Intro -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Maps -- Photos -- 1 . Approaches to environmental change -- Models of environmental change -- The modernization paradigm -- The declinist paradigm -- The inclinist paradigm -- Paradoxes of environmental change -- 2 . Tree castles and population bombs -- Tree castles and insecurity on the eve of colonial conquest -- Portuguese violence and population fight into Ovamboland -- Internal migration in South Africa's Ovamboland -- Tree castles and deforestation in the 1920s to 1940s -- Colonial concerns about overpopulation and deforestation in the 1950s -- Population growth in Ovamboland -- Woody vegetation resources by the close of the twentieth century -- 3. Conquest of Nature: Imperial political ecologies -- The political ecology of insecurity -- Indirect environmental rule -- The colonial conquest of Nature: Direct environmental rule -- 4. Fierce species: Biological imperialism -- Invading microbes and virgin soil epizootics -- Invading microbes and virgin soil epidemics -- A plague of donkeys: Fierce invading equines -- Fierce indigenous creatures on the rampage -- 5. Guns, hoes and steel: Techno-environmental determinism -- Guns -- Steel tools -- Steel plows -- Guns and steel in north-central Namibia -- 6.Naturalizing cattle culture: Colonialism as a deglobalizing and decommodifying force -- The cattle complex and environmental degradation -- Ovambo cattle as global commodities -- Cattle, culture and nature -- Overstocking and biological time bombs -- Colonial barriers: Conservation and fences -- Grazing pressure and desertification -- Livestock and deforestation -- Commodification, deglobalization and deforestation -- 7. The Palenque paradox: Beyond Nature-to-Culture -- Bush cities and the bush -- 'Bushmen' and the bush -- 8. The Ovambo paradox and environmental pluralism.

Deforestation in Ovamboland -- Reforestation in Ovamboland -- Environmental pluralism: Multiprocessual asynchronous environmentalchange -- Bibliography -- Index.

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.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.