| :: Namibia Background
Environment
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| Credit: Bernard Pisarski |
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Namibia stretches along Africa's west coast and covers a total land area of 824,290 sq km. It is bordered by Angola and Zambia in the north, Botswana in the east and South Africa in the south. Although the majority of the country is very arid, there is much variety from the dune fields and coastal desert plains in the west to the 1660m high central escarpment, the densely wooded bushveld in the north and the lush, green caprivi strip. The coast receives only 15 to 100mm of rain per year.
The long, narrow Namib desert from which the country derives its' name, stretches 2,000km from the Oliphants River in South Africa to San Nicolau in Angola. Hence, the entire coastal strip of Namibia falls within the realms of the Namib desert.
The climate is arid with a usually brief rainy season between October and March. The desert days are extremely hot with summer temperatures reaching into the 40's centigrade and sometimes higher.Nights are, conversely, very cold. A major factor in the shaping of Namibia's |
environment, flora and fauna has been the Benguela current which flows south to north off the coast, up from the Antarctic. The cold waters reach the coastline and meet warm, offshore winds to create a fog belt which condenses on land. This moisture sustains many varied and fascinating species of plant and animal including the toktokkie beetle which has an interesting method of gathering the water from the condensing fog. The beetle stands with its' behind raised in the air and waits for the fog droplets to condense on its carapace
and flow into its mouth! Such unusual forms of plant and insect life form the basis of a surprisingly rich and varied desert food chain.
The mountainous red dunes of the coastal desert give way to gravel plains as the altitude rises inland. The width of the coastal plain varies; in Luderitz it is almost 300km wide whereas it is almost none existent in the Kaokoveld area to the north where the mountains reach almost to the sea. The Namib itself is criss-crossed by many dry riverbeds leading the way from the mountainous highlands to the coast, most of these rarely carry water although some will flood briefly in years of high rainfall.
Millions of years ago, however, these river beds carried huge volumes of water and were responsible for carving out spectacular canyons such as the famous Fish River Canyon in the south of Namibia. The inland landscape boasts chains of dramatic mountains and inselbergs. Some of these are volcanic with caves and rock shelters where remains of ancient human habitation have been found.
The desert vegetation consists of many drought resistant species such as the nama melon, various lichens and some stunted acacias. Desert species give way to savanna grassland near the central escarpment which is dominated by Stipagrostis, Eragrostis and Aristida species. Areas of aloe plants, euphorbias and quivertrees are found in the south and buffalo and camel thorn acacias grow along watercourses. The Caprivi Strip is characterised by mopane woodlands, acacia belts and grasslands as well as reed-beds near the rivers.
The wide variety of vegetation across Namibia supports an equally staggering array of insect, bird and animal life. The "big five" rhino, elephant, buffalo, leopard and lion are represented across the country, and in addition approximately 20% of the world's cheetah population is found in Namibia, most of the animals living on private farmland as opposed to protected wildlife areas. For this reason much work has been done by organisations such as The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) and Africat in conjunction with private farmers to find methods of protecting farm animals from cheetah without the removal of these magnificent predators from their habitat.
The bird life is equally prolific with many water birds supported by the rich fish stocks and several hundred land based species present throughout the country. Namibia is home to the worlds' largest bird, the ostrich, as well as the worlds' heaviest flying bird, the Kori bustard.
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