From 5th of September to 30th of October
An important aspect of SCIONA is understanding the wildlife of the area. This is not only for conservation, but wildlife are a key attraction for tourism, and discovering where they are can help with future tourism planning.
The Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) reported a newborn giraffe calf in northwestern Namibia. The mother was pregnant when GCF and the SCIONA project fitted solar-powered GPS satellite tracking devices on seven giraffes in July 2019. GCF and SCIONA are working together to assess the possibility of re-introducing Angolan giraffe in Iona National Park, where they went locally extinct during the civil war.
As part of the SCIONA Community Engagement activities, a SCIONA team embarked on a fieldtrip to conduct household surveys in Epupa and Okanguati conservancies on the 1st to the 14th of September 2019. The team camped in both Epupa and Okanguati.
Dr Rolf Becker and Dr Vera De Cauwer represented the SCIONA team at the annual conference of the Arid Zone Ecological Forum from 7 to 11 November 2019 in Kimberley, South Africa. They presented a SWOT analysis of the Iona Skeleton Coast Transfrontier Park, a study on game distribution and corridors in the Park, and a poster on the new Euphorbia rimireptans. The conference focuses on arid zone ecology and management and this year, the increased poaching of succulents, insects and reptiles within the region was highlighted.
Author(s): V. De Cauwer
A new Euphorbia species was found on a hill in the Skeleton Coast National Park by SCIONA team members during the scoping trip in May 2018. We are happy to announce that the description of the new Euphorbia rimireptans was recently published in Phytotaxa. We thank everyone who contributed to this article, from prospecting potential locations, to the meticulous microscopic study of the plant material and taxonomically describing it, organising and funding the logistics involved in the fieldwork and Sebastian Mukumbira for spotting the first specimen.
At the end of June 2019, a SCIONA team travelled to the Orupembe and Marienfluss conservancies in the Kunene Region. The co-design team met with local game guards from these conservancies. The game guards briefed the team on the current wildlife monitoring activities, including their interactions with the camera traps that were set up during a previous trip. The team, together with the game guards assessed the content on some of the camera traps. The content included images of ostrich, gemsbok and springbok. Most of the images were captured as a result of animal movement at waterholes.
Date: July to December 2018
Date: June 2018 – January 2019
A team of researchers and students travelled from Windhoek to the Skeleton Coast National Park during the first week of June 2019. The team went to collect the first set of litterbags that were deployed in the field end of March 2019. The aim of the experiment is to measure the rate of litter decomposition in a hyper-arid system. About 464 litterbags were deployed under different plant species canopies, with the purpose of collecting a set of two litterbags per shrub to determine the weight loss (which is litter decay rate) at an interval of 4 months.
A multidisciplinary SCIONA team travelled from Windhoek to Iona National Park in Angola during the second half of May 2019. Community workshops were held in and near the park: at Monte Negro near the border with Namibia, at Cambeno in the centre, and at Pediva just north of the park. The workshops aimed to engage local stakeholders in topics ranging from livelihoods to ecosystem management.
Copyright © 2024, Namibia University of Science and Technology | Disclaimer |
Developed and Maintained by DICT
