State of Conservancy book 2005

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

Preface

Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) is a multi-faceted approach to conservation and rural development that has become an important strategy for the Namibian Government to meet its goals of sustainable development. Community-based approaches to natural resource management are being applied in the wildlife, water, forestry and inland fisheries sectors. The most important elements of CBNRM are a) in enabling local residents in communal areas to take management decisions themselves about the way they use their natural resources, b) in making it possible for residents to derive income and other benefits from the use of these resources and c) in providing communities the opportunity to manage their resources in an integrated way. Providing rights and tenure over resources promotes long-term thinking about how natural resources can continue to benefit people. Further, local people are more likely to engage in sound management if the benefits of managing resources exceed the costs.

In the wildlife sector, the Ministry of Environment & Tourism (MET) introduced legislation in 1996 that gave conditional use rights over wildlife to communities in communal areas that formed a management unit called a 'conservancy'. Since then many local communities have embraced this opportunity to manage their own wildlife and tourism activities, and communal area conservancies are now found in nearly all regions of the country. The conservancy approach has proven effective as a conservation strategy as can be seen by the increase in wildlife in many of our country's communal areas. It has also proven effective as a rural development strategy, generating income for local communities, bringing new jobs, and providing new skills and expertise. This publication provides information to demonstrate these positive results of CBNRM in the wildlife and tourism sector. It updates to 2005 data provided in the initial book on the progress and challenges of Namibia's communal area conservancies. That book provided information up to 2003, while a later pamphlet provided data for 2004.

This book also explores some of the problems and challenges facing conservancies. Looking ahead, we need to ensure that conservancies develop as democratic and accountable institutions that represent the interests of their members. We also need to promote greater integration of CBNRM across the different sectors. Some progress is being made in this regard between conservancies and community forests in certain areas.

The Ministry of Environment & Tourism would like to thank all its partners who have collaborated in developing and implementing the conservancy approach in Namibia. Non-government assistance is largely provided through the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organizations (NACSO), a collaboration of 12 local NGOs, the University of Namibia and individual associate members. Private sector tourism investors have become increasingly important partners over the last 10 years. In association with conservancies, they offer the bulk of jobs to conservancy members and facilitate significant returns of cash income to conservancies. A broad range of donors support the programme through the provision of technical expertise and funding. Since becoming a national programme, the main foreign contributors to CBNRM have been the founding donors of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and World Wide Fund for Nature (UK, International and USA). Successes from these early investments helped attract valuable funding from the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida); United Kingdom Department for International Development (DfID); Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA); European Union; Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ); United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); Global Environment Fund (GEF); World Bank; World Wide Fund for Nature (Netherlands), German Church Development Service (EED); Swiss Development Corporation; Humanistisch Instituut Voor Ontwikkkelingssamenwerking (HIVOS); Canada Fund; Comic Relief; UK Lottery Fund; British High Commission; Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD); Austrian Government and Royal Norwegian Embassy.

- Go to top -