Browsing by Author "Paterson, Barbara"

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    A Knowledge-based approach to wildlife management
    (Southern African Wildlife Management Association, 2008) Paterson, Barbara; Brown, Chris J; Stuart-Hill, Greg; Winschiers, Heike; Underhill, Les G; Dunne, Tim T; Schinzel, Britta; Beytell, Ben; Demas, Fanuel; Lindeque, Pauline; Weaver, Chris
    We present a method for developing a knowledge base to give wildlife managers timely access to pertinent information. This knowledge-based approach to species management in Namibia focuses on anthologies and management strategies for high-value mammal species.To manage wildlife resources sustainably access to an appropriate knowledge base is essential. The strategic species management approach promotes planning on local, national, and international levels. A hypermedia Information System for Rare Species Management (IRAS) and a decision support system (Wildlife Introduction Advisor) are described. Unlike print media, which become dated, hypermedia is easily updated. The non-sequential nature of hypermedia allows information extraction according to the readers needs. Due to this flexibility hypermedia supports adaptive management and information sharing. Usability evaluation of the IRAS system disproved our assumption that established wildlife conservation categories such as habitat, distribution, and numbers are appropriate and sufficient to structure species information. This result led to a restructuring of the information according to management objectives. Evaluation of the Wildlife Introduction Advisor indicates that the model performs reliably and is robust towards input error. Human experts seem to be susceptible to bias. The economic benefits associated with wildlife translocations demand accountability through a well-defined, transparent distribution process. In Namibia this demand is achieved through the use of a knowledge-based decision support tool.
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    Modelling human wellbeing for fisheries management: Science, extraction and a politics of nature in the Walvis Bay, Namibia
    (2018) Draper, Kelsey; Green, Lesley; Paterson, Barbara
    Based in Walvis Bay, an industrial fishing town in Namibia on the west coast of southern Africa, this thesis argues that via the logic of neoliberalism, relations between scientific knowledge production, historical labour practices, and political decision-making emerge as a way of managing people and nature in uneven ways. Scientific modelling practices in the form of stock assessments, maintain traction as the technological solution for managing natural resource extraction in Namibia. As such, the dissertation explores the efficacy of computer models in the industrial fishing sector and considers how breakdowns between the scientific, social, and political knowledge worlds can be usefully brought into the conceptual model of the fishery for management. With a shift towards a more inclusive management framework that considers the policy issues as well as translating broad goals into measurable objectives, comes a shift in the logic of what fisheries management is meant to mediate and achieve. The logic is no longer as straightforward as producing an estimate of the amount of fishable biomass, but now must account for market conditions, changing technologies for fishing, and a changing climate and ecology. The human dimension is framed around the concept of wellbeing which in fisheries management emerges as an umbrella term for the social world that is reduced through the logic of neoliberalism to the measurable, enumerable, and indexable social and political implications of the use of Namibia’s natural resources. As one of few ethnographies of Namibia and the only one thus far to address the fisheries sector as a site of study, this dissertation investigates the increased dependence on scientific models in the Namibian hake fishery despite declining fish stocks and increased urban poverty and inequalities. The research contributes to the limited studies done on the political economy of Namibia and the rise of fish as national resource in the postcolony. It investigates the relations at risk in everyday life in Walvis Bay and re-imagines the framing of humans and nature for transformative practices of environmental and economic justice.
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    Technologies, knowledge and capital : towards a political ecology of the Hake Trawl Fishery Walvis Bay, Namibia
    (2011) Draper, Kelsey; Green, Lesley; Paterson, Barbara
    Around the world, the implementation of effective fisheries management has been met with a variety of challenges. The incorporation of fisher's local ecological knowledge (FK) into the management paradigm is an important step in understanding perceptions and responses to the changing environment, and emerges as an indispensable component in the dialogue between trans-disciplinary coastal ecology studies. This dissertation seeks to contribute to the integration of these knowledges, and emphasises the involvement of fishers, communities, and research in informing policy.
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    A transdisciplinary study on developing knowledge based software tools for wildlife management in Namibia
    (2005) Paterson, Barbara; Underhill, Les; Dunn, Tim; Schinzel, Britta
    Two software tools decision making in wildlife management were developed as part of the Transboundary Mammal Project, a joint initiative between the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Namibia (MET) and the Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF). This project aimed to improve the management of selected rare and high value species in Namibia by building a knowledge base for better informed decision making. The knowledge base was required to encapsulate current knowledge and experience of conservation experts and specialists. To provide an electronic representation of this knowledge base a hypermedia Information System for Rare Species Management (known as IRAS) was designed and implemented. The research therefore explores the disciplinary interstices of information technology, conservation and ethics, against the cultural background of a post-colonial society in which the deficits of the past constrain the impact and the efficacy of technological interventions.