Tree Identification, Vegetation Assessment, and Wildlife Monitoring, Namibia, Africa

This consultant (forester and certified silviculturalist) participated in two-week training in Namibia entitled "Tree Identification, Vegetation Assessment, and Wildlife Monitoring." The training was organized by the Integrated River Basin Management Project (a USAID sponsored group working within the Basin of the Okavango River), and carried out by a host of specialists in botany, wildlife monitoring, vegetation mapping, and forestry from the United States, Portugal, Botswana and Namibia. The target audience was personnel from the Angolan government (the Angolan Institute of Forest Development, and the Ministry of the Environment) and local community members from the area within the Coutada de Mucusso, a 23,000 km2 area in SE Angola which is on track to be designated as a natural reserve. A number of Namibian and Botswana foresters, botanists and wildlife biologists also attended the training. The training objectives were primarily to prepare the Angolans to carry out wildlife monitoring and vegetation plot sampling (in support of land cover mapping), but also to effect some collaboration between the Angolans and specialists in the neighboring countries of Botswana and Namibia, which also share the Okavango Basin. The training was (necessarily) somewhat complicated by language issues and the highly disparate nature of the audience (with regard to education, literacy, socioeconomic class, etc.) but believe it was largely successful in meeting objectives. Sustainable forestry and land management planning were introduced by this consultant at the training, as principle focus areas. We believe that there is a real opportunity for further forestry management involvement in Angola in helping to foster sustainable management and forestry practices and policies.

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