Deforestation and Reforestation in Namibia : The Global Consequences of Local Contradictions

North-central Namibia's history demonstrates how global models of environmental change give rise to contradictory interpretations that are not simply misreadings of the same process. The area experienced both dramatic deforestation and reforestation, suggesting the need for new and pluralistic approaches. "Descriptions of the late 1800s landscape in the Ovambo floodplain in north-central Namibia closely match the area’s late 1900s appearance, suggesting that little change occurred between the pre-colonial baseline and the postcolonial outcome. Yet, paradoxically, colonial conquest, population pressure, biological invasions, new technology, and economic globalization caused both dramatic deforestation and reforestation in less than a century. The paradox stems from the fact that the prevailing global environmental models obscure and homogenize the process of environmental change: different and contradictory interpretations are dismissed as alternative readings or misreadings of the same process. Deforestation and Reforestation, however, argues that the paradox highlights the need to reframe environmental change as plural processes occurring along multiple trajectories that may be dissynchronized and asymmetrical."--pub. desc