The final episode in this series focused on the value of livestock, why farmers value their livestock herd as an investment and why such farmers are not quick to adapt to smart agricultural practices.

One of the reasons is that, as ASSAR found, many farmers in northern Namibia have deep-seated religious beliefs and see symbolic significance in their traditional ways of doing things. Rather than seeing this as a barrier to adaptation, it can been seen as an opportunity to promote climate smart agriculture. By working with religious and traditional value systems, extension workers could promote ...

The principal investigator of the ASSAR project for Southern Africa, Prof. Mark New recently published an article on the implications of the 1.5 degrees warming in countries that ASSAR is working in. The full article can be read here. The Paris Agreement has a goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, ideally 1.5°C. Understanding the local-level impacts of these global temperature targets is crucial for informing climate change adaptation needs and actions.

In addition to the full report, Mark also wrote a news piece on what the 1.5 degrees warming could imply for countries such as Na...

The African Climate & Development Initiative (ACDI), based at the University of Cape Town (UCT), working together with the University of Namibia (UNAM) and University of Botswana (UB), is producing a series of journalistic articles which address key research findings relating to how semi-arid regions in southern Africa should respond to the threat of a changing climate. 

This series is part of the outputs from a collaborative research project: Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR). This 5-year (2014-2018) project focuses on climate change adaptation in the Omusati Region in Namibia ...

The DRFN will be celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2020, and therefore we are calling on all alumni of the DRFN (students, staff, interns, researchers, associates, board members, volunteers, sponsors etc) to assist us with the compilation of a "memory book" to mark this milestone. If you have been a part of the DRFN in one way or another please send us an email with the following information:

Name and Surname (include maiden name, if applicable)
Year(s) that you have been with DRFN
What activities where you engaged with?
Fondest memories and or milestones?
Short description o...