification of livelihoods. These LULCC dynamics are related to and driven not only by internal processes of socioeconomic change (e.g., sedentarization, changing rangeland management practices, growing markets for small stock, increasing stratification and cultural differentiation) but also by ecological processes such as wildlife defaunation and ecological invasions. Based on our findings, we suggest that a socioecological approach to Kopytoff’s notion of the internal African frontier can be...

Research paper thumbnail of Fauna, Fire, and Farming: Landscape Formation over the Past 200 years in Pastoral East Pokot, Kenya

Human Ecology, 2017

Fire was a key element of grass savanna formation all over eastern Africa. In the northern Baring... more Fire was a key element of grass savanna formation all over eastern Africa. In the northern Baringo plains, Pokot pastoralists prospered in the nineteenth century, coexisting with huge herds of wildlife. During the twentieth century, the savanna ecosystem changed from a grass-dominated to bush-dominated as a result of growing numbers of livestock and people, which brought not only elephant hunts but also intensive grazing and changing fire regimes. Subsequently, herders diversified their livelihoods, and these land-use changes in the East Pokot highlands led to the spread of the endemic plant Dodonaea viscosa (Sapindaceae) beyond its original habitat. Ingolds' concept of taskscape is applied here to illustrate a temporal, consecutive perspective of landscape transitions against the background of disappearing landscape agents (in this case large herbivores and fire).

Research paper thumbnail of Changes in landscape vegetation, forage plant composition and herding structure in the pastoralist livelihoods of East Pokot, Kenya

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2016

Oral evidence from pastoral Pokot on vegetation changes in the rangelands of northern Baringo Dis... more Oral evidence from pastoral Pokot on vegetation changes in the rangelands of northern Baringo District points to major changes in structure and biodiversity composition over the past century. A landscape of perennial grasses has turned into an Acaciadominated bush-land. Pelil (Acacia nubica), talamogh (Acacia mellifera), or anyua (Acacia reficiens), which characterise the pastoral landscape today, have increased rapidly since the 1950s. This article compares perceptions of current changes in grass compositions with former accounts, highlighting local assessments of declining high-quality grasses such as abrute (Brachiaria deflexa, Setaria homonyma) or puyun (Eragrostis cilianensis). The changes described are linked to a number of causal factors (high grazing pressure, restriction of pastoral mobility, increasing population numbers), allowing us to historicise the profound change in landscape vegetation. The costs and benefits of bush encroachment are also examined. The tremendous increase in goat numbers, and the sizeable growth of camel herds, is closely connected to the increased availability of fodder plants for browsers. The article concludes by contrasting the views expressed on landscape by Pokot elders with scientific accounts of environmental change.

Research paper thumbnail of Land-use changes and the invasion dynamics of shrubs in Baringo

Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2016

In the semi-arid savannahs around Lake Baringo, Kenya, the recent spread of bush encroachment by ... more In the semi-arid savannahs around Lake Baringo, Kenya, the recent spread of bush encroachment by the invasive alien species Prosopis juliflora and the native Dodonaea viscosa has changed humanenvironment interactions. This article suggests how the spread dynamics of Prosopis and Dodonaea have operated. It also describes the strategies Baringo's peoples have adopted in the face of this dramatic bush invasion, relates these dynamics to current invasion theory, and analyses possible implications for Baringo's social-ecological systems. It is suggested that recent increased climate variability has triggered changes in land management and livelihoods around Lake Baringo, paving the way for bush encroachment and species invasion. The extent and speed of these changes has exceeded the capacity of local communities to adapt their productive systems, destabilizing the socio-ecology of the dryland savannahs around Lake Baringo and placing them in imminent danger of collapse.

Research paper thumbnail of Pokot Pastoralism