In north-central Namibia, agroforests, in which trees grow together with crops in a field, have been established mainly composed of the tree species producing edible fruits, such as marula tree and dum palm. Through my fieldworks in a village of this area, I found the local residents have the custom to give the individual names to some trees. This study aims to clarify the multifaceted relationship between people and trees in north-central Namibia, and in particular to clarify people's perceptions of individual trees through giving name custom. The research question of this study is what is the meaning of individual tree names as biocultural knowledge?
Fieldworks have been conducted intermittently since 2002, the data in this presentation are mainly obtained from 2012-16. Based on the results of the interviews, 132 trees in the area were given individual names. The trees that were given names were dum palm (Hyphaene petersiana), marula (Sclerocarya birrea), bird plum (Berchemia discolor), and wild fig (Ficus sycomorus), all of which are tree species which fruits are used by local people. All individuals that were named were female plants that produced fruit. Many of individual names were associated with the taste of the fruit, while others were associated with the location feature where the tree grew, and the shape of the tree. Individual names varied by some factors such as experiences and values of each household owner. The diversity of individual names is proof of the multifaceted and deep involvement of people in recognizing individual trees. This biocultural knowledge of individual trees is considered to be an important factor of agroforestry establishment, which has been formed through the selective maintenance of specific tree by local residents.