Hamoye

Hamoye State Forest lies in Namibia's Kavango East Region, in the north-east of the country (https://data.humdata.org/dataset/cod-ab-nam; https://conservationnamibia.com/articles/woodland-monitoring-2025.php). The World Database on Protected Areas lists it as Hamweyi State Forest, about 111 km2, managed by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism ^[1]. It is one of Namibia's three state forests, together with Kanovlei and Zambezi (https://www.protectedplanet.net/555766110; https://www.protectedplanet.net/555766109; https://www.protectedplanet.net/7442). The Hamoye Research Station of the National Forestry Research Centre is situated next to the state forest ^[2]. The state forest adjoins a community forest, and a tree-ring sampling site in it lies at an elevation of about 1,122 m ^[3]. Hamoye is one of four Namibian sites in a woodland monitoring network whose permanent plots were mostly established in 2023 ^[4]. Two older plots, set up in 2006 by the Namibia University of Science and Technology at the Hamoye forestry research station, were first fully remeasured from 2021 ^[2]. A 2023 national baseline study noted that the three state forests had not yet been formally declared ^[2].

Hamoye lies in the Kavango region, where plant species richness is the highest in Namibia, probably because of the variety of habitats there, including the wetlands near the Okavango River, and the incursion of tropical species from Angola down the river ^[1].

Hamoye is covered by Zambezian Baikiaea woodland, an open forest with canopy cover of 10 to 30 percent and an average canopy height of about 10 to 12 m in Namibia. ^[1] In the Kavango regions Burkea africana is the most dominant canopy tree, with Baikiaea plurijuga (Zambezi teak) and Pterocarpus angolensis (kiaat) co-dominant; sample plots there gave shares of total basal area of 22.9 percent for Burkea, 16.4 percent for Zambezi teak, 16.1 percent for kiaat, 11.7 percent for manketti (Schinziophyton rautanenii) and 11.4 percent for false mopane (Guibourtia coleosperma). Understorey trees include silver cluster-leaf (Terminalia sericea). ^[1] Tree-ring studies at Hamoye have sampled kiaat, silver cluster-leaf, Burkea africana, Zambezi teak and manketti. ^[2] Plant species richness is the highest in Namibia in the Kavango region. ^[1]

Hamoye lies in the Zambezian Baikiaea woodland zone, which in Namibia generally occupies deep, nutrient-poor Kalahari sand on fairly flat terrain at elevations of about 900 to 1,100 m above sea level. ^[1] In the Kavango regions, the soils of a regional study area outside the Okavango valley and the dry fossil river channels are aeolian sediments that form Arenosols, with low carbon, nitrogen and nutrient levels. The landscape has very gradual slopes, and its main topographic features are the Okavango valley and its dry fossil tributaries. ^[2]

At Hamoye annual rainfall is around 550 to 580 mm and the mean annual temperature is about 22 degrees Celsius. ^{[1] [2]} Rainfall is strongly seasonal, with a dry season of 5 to 7 months and less than 50 mm of rain, lasting from May to October. ^[1] Namibia's woodlands have a cold dry season from May to August, a hot dry season from September to December and a relatively wet season from January to April, with winter frost in many areas and summer temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius. Frost is serious enough that seedlings raised in the Hamoye nursery suffer high mortality from it. ^[3]

Hamoye lies in Kavango East, one of the two regions created in 2013 when a presidential proclamation, made on the report of the Fourth Delimitation Commission, divided the former Kavango Region into Kavango East and Kavango West ^[1]. The forestry research station next to the forest is a field station of the National Forestry Research Centre in Okahandja, as is the station next to Kanovlei State Forest ^[2]. Settlement in northern Namibia has expanded from the Okavango valley into the woodland, especially along roads and dry fossil rivers, as the population of the Kavango, Ohangwena and Zambezi regions grew from 386,900 to 557,700 between 1991 and 2011 ^[3].

Hamoye's research station has hosted long-term work on the Kavango woodlands. The Namibia University of Science and Technology set up two permanent sample plots there in 2006, one inside a fenced area and one outside, and began full remeasurements in 2021. ^[1] Hamoye is one of four sites in a 2023 woodland-monitoring network of 23 one-hectare plots. ^[2] The Directorate of Forestry that manages the forest was incorporated into the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism in 2020, and the 2023 national baseline study listed the state forests as not yet declared. ^[1]

Hamoye is mainly a forestry research and management area rather than a visitor destination. Its research station runs a tree nursery that raises seedlings, and the surrounding woodland of Burkea, kiaat and Zambezi teak is the subject of long-term monitoring plots. ^[1] The forest has also been a source of tree-ring samples used to study how fast kiaat and other woodland species grow in Namibia. ^[2]

Hamoye lies in the Kavango East Region of north-eastern Namibia (https://data.humdata.org/dataset/cod-ab-nam; https://conservationnamibia.com/articles/woodland-monitoring-2025.php). The Directorate of Forestry manages Namibia's state forest reserves, so it is the body to contact about access. ^[1]

Hamoye is managed as a protected state forest through regularly cleared fire breaks, faster firefighting and stricter policing of illegal harvesting, and no thinning, pruning or assisted regeneration is carried out. Mean tree basal area there is double that of a nearby community forest. ^[1] Timber is the main woodland resource that is illegally harvested in Namibia's forests, and roads are the main routes along which timber harvesting and deforestation spread. In north-eastern Namibia the fire season falls in August and September, when large amounts of dry biomass produce hotter and larger fires, and mid- to late dry season fires cause significantly higher stem mortality than early burning. Northern Namibia is projected to become warmer and drier, and fire frequency is expected to increase. ^[2] The 2023 baseline study warned that the state forests are not legally protected until they are proclaimed. ^[2]