Land Desk

The Land Desk is involved in issues to do with the productive use of Namibia’s agricultural resources. This includes management of farming-based livelihoods and particularly communal area livestock farming, support to resettlement farms, and preparedness for climate variability and climate change.

DRFN was closely involved in Namibia’s 10-year Programme to Combat Desertification (Napcod, 1994-2004), and during this programme built expertise in community-based management of natural resources and rural livelihoods. The approach of ‘putting communities in the driver’s seat of their own development’ through establishment of Forums for Integrated Resource Management (FIRMs) is now widely accepted as a means to integrate planning in rural communities with government service providers and donor agencies.

Also arising out of Napcod work, Local Level Monitoring is a simple and robust tool that helps communities to track their own rangeland conditions and manage them accordingly. This is important in Namibia’s arid and semi-arid environment, which is marked by great variability and rapid changes in an area’s carrying capacity. This process holds great potential for rural people faced with changing climate conditions as the impacts of global warming grow more severe. Building capacity in the field of climate change vulnerability and adaptation is an important focus of the Land Desk.

The Land Desk is broadening its scope to incorporate energy farming, in particular the conversion of invader bush to energy. It is also pursuing avenues in peri-urban agriculture, linking the fields of land, water and energy.