Integrated Land Management Institute (ILMI)
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Browsing Integrated Land Management Institute (ILMI) by Author "Bloemertz, Lena"
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Item Ecosystem services and small-holder farming practices -between payments, development support and right- an integrated approach (ILMI Working paper 10)(Namibia University of Science and Technology, Integrated Land Management Institute, 2018-08) Bloemertz, Lena; Naanda, Martha; Wingate, Vladimir; Angombe, Simon; Kuhn, NikolausSmall-scale farmers in north-central Namibia face numerous challenges, ranging from low crop yields, high rainfall variability and land degradation which is threatening the long-term productivity of the land, to social changes that are reducing the work force available for farming. This paper aims to assess existing land use practices (LUPs) and to determine their relationship to ecosystem services (ES). As agriculture (crop and livestock farming) is the dominant land use in northern Namibia, it is the main driver influencing environmental services and will be in the focus here. We suggest ways of combining an improvement of provisioning services (especially food production and thus livelihoods of small-scale farmers) together with regulating services (e.g. climate regulation through carbon storage and soil fertility conservation) to create multiple benefits at the landscape level. In addition to identifying suitable LUPs, we argue that any activity trying to improve ES should count on the already existing initiatives and interventions and look for synergies and complementarities.Item Social meaning and material constraints of land scarcity in Northern Namibia (ILMI Working Paper No. 13)(Integrated Land Management Institute, Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2021-03) Bloemertz, Lena; Nghitevelekwa, Romie; Prudat, Brice; Weidmann, Laura; Dobler, Gregor; Graefe, Olivier; Kuhn, Nikolaus J.The paper scrutinizes perceptions of and discourses about scarcity of land in northern Namibia in order to show the multiple meanings that land has for the population. It is based on two years of fieldwork, and brings together interdisciplinary perspectives on why people argue that land is scare. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the meaning of land in a rapidly changing setting, in which demands for land are changing and diversified. Furthermore, new land uses have come into play, and subsistence agriculture is no longer the mainstay of livelihoods, but one of the many sources. We argue for a more nuanced concept of scarcity of land, in order to acknowledge the different meanings of access to land to different people and to improve land policies.