The pastoral system forming the focus of this research is situated in the semi-arid communal areas of eastern Namibia, with particular emphasis on the Okakarara Constituency (Figure 1). According to the last national census (2023), the region has an area of 14,644 km², a population of ca. 31,000 individuals distributed across approximately 8,600 households, and a population density of 2.1 people per square kilometre. This makes it the most densely populated constituency in the eastern communal areas. ¹ Mostly, the population comprises Ovaherero pastoralists living in communities of 15–50 households with an average of 4.3 members each (Kakujaha-Matundu, 2003; Republic of Namibia, 2014). Primary income derives from selling livestock–mainly cattle, goats, and sheep–at town auctions. However, revenues are affected by fluctuating prices, livestock theft, and droughts (Hangara et al., 2011; Menestrey Schwieger, 2023). While livestock are typically slaughtered for own meat consumption only on special occasions, (e.g., funerals and weddings), cattle and, to a lesser extent, goat milk provide significant nutrition sources for several months annually (Kakujaha-Matundu, 2003). State transfers, such as old-age pensions, plus salaries and remittances from family members working in urban areas, are supplementary revenue sources. Horticulture (e.g., maize, beans, pumpkins) is limited because most gardens are irrigated by rainfall (Menestrey Schwieger, 2023). Average annual precipitation is 350mm, with volumes peaking between November and April (Mendelsohn and el Obeid, 2002). However, in recent decades, interannual rainfall variability has increased, leading to higher rainfall anomalies and more severe, widespread droughts that impact farming practices and ecosystem conditions (Turpie et al., 2010).

Historically, this region constituted part of the so-called “Native Reserve” in the Waterberg area (Köhler, 1959). The reserve was established by the South African colonial administration (1920–1990) in the 1920s to resettle survivors of the genocidal war against the Ovaherero communities (1904–1908) perpetrated by the former German colonial power (1885–1915) (Wagner, 1952; Werner, 1998). Subsequently, the reserve was incorporated into the larger Herero “homeland” in the 1960s as part of South Africa’s apartheid policies. These policies persisted until the country’s independence in 1990, when the homeland was declared communal land (Mendelsohn and el Obeid, 2002; Kakujaha-Matundu, 2003). Throughout the colonial period, this “reserve”, and later “homeland”, was designed to exert political and economic control over the Ovaherero through oppressive measures, including discriminatory taxation, exploitative labor recruitment, subjugation of leaders, and inadequate infrastructure development (Werner, 1993; Kössler, 2000). In addition, these areas were ecologically inferior to those allotted to white settlers, being deficient in phosphates and having few water sources (Werner, 1998).

Nowadays, ongoing challenges associated with multidimensional poverty, sectoral overpopulation, and rangeland overutilisation in the region are closely intertwined with the legacies of the aforementioned colonial interventions (Menestrey Schwieger and Mbidzo, 2020). Before these, the Ovaherero’s pastoral system resembled modern rotational grazing schemes, effectively preventing land degradation and supporting a thriving pastoral society (ibid.). Despite implementing various post-independence policies and programmes aimed at promoting rural development and ensuring sustainable rangeland management, progress in poverty reduction and land degradation has been limited (Kakujaha-Matundu, 2003). This is mainly because communal areas have largely preserved the structural layouts from the homeland era, especially regarding land use and availability. Problems include inadequate farming infrastructure like cattle posts with boreholes and emergency grazing zones, which encourage continuous grazing patterns (Kakujaha-Matundu, 2003). Moreover, fencing–particularly the construction of ‘camps’ to safeguard animals and secure land amid ongoing land competition–further affects access to grazing and reduces the overall communal grazing area (Stahl, 2009; Werner, 2015). In this post-colonial framework, communities face complex common-pool resource management problems in developing and implementing effective and sustainable rangeland management institutions at the settlement level (Menestrey Schwieger, 2022; Menestrey Schwieger et al., 2025).

Due to this combination of structural and local dynamics as well as climatic factors, the current landscape is characterised by high levels of encroaching woody plants, such as Senegalia mellifera, dominance of annual grass species with low grazing value, and large patches of bare ground (Strohbach, 2014; Brinkmann et al., 2023). Key, near-natural perennial grasses for grazing, such as Stipagrostis uniplumis and Eragrostis rigidor have virtually disappeared (Strohbach, 2014; Menestrey Schwieger et al., 2025). The situation is exacerbated by government regulations that have restricted removal of invasive woody plants from communal rangelands for almost 10 years (Brinkmann et al., 2023). Consequently, rangelands are shifting from primarily open savannahs to a patchwork of bush encroachment and barren areas (Tabares et al., 2020). Climate factors, including frequent droughts, have also contributed to these land degradation processes (ASSAR, 2018). Coupled with an anticipated 20% decrease in rainfall by 2050, these changes pose significant risks to livestock production and pastoral livelihoods on a large scale (Turpie et al., 2010).

The ten cases analysed in this study include six men and four women, aged between 52 and 89 (see Table 1). The six cases without livestock had been without animals for varying periods, with one having lost its animals as early as 1994 and the others as recently as 2019. Before that, they had owned farm animals for about 20–60 years, most of which they received as inheritance and/or by purchase. The two cases of participants who still had some animals at the time of interview had two goats and two sheep, and 15 head of cattle, respectively. The two who were actively rebuilding their herds started this process in 2022. Despite their different circumstances, all had suffered substantial livestock losses, with the most extreme case involving losses of around 280 cattle and 200 goats.

Due to their livestock losses, all households faced food shortages, notably in cow’s milk–a crucial part of the Ovaherero diet–and the number of daily meals. Instead of the usual three meals, often maize porridge with sour milk (omaere) or potatoes with store-bought sauce or canned meat, most participants managed only one, sometimes two, meals, usually plain porridge. During this challenging period, households couldn’t grow food through gardening because of inadequate rainfall and high water costs from commercial providers serving only a few local communities. While some participants received occasional food relief, all reported that the general food scarcity was very stressful and negatively affected their mental wellbeing.

All informants primarily relied on income sources that typically supplement livestock earnings in the region, such as government transfers and/or remittances (cf. Menestrey Schwieger, 2023). This included those who still had a few animals or were actively trying to rebuild their herds. These informants would only sell or use their animals when absolutely necessary to preserve their remaining stock or allow the herds to grow. Extremely urgent situations encompassed severe food shortages or funerals due to the latter’s socio-religious significance (Durham, 2002; Kgatla and Park, 2015). These events often involve the slaughter of at least one animal (especially cattle and/or sheep) to honor the deceased’s transition into the realm of the ancestors and provide food for mourners. Furthermore, especially in cases where key informants received no government subsidy, they relied exclusively on odd jobs (e.g., building houses, housekeeping) and food donations from neighbours and the government to make ends meet. In one case, a 57-year-old informant, Vetavi, who neither received government aid nor found employment, had to join his older brother’s household to survive after losing all his animals. He had previously been self-sufficient, farming independently for over 20 years.

As with this example, all family compositions recorded during the research were impacted by livestock loss. In some instances, individual family members, such as an adult son or daughter of the main informant, had to leave because of reduced livestock income to find work and support their families. In other cases, most of the family left for the same reason, leaving only a few individuals to manage the homestead. Notably, two interviewees did not get support from those who had left, mainly because they couldn’t find income in their new location. Additionally, they were ineligible for government subsidies, which worsened their socioeconomic situation compared to others. This was the case for 52-year-old Josephine. She lived alone in a small hut on her husband’s homestead, caring for three children–two of her own and one from her ill sister. After losing nearly all their livestock in the 2019 drought, her husband and his extended family moved to Windhoek, and he was unemployed, unable to send money. Josephine struggled to manage her two goats and two sheep while feeding her children, sometimes cleaning a retired teacher’s house for cash, or maize milling, but such opportunities were rare. She kept her last animals in case she could not find food or as a final resort to “pay for transport to town and struggle there”.

Conversely, two cases involved individuals who initially left due to livestock losses or were already living and working elsewhere but chose to return to help their families care for their animals and prevent further depletion–an effort that ultimately proved unsuccessful. Additionally, there was one case where an individual returned specifically to help rebuild the herd. These examples will be briefly illustrated in the following sections. Finally, one participant stood out as an example of those who had left their homes and extended families behind. With hopes of someday resuming farming, he and his wife relocated to Okakarara town to start a small business and earn a living after their livestock on the family homestead diminished. Otherwise, all informants still lived in their home areas, regardless of their livestock situation.

Participants lost livestock for multiple reasons, with droughts being the leading cause in all cases, except for one participant whose animals were lost mainly due to livestock theft and illness. In each instance, participants usually identified at least one other factor that worsened the effects of droughts, leading to the reduction of herds. These additional factors were linked to household constraints, such as insufficient financial and human resources to purchase supplemental feed and care for animals effectively. Other issues included inadequate decision-making, for example, failure to prioritise spending on animal care, and unforeseen circumstances like funeral associated expenses. Additional determinants mentioned were more contextual, relating to the social-ecological framework in which participants lived. These included livestock theft, ongoing degradation of rangelands, carnivore attacks (e.g., jackals, hyenas), inadequate drought support, lack of alternative grazing areas, and/or shrinking grazing lands due to population growth and fencing.

From a social TP perspective, these interactive processes resemble notions of ‘positive feedback loops’ and non-linearity (Milkoreit, 2023); that is, reinforcing mechanisms that promote a rapid change toward another undesirable state, which in our context would involve transitioning from having livestock to having no animals. To detail the complex interplay of these factors leading to livestock losses, I share the experiences of two individuals.

These examples illustrate how different households may face similar factors resulting in livestock loss. This is particularly evident in both cases as drought conditions intersected with challenges such as reduced access to grazing land, cattle theft, family issues, and financial constraints. Together, these factors lead to a rapid decline in livestock numbers. Like Nelson and Christine’s cases, other participants’ experiences with livestock loss were also unique in some ways, but shared notable similarities. One common aspect was the purchase of fodder to keep their animals alive. Except for the individual who lost animals to theft and illness, all took this step to protect their remaining herd. However, during dry seasons, animal prices usually decline in already weak markets that are difficult for pastoralists to access, meaning they need more animals to earn the same income. This often results in fewer animals and reduced capital, particularly as droughts persist amid rangeland degradation, limited grazing options, scarce cash access, and inadequate drought support measures for farmers, such as low subsidies for selling livestock and purchasing supplementary feed, which are not accessible to all farmers (Menestrey Schwieger, 2023). These processes, initiated and amplified by the drought, resemble the typical TP dynamic of ‘positive feedback loops’ previously mentioned (Figure 2, R1). Over time, as shown above, such developments can strain family relations and cooperation during critical periods, increasing households’ vulnerability to livestock loss.

Simultaneously, these dynamics are connected to other structural factors that, although not directly triggered by drought, limit pastoralists’ capacity to sustain their livestock during such periods. They often have no choice but to buy supplementary feed, which is usually insufficient during these times. These factors include reduced rangeland, population growth, fencing, and livestock theft, as pointed out by participants. Such issues are tied to the legacies of colonial land and resettlement policies, socio-economic marginalisation, and the shortcomings of post-independence governments in adequately addressing these challenges (Menestrey Schwieger and Mbidzo, 2020). Throughout history, these forces have amplified through their own self-reinforcing mechanisms (Figure 2, R2): initially, the concentration of pastoralists in this former reserve and homeland, with limited water infrastructure, resulted in sectoral overstocking. Subsequently, natural population growth, less land available for farming, and heightened competition for grazing land, along with structural poverty, prompted people to set up camps to safeguard their animals and ensure access to grazing (Kakujaha-Matundu, 2003). These actions increased grazing pressure, which harmed rangeland conditions and livestock productivity, leading to higher poverty levels. More herders were forced to seek wage labour elsewhere–a pattern that began during colonial times when young men were compelled to find work outside their homeland to pay colonial taxes (Werner, 1998). By extension, this caretaker shortage results in less active herding and less effective grazing management (Figure 2, R3) (Menestrey Schwieger and Mbidzo, 2020). It also leads to more camps being set up to prevent livestock theft, which in turn reduces grazing land and causes more deterioration (Stahl, 2009).

Consequently, it is reasonable to suggest that these ongoing, historically embedded structural dynamics have created increasingly difficult conditions for pastoralists, hindering their ability to overcome droughts while suffering significant livestock losses. Essentially, these factors have consistently reduced their ability to handle such climate challenges within the post-colonial, social-ecological context of their farming practices, thereby increasing the risk of rapidly losing all their animals. As these cases illustrate, one prolonged drought in this setting can trigger a chain reaction leading to complete loss of animals. Since participants have been breeding farm animals for decades, and family herds are often inherited across generations (Gordon, 2005), this process of losing livestock can happen relatively rapidly, thus also reflecting the idea of abruptness from a TP perspective (Milkoreit, 2023).

According to the TP logic, an essential feature of a TP process is “limited reversibility”, closely related to the timescale relevant to the individuals or communities involved (Milkoreit et al., 2018). In our case, this can be framed as the question of whether participants and families who have reached the state of being without livestock can resume livestock production or rebuild their herds within their lifetimes. If they cannot, they may have reached a social TP. While this question appears straightforward, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive answer since it is challenging to predict how the lives of the participants and their families will unfold in the coming years or decades, not to mention how the overall social-ecological context in which they live will progress alongside political and global dynamics. One way to get insight, however, is to illustrate the personal challenges, hopes, and expectations of participants regarding the possibility of returning to livestock farming or restoring their herds to their original sizes. This approach will highlight their viewpoints on what they view as irreversible and thus elucidate the subjective significance of a TP within their lived experiences.

By extension, it remains uncertain whether those restarting their herds will recover the same number and variety of animals, especially given ongoing rangeland degradation and climate uncertainties. In this regard, further research will be needed to explore how the regional social-ecological system will evolve and whether participants’ efforts to reverse social TP of livestock loss can be effective. For now, it seems that some key characteristics of the system, particularly cattle farming, might shift toward small stock farming as a way to adapt to ongoing and future environmental changes. Similar transformations have already been observed in other pastoral systems, such as among the Pokot in Kenya, for comparable reasons (Bollig and Österle, 2013). If this is the case, we could argue that the system might be shifting toward a different stable state, implying the crossing of an interim tipping point (Walker and Meyers, 2004).

Regardless of this, the cases examined indicate that without intervention–such as addressing structural reinforcing mechanisms and providing financial support to vulnerable pastoralists–people will keep struggling to prevent and reverse social TPs related to livestock loss at the household level. Given the negative impacts of anthropogenic climate change on the rangeland ecosystem and livestock farming in the near future (ASSAR, 2018), it is imperative to implement these interventions promptly. Such urgency is crucial to avert a large-scale social TP, as household-level TPs may indicate that the pastoral system is collapsing.

A key finding of this study is that droughts significantly contribute to livestock losses in the post-colonial context in which pastoralists operate, leaving them with limited mitigation options. Aside from buying supplementary feed, other strategies, such as moving livestock to protected grazing areas, are not feasible due to limited land and infrastructure, notably water supply. In this context, financial incentives and support for livestock owners to de-stock in the face of an imminent drought should be enhanced. Providing subsidies for supplementary feed as lower purchase prices rather than refunds after purchase would be more effective for farmers. Addressing these issues would give pastoralists more options for managing droughts effectively.

Moreover, Namibia’s post-independence government has implemented land reform initiatives aimed at expanding communal areas by acquiring neighbouring freehold lands, thus providing access to grazing and relieving pressure on the former ‘homelands’. However, this reform process has been very slow and needs to be sped up to effectively ease pressure on the former ‘homelands’ rangelands (Nghitevelekwa, 2020). These efforts, which are already championed by various Ovaherero leadership organisations (e.g., Ovaherero Traditional Authority) should be accompanied by programmes to support and implement feasible and sustainable rangeland restoration projects that align with current socio-economic conditions and capabilities. Recent ideas involve addressing rangeland degradation through a participatory split grazing approach at the settlement level, which includes grass reseeding and bush-thinning measures, the latter of which have been restricted for several years (Menestrey Schwieger, 2025). However, implementing a pilot project of this kind is very challenging if government and development agencies are not involved and supportive.

Eventually, initiatives like the nationwide basic income grant–widely discussed in Namibia recently and proven effective in reducing poverty, child malnutrition, and stimulating small-scale local economic activity (Haarmann et al., 2019) – as well as efforts to build a supportive socioeconomic environment and infrastructure for horticulture, would offer practical assistance to pastoralists in securing their livelihoods and living with dignity. For these purposes, only political will is needed.

Finally, a few remarks on the usefulness of the social TP concept to analyse the observed processes in this research. Most likely, this study could have been carried out without relying on the concept of social TP to describe and analyse the observed processes. To underline that people are losing their main livelihood source and to stress the difficulties they face in maintaining or restoring a pastoral lifestyle, the social TP concept might not be essential. Nonetheless, like other scientific concepts, such as resilience and vulnerability, it provides a different perspective for examining societal dynamics and helps focus on particular aspects and processes (Grove, 2018). For instance, by applying the notion of ‘positive feedback loops’ to how and why pastoralists lost their livestock, it helped identify and better understand the sequence and connections of events and factors that caused such a critical transition in pastoralists’ livelihoods. This was especially evident regarding historical and structural factors that weaken pastoralists’ capacity to handle and recover from droughts, as well as the limited effectiveness of buying supplementary feed during these times within the existing social-ecological context. Once these loops are distinctly identified, they can then be halted, allowing for the development of more precise measures and changes to assist pastoralists.

Similarly, the discussion of non-linearity and abruptness is also relevant here. In the context of climate change, some critics argue that the TP concept is unsuitable since climate change involves cumulative harm. They believe that focusing on the immediacy and abruptness associated with the TP can mislead the public’s understanding of climate science. However, its usage can also prompt decision-makers to recognise the potential for rapid and serious changes in the climate system, an aspect that should be considered in responsible and accountable policymaking (Crucifix and Annan, 2019). In our context, however, this logic may have a more nuanced application. As shown, the social TP of losing livestock is influenced by socio-historical and environmental factors, which have reduced the resilience of pastoralists and their ability to overcome social and ecological challenges. While it may be debatable whether these contextual factors involve non-linearity and sudden changes, it is clear that they can lead to rapid and often irreversible livestock losses for pastoralists after a single drought. From this perspective, if these shifting livelihood conditions do not exemplify a social TP, it hard to imagine what would. Furthermore, if recognising such processes as TP helps mobilise decision-makers to act and prevent these transitions, why not conceptualise them as such? Consequently, the TP concept applied to examine livestock loss cases at the household level, as in this study, can be valuable in many ways. However, if the concept is helpful for analyzing other social phenomena, it must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Ultimately, a quantitative study to determine whether, and why, more and more households in the region have recently lost livestock could provide valuable insight into whether the entire pastoral system is heading towards a large-scale social TP. Such a study could also help to validate and expand on the factors causing this, as identified here. However, such an endeavour may involve overcoming problems of data availability and accessibility. Similarly, quantitative research establishing whether pastoralists are shifting from cattle farming to goat farming and focusing more on horticulture to sustain their livelihoods may indicate that important parts of the pastoral system are changing in response to ongoing social and ecological challenges. The case studies presented here suggest that these trends may already be happening and could serve as early warning signs of the broader system reaching a TP. Alternatively, they could also demonstrate the ingenuity of pastoralists in reorganising and adapting to the new conditions brought about by the Anthropocene–a resilience-building process also seen in other groups, which should be supported (Semplici et al., 2024).