Biodiversity & Ecology 6

Climate change and adaptive land management in southern Africa

Assessment, changes, challenges, and solutions

Product of the first research portfolio of SASSCAL 2012–2018

Edited by Rasmus Revermann, Kristin M. Krewenka, Ute Schmiedel, Jane M. Olwoch, Jörg Helmschrot, Norbert Jürgens

497 pages, 30 x 21 cm, hardcover, 349 figures, 84 tables, 1 map
Germany/Europe: ISBN 978-3-933117-95-3, 39.80 EUR
Namibia/Southern Africa: ISBN 978-99916-57-43-1, 700 N$/ZAR

Global change puts increasing pressure on social-ecological systems. This book features outcomes of research of SASSCAL and aims to draw the attention of a broad readership. The presented studies provide assessments of the values of resources, analyse long term environmental changes, identify risks and challenges involved and offer solutions and pathways towards climate change adaption and sustainable land management. 

Chapters are: Climate, Water resources, Risk management, Rangelands, Food security, Forest resources, Land cover dynamics, and Biodiversity. Included are also a task overview and recommendations for further reading.

SASSCAL is Southern African Science Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management

Norbert Jürgens et al.

Fairy circles of the Namib Desert
Ecosystem engineering by subterranean social insects

Biodiversity & Ecology 7
Edited by Ute Schmiedel and Manfred Finckh

376 pp, 780 figures and 15 tables. Hardcover 21 x 30 cm

Germany/Europe: ISBN: 978-3-933117-96-0, 40 EUR

Namibia/Southern Africa: ISBN 978-99916-57-44-8, 830 N$/ZAR

The fairy circles of the Namib Desert in southern Africa are often regarded as an outstanding mystery of nature and several scientific hypotheses for their causation have been proposed and are subject of an ongoing debate. In this book fifteen authors offer a wealth of information based on numerous in-depth studies on the morphology, ecology and biology of fairy circles and the organisms which create, use and maintain them. Other regular vegetation patterns of the Namib Desert and neighbouring biomes are introduced and discussed, as well. Stunning photographs invite the reader to enjoy a journey to the diversity of fairy circle landscapes in Namibia, Angola and South Africa. Very clearly is proved that termites are the causators of the phenomenon "fairy circles".

Contributing Authors: Alicia Geppert, Alexander Gröngröft, Felicitas Gunter, Joh R. Henschel, Katharina J. Huber, Joe McAuliffe, Jens Oldeland, Jörg Overmann, Javier Pascual, Mike Picker, Rasmus Revermann, Priscilla Sichone, Johannes Sikorski, Andrey Yurkow

Harald Jainta
WILD LITHOPS

Photographs by Anja & Harald Jainta

With foreword by Steven Hammer and Ronnie Uijs

488 pages, 21 x 29.7 cm, hardcover, 2000 colour and 60 b/w photographs, 13 maps, 14 tables and 10 diagrams
Germany/Europe: ISBN 978-3-933117-93-9, 85.00 EUR
Namibia/Southern Africa: ISBN 978-99916-57-41-7, 1190 N$/ZAR

English

This 488-page unique monograph of the genus Lithops features all 91 currently accepted species from a field research perspective and provides a valuable guide to lithops in their natural surroundings.
2000 colour habitat photographs and 13 typographic maps illustrate lithops relationships, diversity and distribution in southern Africa and a new simplified taxonomy is suggested.
60 portraits and related biographic information honour the dedicated work of past and present Lithoparians.
A thorough review of published botanic and scientific data on Lithops plus a comprehensive annotated bibliography including over 700 references make this book a benchmark for plant lovers, succulent breeders and specialists of the unparalleled Living Stones.

Harald Jainta was born in 1963 and grew up in Adorf, Vogtland, Germany. In the 1980s he became interested in succulent plants and established a small collection including Lithops. After studying Biochemistry in Leipzig he has worked in research and management positions at pharmaceutical companies in Germany since 1988. His purely private passion to study lithops in the wild began in 2003 and through all subsequent sixteen field trips he was accompanied by his wife Anja.

Rudolf G. Britz, Hartmut Lang, Cornelia Limpricht
A Concise History of the Rehoboth Basters until 1990
Appendix: The Laws of the Basters

1999, 14,8 x 21 cm, Paperback, 86 pages
21 b/w pictures, 2 maps
ISBN 978-3-9804518-6-0, EUR 10,00

In 1870 a group of Basters settled down in the midst of then South-West Africa at Rehoboth and the surrounding region ("Rehoboth Gebiet"). Led by Hermanus van Wyk and accompanied by the German missionary Heidmann, for two years they trekked out of the South-African Cape colony to the north. Henceforth they considered themselves as an independent ethnic group, the Rehoboth Basters. 

Helga Kohl, Amy Schoeman
KOLMANSKOP – Past and Present

Edition Namibia Band 9
2004, 23 x 27 cm, hardcover, 120 pages
61 colour pictures, 20 historical b/w pictures, 1 map
ISBN 978-3-933117-18-6, EUR 29,80

Kolmanskop, a ghost town situated in the southern Namib Desert about 10 km inland from Lüderitz, is one of Namibia’s most intiguing relics of the past. At one time the focal point of the diamond industry in Namibia, it was deserted in 1956 following the discovery of richer diamond fields further south. Left to the mercy of the blasting winds and encroaching sands of the Namib, its structures gradually crumbled and fell apart. The book was inspired by a portfolio of classically composed photographs taken during the mind-nineties by Namibian photographer, Helga Kohl FPPSA.

Eberhard von Koenen
Medicinal, Poisonous, and Edible plants in Namibia

Edition Namibia Band 4
2001, 2nd imprint 2007, 21 x 29 cm, Hardcover, 336 pages
118 artistically plant-drawings, 10 biotop-drawings
ISBN 978-3-9804518-7-9, EUR 47,00
ISBN 978-99916-747-4-2, N$ 600,00

This book is also available in German.

Nicole Grünert
Namibia – Fascination of Geology
A Travel Handbook

2017, 8th edition, redesigned and revised, 21 x 14,8 cm, Paperback, 259 pages
9 maps, 55 diagrams, 158 colour pictures
ISBN 978-3-933117-13-7, EUR 22,00
ISBN 978-99916-747-8-0, N$ 285

For geoscientists Namibia has always been a country of particular interest. The greatly varied geological structures make the earth history of this region like an open book – all that remains is to read it. Many of the grandiose landscape pictures were formed over millions of years, even up to 2000 million years ago. In view of the time dimensions of earth history, humans can view their own time span in a new light.

Neil MacLeod, Nikos G. Petrou
An Expert’s Guide to Finding the Animals in ETOSHA

updated edition 2019, 20 x 29,5 cm, Paperback, 96 pages
294 photographs, 5 maps
ISBN 978-3933117-85-4, EUR 19,80

96 pages full of information gathered over countless game drives throughout Etosha by one of Namibia’s leading safari guides. This book will maximise your chances of finding the animals. Including, for the first time, Western Etosha.

Rolf Brockmann, Gunther Christoph Dade
Katutura – Excursions into Windhoek's Township

2006, 21 x 14,8 cm, Paperback, 184 pages
ISBN 978-3-933117-03-8, EUR 19,80

The first impressions when arriving in the capital of Namibia, Windhoek, is certainly of surprise. It can’t be compared to Lagos, Cairo or Kinshasa at all. It’s different – a well organised, tidy capital. Hardly any tourist visits Katutura at the beginning or end of his stay. The streams of tourists siply go past Windhoek’s largest suburb in which almost 10 percent oft the country’s population live.

Norbert Jürgens, Ute Schmiedel, M. Timm Hoffman
Biodiversity in Southern Africa

2010, 3 volumes, 30,0 x 21,0 cm, Hardcover, XLVI + 1380 pages
more than 2400 photos, figures, tables and maps
ISBN Europe 978-3-933117-44-1, EUR 75,00
ISBN Southern Africa 978-99916-57-30-1, N$ 690,00
English

Biodiversity is important and is threatened globally. The BIOTA Southern Africa project analysed the causes, trends, and processes of change in biodiversity in Namibia and western South Africa over nearly a full decade, from 2001 until 2010. This book, which is comprised of three volumes, offers a summary of the results from the many and diverse subprojects during this first period of long-term observation and related research, at both local and regional scales, and with a focus on sustainable land management options for the region.