State of Conservancy book 2005

Namibia's communal conservancies: a review of progress and challenges in 2005

Chapter 1: Introduction

Context and early beginnings

"In Namibia, the Communal Conservancy Programme is a model of the Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) approach which is working towards restoring the link between conservation and rural development, and achieving biodiversity conservation within the framework of the National Development Plans, Vision 2030 and Poverty Reduction Strategies." Honourable Minister Willem Konjore, February 2006.

Over the past decade Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) has become an important vehicle for addressing both environmental and development issues in Namibia's rural areas. The Namibian Government has taken the bold step of enabling local communities to take their own decisions about the management of such resources as wildlife, forests and water. Thus, local communities have established water point committees throughout the country to manage the provision and use of water at local levels, and there are now 13 legally established community forests where local residents have authority to manage forest resources. Forty-four conservancies are now registered where communities are able to manage wildlife and tourism sustainably to support local development. This book focuses on these conservancies and describes their progress in managing wildlife and other natural resources, in promoting good governance and democracy at a local level, and in generating a wide range of benefits for rural residents. Conservancies on communal land are areas in which rural communities gain rights to use, manage and benefit from the consumptive and non-consumptive use of wildlife within defined boundaries. By forming a conservancy, local communities are able to add sustainable use of wildlife and tourism development to their existing land uses and livelihood activities. Currently the 44 registered conservancies manage more than 10.5 million hectares of communal land. About 210,000 people live within the conservancies. Over a third (35%) of all communal land in Namibia now falls within registered conservancies, and a further 26 communities are at various stages of forming conservancies.

The conservancy programme in Namibia is implemented through partnerships between different levels of government, non governmental organisations (NGOs), the private sector and rural communities. The programme developed from pilot community-based conservation activities pioneered by individual government officials and NGOs in Kunene and Caprivi regions before independence.

Community-based natural resource management is based on the understanding that if resources have sufficient value to local people, and allow for exclusive rights of use, benefit and management, then this policy environment will create appropriate incentives for people to use resources sustainably. In 1996 the Namibian Government introduced legislation to implement such a policy approach for wildlife. One of the main lessons from the Namibian conservancy programme is that devolving authority over wildlife and tourism to local communities can work in practice. As a result, wildlife has increased and economic benefits to local people have grown. For example, total income from CBNRM increased from about N$600,000 in 1998 to over N$19.9 million in 2005 (Figure 1). Directly and indirectly, the Namibian economy earned close to N$140 million from CBNRM activities in 2005.

Figure 1. Incomes from the overall CBNRM programme grew from nothing in 1994 to almost N$20 million in 2005. The incomes are shown in two categories: incomes to conservancies and incomes to CBNRM activities outside conservancies.

As a result of these successes, and in order to increase the economic impacts of CBNRM for the poor, the MET is exploring ways to increase community rights and benefits by introducing new policies on concessions, parks and neighbours, and human/wildlife conflict as well as through revised wildlife legislation.

The CBNRM programme is firmly in line with the objectives of Namibia's Vision 2030, the Millennium Development Goals, Namibia's Rural Poverty Reduction Strategy and Plan as well as shorter-term objectives in the National Development Plans. Part of the success stems from the fact that jobs are created, income at both the household and community levels is generated, and people are encouraged and empowered to plan and manage their own development pathways. The programme also draws investment into underdeveloped and remote communal areas, creates a conducive environment for small and medium sized enterprises to flourish, and promotes environmental sustainability. In addition, CBNRM offers an ideal vehicle to support and facilitate programmes addressing social problems because of the effective networks and linkages through different partner organisations, including those at government, nongovernment, community-based, traditional, village and household levels. For example, the CBNRM programme is making full use of these networks to support and promote national initiatives addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

This book concentrates on conservancies established on communal land. This is communal state land where communities have rights of occupation. There are, in addition, many other conservancies established on freehold land (Figure 2) where farmers have had rights to benefit from wildlife since 1975. The main aim of freehold conservancies is to promote collaborative conservation and management of wildlife, and this differs from the focus on use and benefits in communal conservancies. Indeed, many freehold farms benefit directly from wildlife by harvesting game, trophy hunting and tourism without being affiliated to any conservancy.

Figure 2. Communal conservancies have added substantially to the network of conservation areas in Namibia. At the end of 2005, they covered 13% of Namibia. This area, together with 16.5% of Namibia's surface area within national parks and game reserves (inclusive of the shortly-to be proclaimed Sperrgebiet National Park) and a further 6% in freehold conservancies, brought the total land surface under conservation management to 35%.

The history of CBNRM in Namibia

Community-based wildlife conservation was pioneered in the mid-1980s as a locally driven response to dwindling wildlife numbers in north-western (now the Kunene region) Namibia. Wildlife numbers, including elephant and black rhino, were decreasing at an alarming rate because of drought and heavy poaching by local residents, outsiders, South African government officials and the South African Defence Force. Similar declines in wildlife were taking place in other communal areas, such as in Caprivi in the north east. Under the legislation of the time, the state owned wildlife on communal land and the state was the recipient of income earned from trophy hunting and tourism. Local people, by contrast, bore all the costs of living alongside wildlife, but were unable to reap any of its benefits.

The response to these conditions was initiated by traditional leaders in north-western Namibia during the early 1980s. Together with individuals in the pre-independence Directorate of Nature Conservation and local NGOs, they appointed part-time community game guards drawn from skilled and knowledgeable local men who monitored wildlife in their areas. The reduction in poaching as a result of their presence, increased conservation efforts by government, and greater rainfall all enabled wildlife numbers to recover. Efforts were then also made to show that wildlife-based tourism could generate income for local people, and to build support and broader community participation in the system. This was CBNRM in the making. By the early 1990s, the programme had expanded in the north-west and similar programmes had been introduced in Caprivi.

At that time, soon after independence, the then Ministry of Wildlife, Conservation & Tourism initiated a series of surveys in the communal areas of the north-west and the north east. The results showed that local people were unhappy with the attendant costs of living with wildlife, for example crop damage by elephants and livestock losses to predators. While they did not want to see wildlife disappear, they also hoped to have the same rights over wildlife that had previously been granted to white farmers.

As a result, the Ministry initiated the development of new policy and legislation to provide communal area residents with the same rights as freehold farmers. The officials were able to draw on experiences from the early community-based conservation initiatives that showed that local authority and control was critical for sustainable resource management. That conclusion was also based on the experience of freehold farms, since the rights to use wildlife given to freehold farmers had reversed a decline in wildlife on their land. Moreover, the incentives generated by legislation and the increase in wildlife had led to the development of a multi-million dollar wildlife industry. Regional experience, such as Zimbabwe's Communal Areas Programme for Indigenous Resources Management (CAMPFIRE), and new practice and theory regarding common property resource management also influenced the development of policy and legislation. In 1996 the Nature Conservation Amendment Act was passed, thus redressing the discrimination of the past and giving communal area residents the opportunity to acquire the same rights over wildlife as freehold farmers. The key mechanism to acquire these rights was the formation of a conservancy which would be a local level institution that could manage wildlife as a common property resource.

Over the past 16 years two factors helped considerably to develop CBNRM and communal area conservancies in Namibia. The first of these was assistance from the international community through donor support as financial aid and technical advice; the agencies are listed and acknowledged. This donor support, combined with material support from the MET, has had a cumulative value of several hundred million Namibian dollars. A great deal of technical assistance has also been provided by local NGOs through the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organizations (NACSO). This is a grouping of 12 local NGOs, the University of Namibia and individual associate members.

Figure 3. The area covered by registered communal conservancies has grown rapidly, as has the number of people that live in conservancies.

A second factor that has encouraged conservancy development has been the rapid growth in the tourism industry, which opened up many opportunities to establish new trophy hunting concessions, lodges and campsites. Income and development opportunities from tourism also provided communities with incentives to form conservancies since one aspect of the new government policy emphasized that local communities should have rights over major tourism activities. In accordance with this policy, the private sector has to negotiate contracts with conservancies to operate lodges or hunting concessions within the conservancy area. The incomes derived from these enterprises have enabled some conservancies to become financially self-supporting within a short period of time.

Opportunities provided by the new legislation were taken up quickly, and the programme has accelerated at an unanticipated rate. The first four conservancies were gazetted in 1998. That number rose to 29 conservancies by the end of 2003. By the end of 2005 there were 44 registered conservancies involving communities from the Kunene, Caprivi, Otjozondjupa, Erongo, Omusati, Karas, Hardap, Kavango and Oshikoto regions. The 44 conservancies vary greatly in character: some are in desert areas while others are in zones of much higher rainfall where woodlands and large river systems are features of the landscape. Some have abundant wildlife, scenic, rugged terrain, and high tourism potential, while others have only modest potential to benefit from wildlife and tourism. Their sizes vary enormously: Nyae Nyae and N?a-Jaqna in Otjozondjupa both cover over 9,000 square kilometres, nearly 100 times bigger than the mere 95 square kilometres of Oskop in Hardap, for example. In addition to differences in climate, human population and culture, biodiversity values and landscapes, conservancies are also heavily influenced by location and a range of sociopolitical and economic factors.

Conservancies are self-selecting social units or communities of people that choose to work together and to register conservancies. Registration is a process that requires communities to fulfil a series of requirements laid down in the ordinance and associated regulations. The main requirements are that conservancies must be legally constituted with clearly defined boundaries that are not in dispute with neighbouring communities. They must also have a defined membership and a committee representative of community members. Conservancies are also required to draw up a clear plan for the equitable distribution of conservancy benefits to members. Once these conditions have been met and approved by the Minister of Environment & Tourism, conservancies are registered and gazetted in the Government Gazette.

The list of conservancy members is an important requirement for registration because it demonstrates the intention and commitment of a significant number of people to form a conservancy, to endorse its goals and to abide by its rules. The definition of membership varies from one conservancy to another, however. Each head of a household is a member in some areas, while elsewhere members are those people who have chosen to be listed as such. Some conservancies have accepted every adult or even every person as members.

On behalf of the community it represents, a registered conservancy acquires new rights and responsibilities with regard to the consumptive and non-consumptive use and management of wildlife. Consumptive rights include conditional ownership to allow for game to be hunted as trophies, used for local consumption by conservancy members, cropped for commercial sale of meat, or captured and sold as live game. Non-consumptive rights over wildlife create opportunities for tourism, enabling conservancies to establish their own community-based tourism enterprises (CBTE) or to create joint venture agreements with private sector entrepreneurs.

CBNRM as a national development strategy

CBNRM is now firmly entrenched in Namibia's national development plans and poverty reduction strategies, and conservancies were made explicit rural development strategies in the National Development Plans (NDP1 & 2) as well as in Namibia's Vision 2030. In placing poverty reduction high on its development agenda, the Namibian government formulated the National Poverty Reduction Action Programme (NPRAP). Section 3 of the NPRAP deals with income generation and recommends two strategies to achieve this: (a) establishment of conservancies and (b) assistance to rural and disadvantaged communities to establish community-based tourism businesses and joint ventures. The target in the NPRAP of establishing 25 new conservancies by 2005 has been far exceeded, and a total of 77 tourism enterprises had been established within registered conservancies by the end of 2005. Vision 2030 sets a target of 65 conservancies being registered under current legislation, and there are now already 44 conservancies. The document also sets a target of N$795.7 million for the value of employment and income from tourism reaching communities by 2030. The total value of these benefits through all CBNRM activities in 2005 amounted to N$18,156,336.

Another significant decision by government is reflected in the recent Cabinet approval of recommendations, strategic options and an action plan on land reform in Namibia. These recommendations include commitments to a) develop an integrated policy and institutional framework b) revise sectoral policies on natural resources to devolve decision making and management authority to local level resource users and c) expand community-based natural resource management policies beyond wildlife and tourism to incorporate other key resources such as land, water and land-based economic activities.

It is important to recognise that conservancies and CBNRM programmes cannot solve all the problems of the rural poor and cannot lift everyone out of poverty. CBNRM has to be viewed as one of the strategies among many - including macro-economic growth and job creation in urban areas - that are aimed at poverty reduction. So far CBNRM has been successful at generating income at the community level but has been less successful at providing income for large numbers of households. This situation can improve, particularly in those conservancies with abundant wildlife resources and significant tourism attractions. However, conservancies with high human populations, low wildlife numbers and few tourism attractions will never be able to generate significant incomes for households. These conservancies can, however, deliver other important benefits for their members.

In the past poverty analysis defined poverty in terms of material deprivation measured by income or consumption levels, and levels of access to education and good health. However, more recently it has been recognised that there are other important aspects of poverty such as vulnerability to economic or environmental shocks, exposure to risk, voicelessness and powerlessness. As a result there is also a need to build up the assets of poor people, facilitate their empowerment and reduce their vulnerability to risks and shocks. Further, in semi-arid and arid areas such as Namibia, diversification of livelihood activities becomes an important way of reducing vulnerability to low and often erratic rainfall. This is recognised in several of Namibia's development strategies and programmes such as NDP2, Namibia's Drought Policy, and its Food Security Strategy, all of which recognise CBNRM as providing diversification opportunities for land uses and livelihoods.

The following are the main ways in which CBNRM is contributing to combating poverty in Namibia:

• Providing additional income and jobs for some residents in areas where job opportunities are few and cash is scarce
Increasing household and community security and safety nets (e.g. by maintaining healthy natural resources for use by residents, social funds, and cash dividends to members)
• Providing options to diversify land uses in semi-arid and arid areas that can act as a buffer against crop failure or livestock losses in times of low rainfall
• Diversify the livelihoods for some residents (e.g. part-time jobs in hunting, income from craft sales)
• Generating income for social welfare or such purposes as infrastructure development that the community may use at its discretion.
• Building skills and capacity for improved natural resource management; land use planning and zoning; financial management; community mobilisation and organisation; business management; tourism development; etc.
• Empowering marginalised rural people through devolved decision-making over natural resources, local control over income and improved advocacy.
• Promoting sustainable natural resource management (a healthy natural resource base is an important foundation for combating poverty because it provides the food and basic materials for daily life in most communal areas. Increased numbers of wildlife provide a resource that can be used in different ways, including the harvesting for meat).
• Strengthening or building local institutions for common property resource management and driving local development
• By providing people living on communal land that is formally owned by the State with greater rights and tenure over the land that they occupy.

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