Namibia Desert Student Program
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Round River's Namibia study abroad program will open your eyes. Be ready for an entirely new experience, because environmental conservation and wildlife management is done differently in Africa. On this program you will learn how history has shaped these practices in Namibia, and how the country’s independence in 1990 left a clean slate for community-based-conservation to develop. Many discussions will flow from a lecture into a chat over dinner by the fire – on topics such as the concept of wilderness, poverty, or sustainability. In a group no larger than 10 students, you will have the chance to access remote wilderness areas - often piled in the back of a Land Rover - and will get to know these places well. By the end of your program you will be able to identify species by their tracks, scat, and birdsong. You’ll be able to distinguish between the surprisingly similar call of an ostrich and the growl of a lion in the night. You’ll learn how to change a flat tire, how to bake bread over hot coals, and how to greet Namibians in multiple languages. You will challenge yourself, physically and mentally, and may find you become passionate about an issue you never considered before at home. You will learn to deal with extreme desert climates and limited resources. You will probably even be scared at some point. But one thing is for sure: there is no way you will forget this experience. The Student Program:Our program in Namibia offers a rich experience in community wildlife conservation. Students spend their time conducting various types of research in the Kunene Region and come away with diverse perspectives of how conservation is done here in local communities; perspectives that certainly cannot be taught in a classroom. We are based out of our camp at Ewe Romuti. Wildlife is abundant throughout this area. This beautiful setting provides students with a comfortable spot to recuperate between field trips, and will be your home for three months. Field trips can range from 3 to 14 days depending on the project, and usually involve a fair amount of driving between sites. Students sleep in heavy-duty canvas tents (provided), cook on gas stoves or over a fire, utilize outhouses and showers, and have ample study space. Ewe Romuti harnesses solar power to run small electronics and charge batteries. This small desert outback becomes home surprisingly fast. Students will participate in many of the following activities:
Launch Google Earth and track Round River's Spring 2010 Namibia students. A Sample Namibia Program Calendar may be downloaded here. Course Offered:
Program Dates:
The Conservation Context:The Republic of Namibia occupies a large portion of southwestern Africa, lying between the frigid waters of the southern Atlantic Ocean and the expanses of the Kalahari Desert. On its western border is the infamous Skeleton Coast with its barren beaches and rolling dunes. In its varied habitats a diverse array of wildlife survive. Round River works predominantly in the Kunene Region, a 28 million acre area in northwest Namibia. The deserts of the Kunene represent one of the last true wildernesses remaining in southern Africa. This very distinctive ecoregion is home to the black rhino, desert adapted elephants, as well as lion, cheetah, leopard, hyena, mountain zebra, giraffe, springbok, oryx and kudu. This area is rich in cultural diversity as well; the Damara, Himba, and Herrero people live throughout this region, mostly raising livestock (goats and cattle) and growing crops in small gardens. Communities have organized themselves into conservancies, registered with the government, through which they manage their communal land and resources. The Namibian government, working with local traditional authorities and conservancy leaders, is creating a new national park in the Kunene to conserve this vast wilderness and its wildlife, while also linking the Skeleton Coast and Etosha National Parks. This park will be a “People’s Park” and will allow the existing communities to live with wildlife, while facilitating wildlife migrations and creating one of the largest conservation area complexes in the world. Round River is playing a part of this through the Kunene Regional Ecological Assessment (KREA) project. The aim of the KREA is to support the purposes of the proposed park by contributing to the long-term conservation of regional biodiversity. As part of this project, Round River, with the help of our students, has produced comprehensive maps presenting information on wildlife habitat suitability, livestock grazing patterns, villages, and water sources. Student ProjectsTake a look at what our students have been working on!
2010 An Assessment of Plant Resource Use and its Role in Food Security for Communities Living within Bwabwata National Park, West Caprivi. By: Susie Dain-Owens, Jessica Lavelle, Lucy Kemp, Andy Notoupolous, Alex Diemer, Aubree Meyer, Clara Smoniewski, Corrie Wilcox, Jenny Helm, Kim Hackett, Moriah Hounsell, Tessa Emmer, Theo Papademetriou 2009 Assessing the Accuracy of the Relative Likelihood of Grazing Model in the Doro !Nawas Conservancy, By Tyler Andrews and Sophie Ellis Examining Household Level Non-Financial Effects of Membership to Namibian Conservancies, By Blair Braverman Improving Management Decisions: Modules for Ecosystem-Wide Data Collection, By Rachel Cadwallader-Staub and Caroline Turnbull Human-Elephant Conflict and Correspondence to Elephant Habitat Suitability in the Kunene Region, Namibia, By Amber Fischer and Megan Rabinowich Genealogy and Inter-Calving Rates: Analysis of the Reproductive Success of Diceros bicornis in the Kunene Region, By Rebecca Reusch, Alice Wisener, and Lauren Sopher The Effectiveness of Existing Elephant Protection Against Elephant Damage to Artificial Water-Points, By Jessie Swett, Sam Fischer, and Sarah Hart
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