This period of enforced pastoral intensification was accompanied by a strong anti-conservationist stand. To provide space and resources for a rapidly growing bovine population wildlife was eliminated. Poaching became rampant in the 1970s. South African military staff, administrators, and local people gained from this total onslaught on wildlife. This provoked international protest and the formation of a conservationist agenda for the region: an agenda which would then be formative from the 1990s onwards.

The second chapter deals with the emergence of pastoralism in the region. Three controversial versions of pastoralisation are discussed: pastoralisation brought about by immigrating specialised herder communities, pastoralisation as a consequence of slave raiding and political centralisation in southern Angola, and gradual pastoralisation within a forager context. The chapter offers an in-depth study of oral traditions which have much detail on this process. They depict communities that practise both foraging and pastoral strategies. The phase of gradual pastoralisation comes to an abrupt end when Nama commandos from the south raid north-west Namibia's pastoral communities and violently force them into exile in southern Angola. The engagement of refugees with Portuguese colonial forces as mercenaries and cheap labourers helped them to regain livestock and options as pastoralists.