By Fifi Rhodes
PALMWAG – Given the national unemployment rate of 51 percent in Namibia, tourism could be an important generator of employment particularly in remote areas where tourism enterprises frequently offer viable formal jobs.
Further, innovative approaches are required to effectively manage wildlife outside state protected areas, where local communities live.
This was said by Dr Greg Stuart-Hill, a senior conservation planner for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Speaking during a media fact-finding tour to some of the upmarket lodges in Kunene South over the weekend, Stuart-Hill reiterated that Namibia has its own tourism advantages in being endowed with plenty of wildlife.
“Wildlife is central to generating returns for conservancies,” he told journalists.
He said over the last 50 years community-based wildlife management has been an effective mechanism for the Namibian Government to combine conservation with developing governance structures to enhance the wildlife resources needed to attract tourism to rural communal areas.
It was noted game has a range of high value uses and many species are able to breed quickly, allowing for rapid wildlife recoveries in areas with suitable habitat where game has become scarce.
“By turning wildlife use into a viable livelihood activity, and complimenting it with other natural resource uses, more community conservation can make a real difference in the life of rural people facilitated through effective overall management structures and improved access markets. As private sector engagement in community conservation broadens more opportunities continue to open up,” he said.
Modern environmental understanding makes it clear that bio-diversity is vital for the health of local ecosystems as well as for the entire planet, he said.
“An environment is healthiest when it supports a high diversity of indigenous species including wildlife. Community conservation facilitates this diversity by enabling communal area residents to achieve a balance between land use that include wildlife use,” he added.
By forming conservancies, local communities are able to add sustainable use of wildlife and ecotourism development, and indigenous natural product production and processing to their existing land uses and livelihood activities.
Stuart-Hill said the largest portion of conservancy returns comes from tourism and sustainable wildlife use.
The Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) project that forms the driving force behind community conservation outside national parks emphasises the importance of using a broad range of indigenous resources where possible to enhance their value and ensure their protection, as well as the protection of large areas of natural habitat.
Maxi Louis the coordinator of CBNRM said the model illustrated that it is extremely valuable to generate returns from both tourism and consumptive use.
“Optimum returns are facilitated through strategic partnerships with the private sector, which offers specialised skills and market linkages, while capacity building and skills transfer create further benefits. Communities have the opportunities to grow into both sectors and over time run successful community owned enterprises. The largest portions of conservancy returns come from tourism and sustainable wildlife use,” she said.