Knowledge lives in the lake. Case studies in environmental and customary law from southern Africa, by Manfred O. Hinz et al.

Knowledge lives in the lake. Case studies in environmental and customary law from southern Africa, by Manfred O. Hinz et al. ISBN 9789991685588 / ISBN 978-99916-855-8-8 Namibia / ISBN 9783941602755 / ISBN 978-3-941602-75-5 Germany

This volume of case studies on environmental and customary law in southern Africa, Knowledge lives in the lake: Case studies in environmental and customary law from southern Africa, is a continuation of Biodiversity and the ancestors, a book that was published in 2008.

Oliver C. Ruppel  Manfred O. Hinz  Prisca N. Anyolo  Clever Mapaure  Emilia N. Namwoonde  Amanda T. Takaendesa  

Like its predecessor, with the exception of one contribution this publication presents research conducted by students of the Faculty of Law of the University of Namibia (UNAM) within the framework of the international Biodiversity Monitoring Transect Analysis in Africa (BIOTA Africa) Project. The objective of the BIOTA Project was to generate knowledge relevant to decision-makers for the sustainable management of biodiversity. The Project was inspired by the movement to translate the demand for sustainable development into international and national policies, which gained worldwide recognition at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. The Project was funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research for some ten years, and ended in 2010/2011. It was, however, fortunate that some of the questions dealt with in the BIOTA Project could be taken into a new project, which, to some extent, succeeded it, namely The Future of the Okavango (TFO) Project. The TFO Project, funded by the same Ministry in Germany, focuses on the sustainability of the Kavango River Basin. Thus, some contributions in this volume mark the interface between the two Projects by opening the research gates leading to the interests of the TFO Project. Through the BIOTA Project, African and German scientists of all relevant disciplines had the opportunity to research a broad variety of issues relating to biodiversity in Africa. Social scientists played an increasing role as the BIOTA Project proceeded in line with the growing interest to relate natural scientists' findings to the sociopolitical mechanisms that govern the operation of societies. The papers by UNAM law students assembled in this publication are the revised versions of work originally produced in accordance with UNAM requirements to complete the law degrees of LLB and LLM. The BIOTA Project budget allowed the students' fieldwork to be funded. Three of the students had the opportunity of  reading their LLM degrees within the framework of the Project. In these cases, the Project provided them with scholarships to work on their theses full-time. The introductory paper by Manfred O. Hinz is an attempt to deal with the conflicts between customary law and state law, which had already become apparent in the contributions to Biodiversity and the ancestors. Some of the suggestions in the concluding chapter of that volume, entitled "Findings and the way forward", are pursued further in observations which draw from the discourse on the law of sustainable development, in that analyses of what is being offered to describe the architecture of global environmental governance have been used to support the need for remedies to the said conflicts. The following two papers, both by Prisca Nangoma Anyolo, deal with a topic also previously addressed in Biodiversity and the ancestors, namely communal conservancies in Namibia. These conservancies enjoy great support in the country and have been established in basically all parts of it. Anyolo's first paper offers background information on conservancies in Namibia, while the second describes the practicalities of a specific conservancy, i.e. the Uukwaluudhi Conservancy in north-central Namibia. Amanda Tapiwa Takaendesa was not part of the original BIOTA group. Supervised by one of the editors of this book, she wrote a paper that was added to the BIOTA collection since its focus on the extinction of black rhino in Zimbabwe covers an important aspect of nature conservation in southern Africa. In fact, Zimbabwe's approach to conservation substantially influenced the conceptualisation of conservancies in Namibia. The next contribution to the volume is one of two papers by Ndateelela Emilia Namwoonde. The first paper deals with the rejected registration of customary land rights in the Kavango Region. The topic adds to the ongoing debate on the status of communal land in the interface between state law, the Communal Land Reform Act and customary law. The message of the paper in its conclusion is that the registration of land as stipulated in accordance with the said Act is an unhealthy import of a legal concept and, thus, not workable under a widely accepted traditional system of administering land. [...]

This is an excerpt from the book: Knowledge lives in the lake. Case studies in environmental and customary law from southern Africa, by Manfred O. Hinz et al.

Book title: Knowledge lives in the lake
Subtitle: Case studies in environmental and customary law from southern Africa
Editors: Manfred O. Hinz; Oliver C. Ruppel; Clever Mapaure
Authors: Prisca N. Anyolo; Manfred O. Hinz; Clever Mapaure; Emilia N. Namwoonde; Oliver C. Ruppel; Amanda T. Takaendesa; Sanita van Wyk; Angelique L. Zender
Cover photograph: Helgard Patemann-Hinz
Publisher: Namibia Scientific Society
Windhoek, Namibia 2013
ISBN 9789991685588 / ISBN 978-99916-855-8-8 Namibia
ISBN 9783941602755 / ISBN 978-3-941602-75-5 Germany
Softcover, 17x24 cm, 274 pages