For over 20 years, community conservation has been impacting the lives of rural Namibians, allowing them to engage in democratic processes, gain rights over and manage their natural resources, and to increase income and benefits to communities and individuals.
The National CBNRM Programme developed from the first four conservancies in 1998 into 86 conservancies and two resident associations in 2022. In addition, community forests (46) and fisheries reserves (20) are new governance and management structures which have been established to supplement community rights over natural resources and promote additional benefits. Community forests focus on timber, plant and grazing resources, while fisheries reserves focus on inland fish resources.
Community conservation has grown exponentially, with the key aim of meeting the needs of both the natural and social environment in Namibia. There have been both successes and challenges along the way and as the programme continues to evolve, a better understanding is gained of the complexity of community conservation, maintaining benefits and building resilience in communities living with wildlife, and managing all their natural resources.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on community conservation due to its dependence on global tourism and conservation hunting. During the pandemic, rural communities in Namibia lost 90% of their income due to the shutdown of tourism arrivals and the loss of funding for conservation. Thousands of jobs were under threat and rural communities faced increased economic hardships and food insecurity. Into this void stepped the Conservation Relief, Recovery and Resilience Facility (CRRRF), launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) in May 2020, to mitigate the crisis. With the collaboration of a multitude of national, regional and international partners and donors, the CRRRF ensured that the essential work of conservancies could continue.
CRRRF partners include the Community Conservation Fund of Namibia (CCFN), KfW Development Bank, Namibia Chamber of the Environment (NCE), Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Nedbank, Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia (NNDFN), Tourism Supporting Conservation Trust (TOSCO), Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC), Deutsche Gesellschaft für International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Laurie Foundation.
Initial funding grants supported conservancy salaries, management committee stipends and operating costs, and guaranteed that critical anti-poaching and human wildlife conflict mitigation efforts could continue. 86 conservancies, one community association and 25 community forests outside of conservancies, were supported with N$ 55.6 million from mid-2020 to the end of 2022.
The next step of the CRRRF was to provide funding to joint venture (JV) tourism and conservation hunting partners, as well as to small and medium enterprises, to secure the salaries and jobs of community members through a combination of conventional grants and partially (50%) repayable advances. The grants were available for up to 24 months with over N$ 31 million disbursed to support 2,374 staff members. Facilitated and coordinated by the CCFN, this second support initiative was funded by KfW.
Depending on the number of sites and size of their operations some JV partners employ only a handful of community members, while others employ as many as 270. Given that the number of dependents in households increased drastically during the pandemic due to job losses in other sectors, the retention of income supported thousands of other family members.
The CRRRF also extended additional repayable, non-interest advances to JV partners through business continuity grants to cover business expenses to prepare for the expected increase in tourism numbers, including the upgrading of infrastructure. At the end of 2022, 11 grants had been provided with a total of approximately N$ 8.25 million. Grants to privately owned establishments are 100% repayable, while grants to community owned establishments are conventional non-repayable grants.
In 2022, despite lingering travel restrictions, the tourism and conservation hunting sectors experienced a recovery, with some operators experiencing a more substantial recovery than others. While the pre-COVID benchmarks were not reached, this sets the stage for an optimistic outlook in 2023, with the anticipation that it could become a financially prosperous year for tourism, potentially matching the pre-pandemic income figures for the conservancies.
Although the recovery of tourism is extremely positive for Namibia and community conservation, the pandemic has further highlighted an even greater need for the diversification of income sources and livelihoods in conservancies. This need presents new challenges to the CBNRM programme. Numerous opportunities are in the process of development and implementation including payment for ecosystem services (PES) and indigenous natural products (INP). Via the KfW funded Poverty Oriented Support to Community Conservation in Namibia project as implemented by the CCFN, the CRRRF will also fund alternative income activities to build resilience in communities from 2023.
Added to the need for diversification are the environmental and social impacts of increasing effects of climate change. This has been poignantly evident in the northwest of Namibia, which has been impacted by drought for more than eight years, resulting in a huge loss of both livestock and wildlife. This has had a devastating impact on rural communities whose livelihoods are reliant on livestock. Shorter droughts occur in other areas of the country as well and food security remains a critical issue for rural communities.
While the people living in community conservation areas are empowered to make their own decisions, they do not do so in isolation. Effective CBNRM relies on multiple layers of institutional support. The MEFT sets the overall direction and maintains standards, NACSO members provide extensive technical and logistical assistance, and private sector conservancy partners create a critical link between international markets and local communities to generate income and create jobs.
The CBNRM programme must continuously evolve and adapt, while still entrenching the basic principles of good governance, sustainable natural resource management and equitable benefit distribution to support rural livelihoods. This report provides an update on the growth and progress of the CBNRM programme from its start until the end of 2022.
