Fact sheets, notice-board posters etc on African Wild Dog Conservancy

Fact sheets, notice-board posters etc on Otjituuo Conservancy

This co-management & development plan for the “Greater Waterberg Complex” (GWC) sets out the vision, purpose and objectives and underlying principles for the key issues which the participants (members of the GWC Association and collaborating partners) wish to address in the co-management and development of the Complex. It also lists agreed “actions” under each of the issues, to facilitate the effective implementation of the plan. As such, this plan represents the wishes and intentions of the participants. The co-management & development plan is accepted as the guiding authority for the Complex.

Vulnerability and Adaptation assessment to climate change carried out in preparation of the Second National Communication in meeting Government’s obligations to the UNFCCC. The report addresses the vulnerability of the water and agricultural sectors to climate change, and suggest adaptation measures to cope with the expected impacts. Vulnerability is placed in the socio-economic contexts of rural areas, in particular the Karas and Caprivi regions.

The Cape Vulture is a cliff-nesting vulture endemic to southern Africa. Its range and population size have declined markedly over the last century. Namibia has just one colony, located on the cliffs of the Waterberg Plateau. Five adult males and one immature were captured near the Waterberg site and fitted with satellite-tracking devices and the foraging range was assessed. The ranging behaviour of adult vultures varied throughout the year, and was apparently related to their nesting behaviour.

The assessment was commissioned by the Nam-Place Project as one of seven SEA assessments of the tourism sector within Namibian landscapes.

The Ministry of Environment & Tourism commissioned this study into the ecological, social, and economic implications of private game parks and nature reserves in Namibia. The Ministry engaged the services of an independent team of researchers consisting of an ecologist, an economist and a lawyer.

The eastern communal conservancies are situated along the western fringe of the Kalahari basin. Under a very short rainfall gradient, the vegetation abruptly changes from microphyllous Acacia-dominated savannas to mesophyll savannas, dominated by Terminalia sericea and Combretum spp. We hypothesise that this is caused by changes in soil moisture availability brought about by changes in soil texture from loamy soils to deep sands (the ‘inverse texture effect’). For this analysis, we used vegetation and soils data derived from a recognisance survey of the natural resources of the study area. As the sites in the soil and vegetation surveys did not overlap, it was decided to use only synoptic data for the plant associations in the analysis. Non-metric multidimesional scaling ordination was utilised as ordination technique of the vegetation data and various environmental parameters, including soil texture, soil hydraulic parameters, climatic and fire regime parameters, were overlaid as biplots onto the resulting graph, as were various plant functional attributes particularly related to climatic conditions. The main environmental gradient identified within the study area is the rainfall gradient. This relatively short gradient, however, does not explain the marked change in vegetation observed within the study area. This change is attributed to the change in soil type, in particular, the soil texture and the associated soil hydraulic parameters of the soil. This gradient is closely correlated to leaf size, explaining the change from microphyll savannas to mesophyll savannas along the change from loamy to sandy soils. One of the lesser understood mechanisms for the survival of these mesophyll plants on sandy soils seems to be a deep root system, which is actively involved in water redistribution within the soil profile – by hydraulic lift, inverse hydraulic lift and stem flow.

6 page brochure describing the park and its attractions