Short description of the best practice
The PGH best practice has been trialled on 3 conservancies. Each conservancy was divided up into grazing areas. These smaller areas were mapped, and the farmers of several areas developed a land plan and grazing plan for each area. Herders were appointed, and planned grazing started in five areas. A precondition for becoming a part of this program is for all livestock owners to combine their herds into one herd that is herded daily - allowing for planned grazing.The PGH approach is supported by the drilling of boreholes and provision of water tanks in remoter areas with potentially good grazing.
PGH is not something new to the communal farmers. To a large extent, it is adapting the old way of farming with cattle, before people became settled and stopped herding. The combination of the traditional and the scientific in a socially acceptable way has been the key to progress so far resulting in traditional leaders engaging with the program and taking credit for successes.
We are trialling planned grazing through three mechanisms:
1. A water tanker and trailer driving water to grazing areas without water;
2. Herding from existing homesteads or from new boreholes where homesteads have been established close together, facilitating easier combining of animals;
3. The use of daily grazing camps using game capture nets as fencing, which are moved daily. |
Location
PGH is currently being practised in the North-Western part of Namibia, in the remote Kunene Region. It is a vast, very arid and mountainous region with low population density. The area is home to the Ovahimba people, who maintain a largely traditional way of life based on livestock rearing|
If the location has well defined boundaries, specify its extension in hectares:
7500000.0
Estimated population living in the location:
80000.0
Brief description of the natural environment within the specified location.
Kunene is a mountainous region made up of the northern Namib Desert (100 - 600m) and the interior highlands (1,000 - 2,00Om), divided by a rugged escarpment.|
Soils are generally highly infertile, and the region is dominated by rocky outcrops, chromic cambisols and lithic leptosols.|
The climate is semi-arid to very arid (50mm to 350mm rain per year) - a severely drought prone area. Temperatures can reach 40 degrees in summertime but with an average annual of around 22 degrees.
Prevailing socio-economic conditions of those living in the location and/or nearby
The region is dominated by communal land with people sharing access to common property resources in open areas. The land is typically used by communities under usufruct tenureship with the land being vested in the state
Salaries/wages are the main sources of income in Kunene (44.5%) followed by subsistence farming (19.5%. Pensions and remittances and smallscale businesses are the main other sources.
Average per capita income in the region is around NAD6000
On the basis of which criteria and/or indicator(s) (not related to The Strategy) the proposed practice and corresponding technology has been considered as 'best'?
The PGH approach is a best practice example of integrating traditional knowledge with scientific approaches to sustainable land management. Early results show that:
1. Grasses have started growing in places where they previously did not and annual plant density has increased considerably. Moribund grass has also been removed or trampled and ground cover has improved.
2. Livestock losses due to predators, theft, and calf mortalities are virtually zero now that herders accompany stock.
3. Crop damage is reduced because livestock do not enter fields once elephants have broken the perimeter fences.
4. Animal performance is as good, if not better, than adjacent un-herded animals.
