Margaret Jacobsohn

Last updated
Margaret Jacobsohn
Born
NationalityNamibian
Occupation Environmentalist
PartnerGarth Owen-Smith
Parents
  • Cyril Jacobsohn (father)
  • Dorothy Jacobsohn (mother)
Relatives
  • Neil Jacobsohn
  • Brian Jacobsohn
  • Bianca Jacobsohn
  • Jade Jacobsohn
  • Triston Jacobsohn
  • Craig Jacobsohn
Awards

Margaret Jacobsohn is a Namibian environmentalist. She was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1993, jointly with Garth Owen-Smith, for their efforts on conservation of wildlife in rural Namibia.

Contents

Biography

She was born in Pretoria, South Africa. She became an NGO worker in community-based natural resource management, in Namibia. Since 1983, in the northeast of Namibia, with Garth Owen-Smith, they have been fighting against the endemic of illegal hunting, which has decimated species such as black rhinos and desert elephants, and for the economic and social development of local populations. Through their actions, poaching is better controlled. Game guards are designated by the rural community. Other natural resources, such as palm trees, thatch grass, plant dyes and water lilies, are monitored. [1] [2] She became interested in semi-nomadic Himba people, devoting a book published in 2003 to them, Himba, nomads of Namibia. They are one of the few African groups that use red ochre, as a full-body make-up called otjize. The Himba originally belonged to the group of the Herero.

She was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1993, jointly with Garth Owen-Smith, [3] and the Global 500 Roll of Honour in 1994. [4] In 1996, following their initiatives, the Namibian government has adopted what is known as the Communal Areas Conservation Act. This amendment allows rural communities living on state-owned land to manage and benefit from their own wildlife in the same way as farmers on private farms. [1]

Works

Awards

Margaret Jacobsohn was awarded “The Goldman Environmental Prize” in 1993 for their work to assist rural communities to link social and economic development to the conservation of the region’s spectacular. [7]

In 2015, the Prince William Award for Conservation in Africa was awarded to Garth Owen-Smith in recognition of his lifetime contribution alongside Dr. Margaret Jacobsohn to the restoration and conservation of wildlife in Namibia. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poaching</span> Illegal hunting of wildlife

Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights. Poaching was once performed by impoverished peasants for subsistence purposes and to supplement meager diets. It was set against the hunting privileges of nobility and territorial rulers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Himba people</span> Ethnic group of Namibia

The Himba are an indigenous people with an estimated population of about 50,000 people living in northern Namibia, in the Kunene Region and on the other side of the Kunene River in southern Angola. There are also a few groups left of the OvaTwa, who are also OvaHimba, but are hunter-gatherers. Culturally distinguishable from the Herero people, the OvaHimba are a semi-nomadic, pastoralist people and speak OtjiHimba, a variety of Herero, which belongs to the Bantu family within Niger–Congo. The OvaHimba are semi-nomadic as they have base homesteads where crops are cultivated, but may have to move within the year depending on rainfall and where there is access to water.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goldman Environmental Prize</span> Award

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Werikhe</span> Kenyan conservationist

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Hammerskjoeld Simwinga is a Zambian environmentalist. He received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2007 for his efforts to stop elephant poaching through community economic initiatives. He is named after former United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, who died in a plane crash in Zambia in 1961.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communal wildlife conservancies in Namibia</span>

Namibia is one of few countries in the world to specifically address habitat conservation and protection of natural resources in their constitution. Article 95 states, "The State shall actively promote and maintain the welfare of the people by adopting international policies aimed at the following: maintenance of ecosystems, essential ecological processes, and biological diversity of Namibia, and utilization of living natural resources on a sustainable basis for the benefit of all Namibians, both present and future.".

Mission Africa is a 12-part prime time television series produced by Diverse Bristol for BBC One and BBC Worldwide which follows fifteen trainees from the building trade, selected from hundreds of applicants across the UK, as they undertake various building and conservation projects. The 12 part series ran beginning of January 2007.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivory trade</span> Commercial, often illegal, trade of animal ivory

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Tusk Trust is a British non-profit organisation set up in 1990 to advance wildlife conservation across Africa. The charity funds the protection of African elephant, African rhinoceros and African lion, along with many other threatened species across Africa. Tusk’s mission is to amplify the impact of progressive conservation initiatives across Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elephant hunting in Kenya</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mudumu National Park</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Kahumbu</span> Wildlife conservationist

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References

  1. 1 2 Coetzee, J. M. (2011). African Pens 2011 : New Writing from Southern Afric. Jacana Media. p. 180. ISBN   9781431401208.
  2. "Margaret Jacobsohn & Garth Owen-Smith". Goldman Environmental Prize. Retrieved 3 June 2018.
  3. "Africa 1993. Margaret Jacobsohn & Garth Owen-Smith. Namibia. Sustainable Development". Goldman Environmental Prize. Archived from the original on 15 June 2011. Retrieved 5 January 2011.
  4. "Garth Owen-Smith and Margaret Jacobsohn". global500.org. Archived from the original on 20 May 2018. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
  5. "Garth Owen-Smith – an African conservation hero". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2023-04-21.
  6. Bateman, Peter. "2015 Garth Owen-Smith". Tusk Conservation Awards. Retrieved 2023-04-21.
  7. "Throwback Thursday: 1993 Prize Winners Margaret Jacobsohn and Garth Owen-Smith - Goldman Environmental Prize". 2014-01-30. Retrieved 2023-04-15.
  8. Bateman, Peter. "2015 Garth Owen-Smith". Tusk Conservation Awards. Retrieved 2023-04-21.