Change: From The Spiel to the Real
In the three months since my last quarterly report, many aspects of my life at Gobabeb have changed. Climate-it is now summer, which means the temperature extremes of the desert have been largely replaced by uniformly extreme heat. People-students and interns who defined so much of my life at Gobabeb and were especially important to my introduction to Namibia have come and gone. Financial grounding-Gobabeb was left to find new means to sustain itself after the core funding provided by GTZ expired. Development plans-mining, which has hit the Namib-Naukluft National Park hard in the past couple years, has become an imminent threat to many facets of Gobabeb's activities.
Underlying all of these changes is my own modified perception of life at Gobabeb. When I first arrived here I was living The Spiel. That is to say, I saw the activities that took place and the people that surrounded me through the lens that Gobabeb provides to the outside world (i.e. visitors, donors and the like). The Spiel flaunts Gobabeb's numerous achievements, focuses on what funders want to hear (Sustainable development! Long-term ecological research!) and reminds the audience that Gobabeb, a "joint venture" between the Government and an NGO, is a "Centre of Excellence". Gobabeb also hosts scientists(!), facilitates long-term research(!), trains Namibian/international primary/secondary/tertiary student groups(!) and supports the local Topnaar community(!!).
These statements are not necessarily false or unjustified but rather that, over the course of my five-month stay, I have come to recognize the finer details that compose the true picture of how things function at Gobabeb. Yes, we host scientists and do research, but we neglect to mention that we cannot provide complete weather data for the past 3 years because our automatic weather stations indicate that there is solar radiation at night and that it is 1,803 degrees Celsius outside (not even the desert is that hot). And yes, we teach a lot of students and visitors about the desert and related issues but Laura and I, with a grand total of 0 years of teaching experience between us, are the ones developing lesson plans, guiding projects, leading workshops and planning training sessions. Can the two of us possibly live up to "Centre of Excellence" standards? And finally, Gobabeb does indeed try to learn from the local Topnaar communities and give feedback to them about the research that is being done near themâ¦but what about when community members get sick of answering student questionnaires and when only two people show up for feedback sessions? This is the other side of the story that does not necessarily fit in the lines drawn by The Spiel, but it does portray the real tale of life in the world of non-government organizations.
Mines v. Tourism
Gobabeb is trying to compensate for the lack in core funding is by kick starting a number of activities, including a tourism concession in the local area. Tourism, one of Namibia's top economic sectors, proves to be a great way to pump foreign currency into developing countries and, consequently, is a hot topic in the realm of developers, politicians and conservationists alike. However, the environmentalist and Biology major in me tends to see these hot topics through an environmental lens. Yes, the potential development is an opportunity to generate some income for Gobabeb, but what is the cost to the local communities and the environment? My instincts and conservationist ideals focus on these points of contention. Tourism brings in people who have no long-term investment in the natural and social environment; they take long showers, stray off the marked path to get the "perfect picture" and leave the locals fighting over money and power. These are costs that are hard to define and even harder-if not impossible-to factor into a cost-benefit analysis.
However, the tune of my song changed quickly when I caught wind of the mining development plans in the national park that surrounds Gobabeb. After the discovery of superficial uranium deposits scattered throughout the gravel plains, Deep Yellow Uranium (as Laura loves to point out-could they have possibly chosen a more evil sounding name?!) is hoping to acquire the mining rights for the whole national park. Until now uranium mining in Namibia has been confined to deep mining pits, but Deep Yellow may have the means to transform the industry to a wide-scale and massively destructive operation that would extend almost into Gobabeb's back yard. The "Environmental Impact Statement" declares that the national park contains no stakeholders (between the Topnaar communities and Gobabeb, this is clearly not true) and, for all intents and purposes, describes the desert as a barren wasteland. With Deep Yellow in the picture, all of a sudden the pesky, succulent-treading tourist seems like a pretty good choice.
Indeed, the turn of events shed some light on my idealistic save-every-plant-and-animal perspective. Tourism may force some birds to relocate their nesting areas, but thanks to tourists who don't like to spend their luxury vacations next door to drill rigs, tourism translates what I define as the intrinsic value of nature into dollars and cents. This ultimately safeguards the environment and establishes a vocabulary and a framework that decision and policy makers can understand and work with. Yet again, the reality revealed through my experiences at Gobabeb continues to alter my outlook on my surroundings.
Research (and the Fight Against Mining, cont.)
As I considered the fellowship at Gobabeb, I found the prospect of gaining research experience and figuring out how real research works beyond the watchful eye of the Grinnell Biology Department to be extremely attractive. Until October I had mostly quenched my thirst for research by living vicariously through my students' research projects. This changed, however, when we heard the surprising and unwelcome news that copper prospectors had begun pumping underground water near a field of welwitschia plants. Welwitschias, which are really cool endemic plants that can live over 2000 years, are dependent on ground water and are thus vulnerable to impact from a dropping water table. As I am in no position to raise an uproar against the Government for issuing the water extraction permit or to stage a protest at the mining site, I wrote a proposal for a research permit to monitor the impact of the mining activities on the plants. The context of the research is neither prefabricated nor theoretically based-the drill rigs within sight of the study area were a constant reminder of the imminent threat posed to plants. In addition, the actual process of conducting the research brought up very real problems, such as finding enough hands to monitor the 132 plants, but also provided an opportunity to conjure up creative solutions, like giving the visiting students from Dartmouth a chance to partake in "applied learning" about the Welwitschias.
Funding (or lack thereof): an undeniable reality
I have already alluded to the impact of the "funding crisis" has on life at Gobabeb. Realism (as compared to my previous doctrine of spielism) repeatedly reminds me that no decision is removed from the influences of money. Afterall, the need for income is largely what drives Gobabeb's increased interest in tourism, large conferences and high paying workshops. These endeavors are imperative to keeping ourselves afloat and able to do all the wonderful things that have been done for over 40 years. On the other hand, we are a small staff with limited time, so reality dictates that energy spent on these endeavors has to be reallocated from other activities, like training lower paying Namibian student groups. Gobabeb's new activities are far from being the epitome of evil and we have by no means abandoned the Namibian students, but the secondary impacts of these decisions are quite clear.
Decisions influenced by money extend far beyond those made by Gobabeb itself. For instance, it is beyond our control that Gobabeb's tourism concession is at stake because the government is issuing mining licenses. Licenses mean money in the pocket and a potential source for future tax money.
These are far from earth shattering realizations, but seeing how the truism of the power of money plays out and feeling the sense of personal connection to the outcomes of such decisions is profound for me and forces me to see it all more clearly.
Where realism leave meâ¦
While my new perception of life at Gobabeb is far from my initial idealistic impressions, the picture that it paints is full and grounded in reality. I am aware that I am still far from understanding everything that effects Gobabeb, but the not-so-perfect picture, the cadence of highs and lows, and the expectation of the unexpected have morphed into a sense of normality. There are no quick fix solutions to the problems that present themselves and I am unable to answer the questions that this new reality invokes. Instead, I am free from the assumption that everything is perfect and am now in a position to consider and address these problems. I find myself not in a perfect world, but one with greater potential for accomplishments and satisfaction. Here I am, almost half way through the year, and I can see that my work continues to be cut out for me.
