During a drought, certain management practices will reduce the pressure on the natural grazing lands and on the most valuable livestock. In this phase, the aim is to aid the survival of plants and animals as far as possible. Crisis management will be discussed in the third part of this series.

The phase of acute crisis management is followed by a post-drought recovery phase for veld and livestock. The degree of recovery allowed the natural veld after a drought determines its future productivity. If veld is not allowed to recover sufficiently from the effects of drought, its condition and yield will decline quite significantly. It will be further weakened by the next drought which is sure to follow within a decade, eventually leading to irreversible veld deterioration. Similarly, livestock recovers after a drought by increasing in number, i.e. herd rebuilding, but this can only happen in synchronization with veld recovery.

The indigenous people of Namibia and its early commercial farmers knew that Namibia was a dry land and adjusted their farming practices accordingly. Livestock production at the beginning of this century was practised with long-term survival as leading motive. As Namibia became more developed and westernized, this long-term mindset was exchanged for the short-term aim of profit-making, at the expense of sustainability. It is ironic that our forefathers knew how to survive in this arid land while the modern generation, in their haste to reap a profit from the land and make "progress", increasingly fall prey to the age-old cycle of droughts in Namibia, degrade the natural range and endanger our survival.