Trophy hunting for conservation and development in Namibia?

[Lisbeth]

BY STASJA KOOT - 12 FEBRUARY 2019 - STASIA KOOT

Recent years have shown an increase in the, often heated, debate on trophy hunting, with some important developments taking place in southern Africa. To name just some that have accelerated the debate: In 2012, pictures of King Juan Carlos of Spain emerged in which he posed in front of his trophies, an elephant and two African buffaloes. As a result of the public outcry that followed, the King was dismissed as the honorary president of WWF Spain, which is ironic when realising that various WWF offices in southern Africa support trophy hunting in the name of conservation and development. Other important developments have been a ban on trophy hunting in Botswana in 2013, a very controversial hunt of a black rhino in Namibia for US$350,000 in 2015 and the infamous illegal hunt of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe in 2015. Royal connections of this hobby for the wealthy have a long history and continue today. The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, for example, currently speaks out against the trophy hunting ban in Botswana.

Proponents of trophy hunting argue that it is good for conservation and for the development of marginalised people. In Namibia, a flagship country for so-called ‘community-based natural resource management’ (CBNRM), trophy hunting plays a crucial role in this programme; in CBNRM, local groups are targeted to contribute to conservation and to live together with the wildlife. In return, they receive economic and material benefits, such as jobs in tourism and conservation and the meat from the hunts. Moreover, to keep CBNRM financially healthy, a requirement is a continuous stream of income, and trophy hunting provides for such large revenues because the amounts that hunters pay can be enormous; in the Namibian Nyae Nyae Conservancy, one of the cases described in a recent paper of mine (Koot 2019), the price for a 14-day hunt of one elephant costs US$ 80,000,-.

So in Namibia, as in many other countries, conservationists, hunting operators and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) all argue that the hunting industry is very important not only for the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but especially for the development of marginalised rural populations. However, according to Economists at Large (2013) only 0,27% of the Namibian GDP is constituted by trophy hunting, and most of the revenues go to hunting operators, airlines, governments and tourism facilities. So how serious should we take the argument that ‘economic benefits’ are being created in Namibia for poor rural populations? This argument is problematic for various reasons; it masks differences within communities that are presented as if they are static, homogeneous entities and it masks power relations between segments of these communities and outsiders (such as NGOs, hunting operators, donors and government officials). I do not deny that economic benefits at times exist, but by focusing only on these as the success of trophy hunting, other dynamics are covered up, especially those in the social and human domain. Moreover, such a neoliberal discourse accounts for the idea that the local people do not yet understand how to do ‘proper’ conservation (MacDonald 2005), and therefore need to be taught how things work, strongly resembling colonial structures and power relations, based on paternalistic ideas about moral edification.


Elephant skull in Bwabwata National Park OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

San realities

An interesting group in this regard is the San (or Bushmen) in Namibia. As ‘former’ hunter-gatherers some San groups are today involved in CBNRM initiatives in which trophy hunting plays a crucial role. Take, for example, the Khwe San who live in Bwabwata National Park. When some Khwe tried to establish relationships with impatient, wealthy, white hunting operators, this was considered ‘bribery’ by a local NGO working on CBNRM and the MET, because officially contact with hunters is not allowed when the selection process for a tender is not yet finished. However, on the ground such negotiations often take place already informally. In another example, the Ju/’hoansi San of the Nyae Nyae Conservancy showed how the group that worked with one particular hunting operator felt stressed, suppressed and humiliated by the operator, all for a very low salary. When I asked them why they would not simply leave the job, the answer was that there are only few job opportunities in the Nyae Nyae Conservancy. Indeed, partly due to the CBNRM programme their possibilities to create other types of livelihoods (e.g. through agriculture), are very limited, and the distribution of meat has always been a problem because of the wide dispersal of the settlements in Nyae Nyae. According to the Ju/’hoansi labourers, WWF played a crucial role in choosing this particular hunting operator because he would pay the highest bid for the tender (and thus create the largest income for the CBNRM programme). This does not necessarily mean that jobs always have a bad meaning for people, since in another example with a subcontractor in Nyae Nyae people enjoy their jobs and even receive some extra benefits. Then again, the question remains if hunting operators are indeed the right people to be involved in development; a hunter in Bwabwata recently explained that the ‘lazy’ Khwe employees are mostly a hindrance to his business and he has no interest in community development.


Dried elephant meat in the Nyae Nyae Conservancy OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Altogether, jobs can be received for good or ill, but to look at jobs and simply call them ‘benefits’ is not enough; it masks structural issues beyond and within labour relations and potential exploitation. Therefore, I argue for an expansion of the trophy hunting debate beyond economic ‘benefits’ (Koot 2019), for example by using environmental psychologist James Gibson’s (1979) theoretical framework of ‘social affordances’, in which the interactions between organisms create meaning (instead of pre-decided ‘benefits’). By doing so, local perceptions, meanings, multiple experiences and power relations are addressed, and the larger human domain is taken into account (of which the ‘economy’ is only a part). In fact, reducing ‘development’ only to ‘economic benefits’ creates a simplistic image of a much more complex reality. But this is not something that is only done in trophy hunting and it is of much larger importance in environmental issues globally; trophy hunting is a good example of what Robert Fletcher (2010) calls ‘neoliberal environmentality’, which entails a situation in which the environment is shaped based on economic incentives with the aim of economic growth (based on market mechanisms) only.

The role of science

What is worrying, is that a large stream of scientific papers that address CBNRM and trophy hunting in Namibia as a golden bullet, are written by practitioners from a variety of organisations whose work is to promote exactly this model (see, for example, Angula et al 2018; Naidoo et al 2016)! The papers originate from organisations such as WWF Namibia, WWF US, and the Nambian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations (NACSO). Interestingly, they do not provide any information about the researchers’ position in relation to their respondents and, not surprisingly, the findings were overall favouring trophy hunting and CBNRM more generally, showing mostly how ‘successful’ the programme is (cf. Büscher 2014). The potential conflict of interest is, of course, important to be addressed in such cases and it is therefore necessary that researchers, including those originating in more ‘positivist’ traditions, explain their researcher position and reflect upon this when relevant. Moreover, the ‘success’ is all too easily taken over by the conservation movement and the private sector or parties representing their interest, such as the Namibian Chamber of the Environment (see, e.g. Brown 2017) and, especially, the Namibian Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA). The latter represents the interests of the trophy hunting industry, and has now fully embraced such scientific papers. For example, in their Position Paper NAPHA bluntly states:

“I shall leave it to an internationally respected conservation organisation, the WWF, to point out the benefits that trophy hunting brings to Communal Conservancies in Namibia through a study undertaken by them between 1998 and 2013. The title of this study is “Complimentary [sic] benefits of tourism and hunting to communal conservancies in Namibia”. It must be stressed that this study piece, unlike many of the pseudo – studies available on the internet, has been peer reviewed and independently verified.” (NAPHA 2016)

The paper that is being referred to by NAPHA has been written by WWF practitioners (Naidoo et. al. 2016) and addresses only economic benefits. It remains to be seen what research is meant with “the pseudo – studies available on the internet”, but the way in which NAPHA positions itself and uses ‘science’ to promote their own activities shows only a small part of the global trophy hunting lobby. Moreover, it shows that national and international power relations these days matter more than ever, and this includes scientific research that has the potential to feed neoliberal environmentality. I hope that the Duke of Cambridge is aware of the important realities on the ground that local communities experience and that he keeps this in mind when he negotiates to reinstate trophy hunting in Botswana. My gut feeling though, tells me he is just another puppet in a much bigger game.

Read original article: https://stasjakoot.com/2019/02/12/troph ... aa-ixRHdsk

[Lisbeth]

Opinion: How hunting black rhino contributes to conservation in Namibia

Posted on October 10, 2019 by Gail Potgieter in the OPINION EDITORIAL post series.


Black rhino in Namibia © Gail Potgieter

OPINION POST by Dr Chris Brown and Gail C. Potgieter, on behalf of the Namibian Chamber of Environment’s 64 member conservation organisations

Conservation organisations in Namibia support the recent decision by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to grant an import permit for a black rhino trophy from our country. Responses to this decision from some US organisations and the public, however, reveal that there is still strong opposition to hunting. We believe that this opposition stems from a lack of knowledge and understanding of how hunting fits into the Namibian conservation model. Please allow us to explain.

Against the backdrop of a global extinction crisis and booming illegal wildlife trade that fuels poaching throughout Africa, Namibia is an exceptional conservation success story. We are amongst a handful of countries in the world that have enabled wild animals like rhinos to increase in their natural habitat. After nearly losing all our precious free-ranging black rhinos during the dark apartheid era, we are proud of the fact that today, Namibia hosts close to 2,000 black rhinos. These account for 33% of the entire black rhino species and 85% of the south-western subspecies.

By global standards Namibia is not a wealthy country. Many Namibians struggle to meet their daily needs in the harsh desert environment, a situation that may worsen with climate change. Our government is faced with numerous competing socio-economic demands for its scarce resources – education, health and drought relief, to name a few. Dedicating funds to protect black rhinos from poachers while simultaneously meeting manifold development challenges is tough, to say the least.

The Namibian solution to this daunting task is to use the full value of our rhinos and other wildlife to fund conservation and sustainable development. In a welcome departure from the exclusionary policies of the past, our post-apartheid independent government has included local people as key partners and beneficiaries of wildlife conservation.

The direct benefits from wildlife include income and increased food security from photographic and hunting tourism, which operate within the same areas in Namibia without negatively affecting each other. A recent study in Namibian communal areas found that while the two industries are complementary, photographic tourism could not fully replace hunting if the latter were banned. These tourism sectors together generate significant income from Namibia’s wildlife, which funds conservation.

Notwithstanding the significant heritage and ecological value of black rhinos, they cannot be effectively protected from poachers without substantial funds. The US$400,000 paid to Game Products Trust Fund (GPTF) for the recent black rhino hunt provided a welcome boost to Namibian conservation. The GPTF links income from government wildlife sales and trophy fees directly to on-the-ground conservation.

Between 2012-2018, GPTF spent over US$7.5 million on conservation projects; 61% of this expenditure (about US$4.6 million) was dedicated to anti-poaching and rhino population management (Figure 1). US$2.3 million of this budget provides direct support for anti-poaching teams.


Figure 1. The Game Products Trust Fund (GPTF) expenses

The remaining funds are used for anti-poaching vehicles (including helicopters and boats), managing and monitoring rhino populations, and rewarding informants who provide tip-offs leading to poacher arrests (Figure 2).


Figure 2. The Game Products Trust Fund (GPTF) rhino-related expenses

Namibia’s substantial rhino populations have unfortunately attracted organised poaching syndicates. To counteract increased poaching in 2014 and 2015, the government and their partners mobilised funding from GPTF and other sources to strengthen and coordinate their anti-poaching efforts. Consequently, black rhino poaching declined by 33% during the last three years. Etosha National Park, which hosts the largest rhino population in the country, reported fewer than 30 incidents in 2018, down from a high of 80 in 2015. Even more impressive, communal conservancies that host free-ranging black rhinos have recorded zero poaching incidents during the last two years!

Besides the economic benefit of this hunt, removing old bulls from the population also increases the rhino population growth rate. Particularly in small black rhino populations, older bulls can become a problem. They prevent young bulls from breeding and may even kill them in territorial fights. The females in their territories are likely to be their daughters, so keeping these old bulls in the population may jeopardise its genetic integrity. Black rhinos are managed by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, which oversees a highly successful black rhino custodianship programme on freehold and communal land. Removing older bulls from these smaller populations is thus part of their broader black rhino population management plan.

Considering the successful Namibian conservation model and our collective colossal efforts to reduce poaching, the recent public comments suggesting that money from the black rhino hunt would be misappropriated are especially offensive. The “animals first” message promoted by animal rights and welfare organisations has alienated rural communities throughout Africa as it disregards their rights and ignores their needs. For wildlife, the result is widespread habitat loss and animal extermination. While certain ideologues want to pressure Namibia into accepting this lose-lose scenario, we would rather support the proven, home-grown strategy that reaps rewards for people and wildlife. We invite you to visit Namibia and see our success for yourselves.


About Gail Potgieter
Gail Potgieter is a carnivore conservationist who has worked in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana on human-carnivore conflict, community conservation and wildlife monitoring. Her published scientific work includes journal articles, chapters in scientific books and technical reports. She recently established an independent company in Namibia that offers communication and conservation services for environmental non-governmental organisations. In particular, she is interested in promoting clear public communication of science and conservation efforts in southern Africa.

[Lisbeth]

False sympathy will not help Namibia’s people or our elephants – it is anti-conservation


Elephants on their way to a watering hole near the Namutoni camp in Namibia's Etosha National Park in August 2003. (Photo: Media 24/Gallo Images)

By Namibian Conservation Groups | 13 Jan 2022

Animal rights groups are deliberately targeting Namibia’s community-based conservation model because it derives part of its income from trophy hunting. This is despite the model being hailed internationally as one of Africa and the world’s major conservation success stories.
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Animal rights organisations seem to be strangely fixated on Namibia’s community conservation model. The reason is obvious: Namibia includes hunting as part of its broader wildlife economy and has made greater efforts to include rural communities in conservation than most other countries in the world. Recently rated second in the world (Botswana was first) for conserving “mega fauna” (large mammals) in a peer-reviewed scientific paper, Namibia’s strategy that includes the sustainable use of wildlife is clearly working, much to the annoyance of animal rights organisations.

It therefore came as no surprise when a coterie of such organisations – Animal Survival International, the Animal Welfare Institute, the Born Free Foundation, Fondation Franz Weber, Future for Elephants, Humane Society International and Pro Wildlife – funded a report on Namibian conservation, despite none of these organisations funding any real conservation work in the country.

Since animal rights positions are effectively countered by the success of human rights-based conservation, they specifically targeted the Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme.

CBNRM was established in southern Africa during the 1980s and 1990s when several newly independent countries were looking for more inclusive conservation models than those practised by the colonial regimes. In Namibia, one of the major issues identified by rural communities was the discrepancy between wildlife ownership on freehold land (then held exclusively by white farmers) compared with communal land.

While freehold farmers were granted rights to use wildlife occurring on their land a few decades before independence (leading to impressive wildlife recoveries on these lands), people on communal lands were still locked out of the wildlife economy. With no incentive to conserve wildlife that was perceived as belonging to the government and white people only, poaching was rife and human-wildlife conflict went unchecked, which made some communities openly hostile towards conservation officials.

That all changed with an amendment to legislation in 1996, which allowed self-identified communities to apply for their lands to be gazetted as communal conservancies that they would manage following their own constitutions. This opened the door for people on communal lands to obtain similar rights to wildlife as freehold farmers, which soon resulted in wildlife populations increasing on land where it was formerly pushed to the brink of local extinction.


National wildlife trends in Namibia from an early rough estimate in the 1700s to today (more accurate data obtained since the mid-1900s). The turning point in the late 1960s came with changes to government policy allowing wildlife ownership on freehold land. (Source: Dr Chris Brown)

In practice, operating a communal conservancy is a complicated task, as these groups of people choose to work together to conserve their resources for the common benefit. Further, the wildlife species that live on these lands are notoriously difficult to live with – elephant, lion, crocodile and hippopotamus occasionally take human lives, while these and other species (such as spotted hyena, leopard, cheetah and African wild dog) frequently threaten livelihoods by destroying crops and killing livestock.

Communal conservancies are unfenced, which on the one hand makes them particularly useful as wildlife corridors but on the other introduces the difficulty of keeping unwanted visitors or illegal settlers out. Finally, these community institutions are nested within a larger socioeconomic and ecological landscape that inevitably affects their operations and the lives of their members.

Journalists Adam Cruise and Izzy Sasada use the complexity of CBNRM and broader societal issues that have little or nothing to do with CBNRM to create a thin veil of feigned concern for people and wildlife that does little to conceal their main objective – to attack trophy hunting.

Cruise is on record comparing the sustainable use of wildlife for the benefit of people to parasitism, where humans are the “parasite” and nature is the “victim”. Their report, reported on by Daily Maverick on 14 December 2021, would never pass any form of peer review due to its almost information-free methods section. Besides that, there are obvious conflicts of interest relating to funding and the lead author has previously expressed extreme bias against the object of investigation – African communities using their natural resources for their benefit.


Cash flow in conservancies in 2019 with income from tourism and hunting (left). Cash flow in the same conservancies without income from hunting (right). The removal of hunting income would push most conservancies in the northeast into the red, particularly in the Zambezi Region. Conservancies for which there was either no income or no data for that year are not shown. (Source: MEFT and NACSO (2021) The State of Community Conservation in Namibia (2019 Annual Report)).

Regarding the methodology, nothing is said of the total interview sample size, how interviewees were selected or what kind of questions they were asked. There is no mention of obtaining free, prior and informed consent from interviewees, or of any ethical clearance or research permits received prior to this fieldwork.

Omissions of this nature are not permitted in scientific literature, because they are easily used to hide interviewer bias and unethical procedures. By publishing this report without any of the relevant information described above, the interviewers effectively sidestepped all ethical requirements or the need for scientific rigour. In order to work in Namibia, foreigners must apply for permits from the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration, while research permits must be obtained from the National Commission on Research, Science and Technology. Conducting fieldwork and social research without such permits is illegal in Namibia.

Meanwhile, the “on-site assessment” of issues relating to elephants appears to have been based on drive-by observations lasting a few weeks in each of the regions they investigated. These random observations are then used throughout the report to cast doubt on data collected through well-established scientific methods (such as aerial surveys), extensive government consultations regarding human-elephant conflict, and long-term data collected by the conservancies.

Elephant sightings from the ground, gathered without systematic methodology, inevitably underestimate elephant population numbers, which is why aerial surveys (and counts of individually identifiable elephants, where possible) are used to generate more accurate estimates in Namibia and elsewhere in Africa.

Yet Cruise emphasises casual drive-by observations or elephant sightings recorded by the conservancies from ground-based counts, thus implying that these are more accurate than systematically collected data.


Elephant population trend in Namibia based on data collected using systematic, scientific methods. (Source: MEFT (2020) Draft Elephant Management Plan)

Cruise and Sasada’s initial description of the economic benefits of trophy hunting is a telling glimpse of the bias that runs throughout the report. Comparing the contribution to the GDP from a niche sub-sector of tourism that requires free-roaming large mammals (hunting) with that of tourism in general is disingenuous. The entire tourism industry includes hotels, beach resorts, scenic tours, etc that do not require any wildlife to be present; most of this tourism revenue accrues to urban areas. Dividing hunting income by land surface area is even more bizarre, especially for a huge desert country such as Namibia – hunting income is not used to cover every hectare of the country in money.

More relevant statistics that focus on the relative contributions of these two industries to communal conservancies reveal that hunting (which includes trophy and meat hunting) contributed 30% of the total revenues generated by communal conservancies, while tourism contributed 66% in 2019. Additionally, many conservancies rely solely on revenue generated through hunting for their income.


Income from all forms of consumptive wildlife use (includes the value of meat distributed and fees from trophy hunters) and joint-venture tourism (includes employment of conservancy members). The impact of Covid-19 was greater on tourism in 2020 than it was on hunting. (Source: MEFT and NACSO (in press). The State of Community Conservation in Namibia (2020 Annual Report))

The authors’ other biases are visible in their treatment of conservancies located in three different regions of the country – Kunene, Otjozondjupa and Zambezi. In the Kunene Region, which has suffered a severe, prolonged drought in recent years, the focus is on wildlife declines. Drought is the ultimate cause behind both the wildlife declines and the increased poverty they reported among Himba people (who lost most of their livestock due to drought), yet it is barely mentioned.

Cruise, the journalist who tackled the “elephant ecology” part of the report, fails to explain that wildlife migrate extensively and/or die off during times of drought, only to return and reproduce quickly when conditions are favourable. His random observations at the end of a long drought period are therefore not an accurate portrayal of wildlife trends since the start of CBNRM (these trends are publicly available here).

He also appears to be unaware that these arid areas are at the extreme margin of elephant range (even without conflict with people), making this sub-population particularly vulnerable to drought. This situation further exacerbates conflict with farmers, which led to the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) taking steps to reduce elephant numbers in the eastern parts of the Kunene Region through a live elephant auction.


The state of vegetation in the Kunene Region in May 2021 at the time of Cruise and Sasada’s visit (darker red = further below-average vegetation growth; darker green = further above-average growth; yellow is close to average). While some parts of the region received better rainfall at the start of this season, the 10-year drought continues unabated in many areas. (Source: namibianrangelands.com)

In eastern Otjozondjupa, where elephant populations are healthy and increasing, Cruise and Sasada shift the focus from wildlife management to marginalised rural communities. Similar to other journalists who have dropped in to interview these communities with false sympathy for their plight, they present the many socioeconomic challenges faced by San people today, most of which have little or nothing to do with CBNRM. Everything from alcoholism to the price of food at local shops is described in detail, while even conservancies are cast as some form of oppression.

The uninformed reader might be led to believe (deliberately, it seems) that the government appoints committees to manage these conservancies, yet this is not true. Conservancy management committees are elected by their own communities following democratic processes. One of the CBNRM-related complaints from this region was the inequitable distribution of meat – interviewees clearly wanted more meat more frequently. One wonders if the interviewer revealed that their ultimate goal was to cut off the game meat supply to these communities entirely?


Four conservancies compared in terms of their sources of returns (data from 2018). Nyae Nyae Conservancy, which is one of two conservancies that were investigated in Otjozondjupa, relies most heavily on hunting-related income and meat. Without this income, Nyae Nyae would not be able to function or distribute any meat to its members. Salambala is in the Zambezi Region, while Torra and ≠Khoadi //Hôas are in the Kunene Region. (Source: MEFT and NACSO (2020) The State of Community Conservation in Namibia (2018 Annual Report))

The third region – Zambezi (formerly Caprivi) – also has healthy wildlife populations and the journalists quote fewer people in this section compared with the other sections (which leaves open the possibility that most of the responses they received were not to their liking). They therefore shift their focus once more to include the failed secession attempt by some Caprivians in 1999 (what that has to do with CBNRM remains unclear), plus human-elephant conflict that is a real challenge in an environment where both human and elephant densities are high. The Zambezi Region is home to more than 90,000 people and is located in the centre of the larger Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area that supports an estimated 220,000 elephants.

A common complaint reported both here and in the other regions was that not enough money is provided through the government’s conflict offset scheme (which is topped up by conservancies). What Cruise and Sasada fail to mention to their readers is that the current scheme would not exist without funds generated from the sustainable use of wildlife (via the Game Products Trust Fund).

What they failed to mention to their interviewees is even more egregious – that their ultimate desire is to eliminate the current source of funding for human-wildlife conflict offsets entirely.


Expenditure by the Game Products Trust Fund (GPTF) in Namibian dollars for the period 2012-2018 – N$16.7-million was spent on human-wildlife conflict. All of this revenue is derived from the sustainable use of wildlife – both hunting and live sales income that the government receives. (Data used with permission from the GPTF)

Taken as a whole, this report looks distinctly like a “hit-and-run” job aimed at trophy hunting, with community conservation as a secondary casualty. Now that the interviews are over, perhaps the authors would like to return to Namibia to present their results to their interviewees – with honest conclusions and detailed consequences of their recommendations. An honest presentation would include the following points:

• 1. You (interviewees) wanted more meat and other benefits from your conservancy; we want your conservancy to stop the sustainable use of wildlife, which means there will be no more meat to distribute, while other benefits will similarly decline in future;

• 2. You desired more money to offset the costs of living with wildlife; we want the current source of funding (sustainable wildlife use) for the offset scheme to be eliminated, thus leaving you with no offset scheme at all; and

• 3. You complained about people who come in from outside and settle on your land illegally; we would like to further weaken the grassroots institutions in your region (conservancies) that have fought legal battles for your cause.

Unfortunately, expecting such an honest report is unrealistic, since the whole investigative process was done in bad faith. Having spoken to an interviewee quoted in this report, we know that the journalists did not introduce themselves as such and obtained no consent whatsoever to use any of the quotes they obtained. The people who provided their honest, off-hand opinions to a passing stranger would have had no idea that their words would be used against them – to worsen their current situation.

The journalists and their financiers will no doubt use this illegal and unethical report to further their animal rights agenda, while not spending a dollar of their lobbying budgets to alleviate the plight of the people left in their wake.

In fact, a worse situation for both people and animals would prevail if their dream of dismantling community conservation came true. More than 1,000 people who are directly employed by conservancies will lose their jobs, the meat currently being distributed will no longer be available, and the voices of marginalised rural communities will be silenced.

For the animals, poaching and the associated illegal wildlife trade will skyrocket in the absence of community game guards, entirely unchecked human-wildlife conflict will result in more deaths (of wild animals, livestock and people), and the wildlife corridors in the Zambezi Region will be effectively closed by agriculture.

The difficulties faced by rural Namibians and reflected in this report are real, yet CBNRM has never been presented as the silver bullet that would fix every problem in society. As it stands, this democratic system of wildlife management is not perfect and solutions to the multiple challenges that conservancies face are far from simple. If Covid-19 has taught us anything, however, it is that everything becomes much more difficult when income from wildlife-based industries is summarily cut off.

The ultimate goal of this report – to effectively remove 30% of all conservancy revenues, and 100% of revenues for hunting-reliant conservancies – should therefore be treated like a viral infection that would greatly weaken Namibia’s conservation efforts. DM

This article is supported by the following institutions: 69 members of the Namibian Chamber of Environment (NCE); The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT); The Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations (NACSO).