Namibia Proposed Protected Areas And Wildlife Management Bill

Attached is the new proposed Namibian Wildlife Management Bill I believe due for be voted upon early 2018.

I have not had the opportunity to read it yet but some big changes are to come for Namibia... Wow!

French to me....Please let us know what it all means.

Going to take someone with more patience than me to wade thru that much lawyer speech.

Lawyers make the world go around don't they?

They can certainly screw it up that’s for sure!

I received a copy of the bill from a namibian friend. Too long and too complicated for me until they translate it in italian . It would be interesting to know what the implications of this bill are. Maybe someone can provide some information. It would be interesting.
Renzo

I am not a lawyer but read these types of things constantly. I have scanned and found the following most notable:

Page 37:

14. Declaration of Protected Areas
(1) The Minister may, by notice in the Gazette, in terms of this Act or the regulations hereto, declare any area to be a Protected Area in one of the following categories:

A National Park
A Nature Reserve
A Site of Special Conservation or Scientific Importance
A Protected Landscape
A Contractual Park - I had to read this one twice, still not sure what they mean.

Page 48:

Effectively NO HUNTING in any of the Protected Areas.

Page 67:

41. Listing of Species that require protection
This is outside the Protected areas and basically states the minister shall classify the species that are endangered, endangered or vulnerable and you will not be able to hunt them without a special permit.

Page 68:

42. The minister will determine the hunting season, restrict the number of any species or sex. Can be country wide or "any part or parts of Namibia". This applies to private land and communal land as well. Thus ending the private management of the animals on "your" land.

Page 74:

45 Hunting on State land, which includes communal land, now requires a written permission from the minister. I read it as the operator, PH, and hunter. Not sure what it was before.

Page 75:

#46 and 47: If you own at least 1,000 hectares of land with a game-proof fence you are subject to this act. Thus the minister will dictate huntable quotas of all animals. Again not sure how it applies to free range hunting operators.

Page 77:

49: The hunter will now get a permit before the hunt for the species and number of each species but in no case will it exceed the following:

3 head of large species
2 head of large and 4 head of small species
1 head of large and 8 head of small species
12 head of small species.

I do not know about what animals are classified as large and small.

Page 97:

61. Restrictions in regard to firearms and capturing apparatus:

(1) No person shall use a revolver, pistol or semi-automatic or automatic firearm, sniper firearm, or any non-lethal instrument including a dart gun, when hunting wild animals.

Defined as, in the act:

“sniper riffle” for the purpose of this Act is a person-portable, high precision, shoulder-fired rifle, fitted with a telescopic sight designed to ensure more accurate shooting at longer ranges than other small arms;




I stopped here, there is enough crap here to really screw up Namibia. Jerome, is this up for a debate or is this going through. I would hope the landowners and PH organizations mobilize. Let us know how we can help.

MMAL said:

I stopped here, there is enough crap here to really screw up Namibia. Jerome, is this up for a debate or is this going through. I would hope the landowners and PH organizations mobilize. Let us know how we can help.

Click to expand...

For now it is a draft. I do not know if a date has been set yet for this bill to be voted on.

The Namibia Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA) is holding a Wildlife Bill Workshop exclusive to NAPHA Members and a handful of invited stakeholders today September 28 in the boardroom of the Namibia Agricultural Union. NAPHA’s proposals and recommendations will be discussed at this workshop.

Hi,

any news on this matter? Any feedback from the NAPHA workshop?
Thanks
Renzo

Protected areas and Wildlife Management Bill far from being final says the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU) on Oct 6, 2017.



Protected areas and Wildlife Management Bill far from being final

The Protected areas and Wildlife Management Bill which has been under discussion for nearly 20 years to replace the Nature Conservation Ordinance of 1975 was introduced to the public this year on August 8, 2017 for comments. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism also in the meantime held a meeting with selected role players in Windhoek as well as in the regions.

The draft act makes provision for the proclaiming and management of different kind of nature reserves and conservancies. Furthermore the Act also makes provision for the keeping and hunting of different kind of game species which include special protected species, protected species, exotic species and huntable species and birds. Further provision is made for human-wildlife conflict management as well as the trade and research in wild life and game products.

With the introduction of the draft act farmers expressed their concern about some of the limiting factors which were included in the draft act. This inter alia includes double game fence for keeping exotic animals, the limitation of hunting jackals, etc. Following these concerns NAPHA held a workshop on September 28, 2017 to which NAU representatives were invited.

During the workshop Dr Chris Brown, a well-known in nature conservation circles gave an overview of the background against which the Act was written and must be judged. It was clear that NAPHA has done a lot of work to address the concerns of game owners as well as farmers. The delegates of the NAU also put their concerns about certain articles in the draft act on the table. These comments of NAPHA and the NAU together with the comments of other role players will be submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for further discussions.

Following the comments of NAPHA and other institutions which were already received, it is clear that numerous articles of the draft act in its current form could cause discontent and should thus be adapted. According to a representative of the Ministry of Justice who had attended the workshop, the draft act will still go a long way before it will be promulgated as Act.