Modern approaches are enhancing the value of natural resources and improving their use.
About NACSO
The Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Support Organisations (NACSO) is an association comprising 8 Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and the University of Namibia.
Charismatic wildlife in spectacular settings - wildife is central to unlocking natural resource potential
The purpose of NACSO is to provide quality services to rural communities seeking to manage and utilise their natural resources in a sustainable manner.
Community conservation is about managing natural resources sustainably to generate returns for rural people.
The philosophy of forming NACSO was to harness the wide range of skills available in Government, NGOs and the University of Namibia into a complementary nation-wide CBNRM support service. The rationale behind this is that it is unlikely that any single institution houses all of the skills, resources and capacity to provide community organisations with the multi-disciplinary assistance that is required to develop the broad range of CBNRM initiatives taking place in Namibia. These skills include advice on governance and institutional issues, on natural resources management and assistance with financial and business planning.
Mission and history
The NACSO concept was conceived in 1996 under the title of Communal Area Resource Management Support (CARMS).
However, it was not until August 1998, when a meeting of CBNRM support organisations was convened, that the CBNRM partners began seriously developing the NACSO concept. In September 1999 the CBNRM partners approved the constitution for the CBNRM Association of Namibia (CAN), and the CBNRM Association gained legal status. However, in February 2001 CAN was required to change its name to NACSO because the Cancer Association of Namibia, also with the acronym of CAN, justifiably complained that two organisations in Namibia should not be operating under the same name.
The important work carried out by NACSO on rural development projects, in conjunction with NGOs such as IRDNC, Namibia Nature Foundation, NDT and international associate member WWF continues today.
Structure
NACSO connects the communities and organisations that manage and conserve Namibia’s natural resources
NACSO, the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations, assists conservancies and other rural associations to manage their natural resources for their own benefit, and to enhance conservation through Community Based Natural Resource Management activities (CBNRM).
NACSO is comprised of its members (below). There are full member organisations, and associates which include consultants, regional conservancy associations, allied organisations and the WWF in Namibia, which is a regional office of WWF US.
The NACSO Secretariat is a small unit based in Windhoek. It coordinates three working groups which are served by NACSO members and other specialist groups and individuals – see table below.
Conservation & Conservancies
Conservation and Hunting
People living in southern Africa have always hunted for food, and some hunter-gatherer communities still hunt in the traditional way, but development has brought fundamental changes to present day Namibia. Communal conservancies utilise wildlife sustainably, which includes the harvesting of meat and the sale of trophy hunting rights, both based upon regulation and quotas. Wildlife populations have increased and are stable in conformity with the guiding principle that if a resource has value, people will conserve it.
Living with wildlife
Namibia is still largely agricultural and around 80% of the population depend upon subsistence farming for at least part of their living. In the communal areas of Namibia, outside of national parks, wildlife roams freely. Elephants and other raiders often take crops, and predators such as lions, hyaenas and wild dogs take livestock.
For many farmers, wildlife is a constant threat. However, with the advent of the conservancy system, wildlife has become an asset. Trophy hunters pay large sums for the right to hunt selected animals, and most of this revenue goes to conservancies, which provide benefits to their members. In addition, many conservancies pay direct compensation to farmers who have suffered losses, and are often able to do so due to revenue generated by hunting.
The right to hunt, which was taken for granted by earlier communities living on the land, was taken away from them by colonial government, and only restored after independence. Now, in accordance with quotas based upon wildlife populations, conservancies have the right to harvest animals for meat, in addition to which, the meat from trophy hunted animals is also distributed to conservancy members.
Healthy populations
The population of wildlife in an arid landscape is dependent upon two main factors: rainfall and take-off. There was a bad drought from 1980 to 1982 in Namibia, particularly in Kunene, and together with a high take-off of wildlife due to illegal hunting, populations were devastated.
Since 1982 drought has returned, and will return again, but on communal land the take-off has been reduced and regulated due to the conservancy system. Trophy hunting has given a high value to many species of wildlife, and conservancies have protected them. Populations have increased and are stable.
With a larger prey base, predator populations such as lion have also increased. Although these are a constant threat and danger to farmers, they are tolerated due to the revenue they bring in, through tourism and trophy hunting.
Monitoring, quotas and regulation
The Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) and conservancies work together to monitor wildlife, with the Natural Resources Working Group of NACSO providing technical assistance. Wildlife populations are assessed annually by means of the game counts, aerial surveys, water hole surveys and information from game guard event books, which is collated nationally.
The MET issues quotas for the sustainable use of wildlife based upon animal populations and other factors, such as drought. It may be considered prudent to make use of wildlife before it dies as the result of drought. Quotas are given for trophy hunting, meat harvesting, and the live capture of surplus game for sale.
Every aspect of wildlife utilisation is subject to strict regulation by the MET, and the Namibia Professional Hunting Association, NAPHA, works to promote and ensure ethical hunting and professional standards.
Hunting versus poaching
A clear distinction has to be made between legal and illegal hunting. Legal hunting is done according to quotas and regulation, and on conservancy land provides an income to communities. Illegal hunting is theft, whether it be poaching for the pot by locals, or the shooting of high value animals for elephant tusks, rhino horns or animal hides. Poaching and the illegal wildlife trade are theft from the communities that conserve wildlife and benefit from its legal utilisation.
Professional hunters
Conservancies that derive an income from trophy hunting contract professional hunters as partners, who bring clients to conservancies to hunt. Typically, a professional hunter, or PH, will be contracted to hunt a fixed quota of animals which must be paid for, whether they are hunted or not. Above that, payments are made for specific hunts of high value species.
The Natural Resources Working Group of NACSO provides assistance to conservancies to negotiate contracts that are fair and legally binding. Trophy hunting in Namibia is organised by NAPHA, the Namibia Professional Hunting Association, and all hunters on conservancy land are members of the organisation.
Hunts on conservancy land are monitored by game guards who accompany the hunters, and use a ticket system to identify the hunted animals. Training is provided to conservancy game guards by NACSO’s Natural Resources Working Group, to ensure their competency to monitor hunting operations.
Hunting and conservation
Despite the tradition of hunting in Namibia, and its strict regulation, there are many people worldwide who abhor hunting. Demands are regularly made to ban the importation of trophies from Namibia into the USA and European countries.
Namibia acts in full compliance with the CITES agreement, which regulates the international trade in endangered species. Many Namibian conservancies do not have a strong tourism potential, and can only derive an income from trophy hunting, without which, they would be unable to pay for community game guards to deter poaching and wildlife crime.
Sustainability
The Community Conservation Fund of Namibia
The Trust Fund is a NACSO project designed to sustain the management of wildlife and natural resources by rural communities by providing long-term funding for critical conservation services.
Background
The Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Programme of Namibia is one of the world’s leading examples of conservation and rural community empowerment through the devolution of rights and responsibilities over wildlife and other natural resources, including forests and indigenous plant species.
The achievements and impacts of the programme over the last two decades are impressive and inspiring. Rural communities have formed 82 communal conservancies, 32 community forests, and a community association living within national park boundaries. Cumulatively, these cover almost 20% of Namibia’s land, and engage and empower almost 10% of Namibia’s population as conservation stewards.
The success of the CBNRM Programme is based on two premises: that communities wish to live with their natural heritage, including wildlife, and that through the programme, benefits accrue to local communities in the rural economy, linked to strong and sustainable wildlife populations.
Despite the impressive gains that have been made in Namibia’s community based conservation, and the global recognition that has ensued as a result, the challenge remains to create a fully sustainable national programme that will consolidate the gains and create further opportunities for the economic and social development of Namibia’s rural communities based upon the sustainable use of natural resources.
The need for a fund
The Namibian CBNRM Programme has been in operation for more than two decades, at the end of which, 17 out of the current 82 conservancies have matured and attained a stable ‘maintenance’ financial status, able to cover their own running costs. More conservancies are in the making, resulting in a mixture of conservancies at different stages of development. More than half the current conservancies require support to move from a development to a sustainable maintenance stage, and some conservancies are unlikely to have sufficient income from tourism or trophy hunting to cover their running costs, but nevertheless do valuable conservation work.
The Community Conservation Fund of Namibia is designed to assure the sustainability of the programme by funding critical conservation services provided by conservancies and community forests, and supporting the development of their management.
In response to the need, the National CBNRM Sustainability Task Force studied and endorsed the ‘Namibia National CBNRM Sustainability Strategy’ in May 2012, which included the creation of a CBNRM fund.
Together with the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations (NACSO), the Task Force also commissioned a Financial Gap Analysis that was completed in late 2014.
The fund
In essence, the Fund seeks to raise and manage a capital sum in endowments to support essential long-term services, and further sinking funds over a 15-year period to finance special projects and short-term needs. Essential long-term services are defined as a minimum support package that conservancies and community forests will need at their various stages of development.
The Community Conservation Fund of Namibia is an ‘Association not for gain’, under the Companies Act of Namibia. Its governance structure consists of members who are the founders of the fund and who convene annual general meetings, and a board of directors which appoints a chief executive officer of the Fund. The CEO runs the operations of the Fund from a secretariat and reports to the board of directors.
A sustainable future
The Convention of Biological Diversity calls for benefit sharing with local people. Namibia’s Communal Conservancy Programme is a model in both economic and conservation terms.
The Community Conservation Fund of Namibia has been designed assure the sustainability of the Namibian CBNRM Programme, and further improve the capacity of local communities to be the stewards of their natural resources, to derive benefits from them, and to build on the conservation successes of Namibia.
Tourism
A new form of tourism
Today’s discerning tourist not only wishes to visit ecologically intact areas, but also to engage with the people who live there. In Namibia that is especially true, because the tour guide, the waitress and the barman are likely to be members of a conservancy, which has a direct stake in the tour business of the lodge where the guest is staying.
Together with the community
The concept, which has been pioneered in Namibia and has proved highly successful, is that of a joint venture partnership between conservancies and private sector investors. When Namibian communal conservancies were given rights over wildlife, they were also granted the right to run tourism operations. No longer could a lodge be erected with the agreement of a chief, without benefits going to the community.
A typical joint-venture agreement is a lodge. An investor – individual or corporate – agrees to build a lodge within a conservancy. In return, the conservancy provides eco-services, such as game guards, which ensure the maintenance of wildlife. Both sides profit. The investor will receive a financial return on the investment, because visitors will be attracted by wildlife. The conservancy receives a negotiated percentage of the profits, and conservancy members are employed at the lodge.
Building on success
Before the first conservancy was created in 1998, there was only one joint-venture agreement with a community: Damaraland Camp. By 2014 there were over 42 agreements, with many different forms.
Some lodges are entirely owned and run by the investor. These tend to be large infrastructures. They provide employment to conservancy members and a percentage of the profit to the conservancy.
At the other end of the scale are lodges owned exclusively by the conservancy, which makes an agreement with a private sector tour operator which has the expertize to run and market lodges.
In between are models where the conservancy acquires a stake in the lodge over a period of time, and may come to own the infrastructure at the expiry of the agreement after a lengthy period, sometimes 20 years.
An important benefit to the community, in addition the revenue and jobs, is the empowerment of the community itself, which develops the skills to negotiate with investors and to manage large sums of money for the benefit of conservancy members. Local people are employed not only at the bottom of the tourism career ladder, but are rising to the top as managers.
The national economy
Tourism is the fastest growing sector in the economy. Overall returns to conservancies from tourism in 2013 were just under N$30 million, but that only tells part of the story. What has to be added on is the income earned from tour companies, from hotels and restaurants in the capital, Windhoek, from the national airline and from car hire companies. The economic benefit to the nation from tourism, including community-based tourism, is considerable.
A quality product
The lodges and luxury tented-camps in Namibian communal conservancies are among the top-rated eco-lodges in the world. The construction materials may often be simple: clay, wood or canvas, but as a result they blend into the stunning landscapes where they are set. Lodges range from comfortable to luxurious, and the cuisine from simple to extraordinary. Namibia has two training establishments for chefs, and Namibian beef and game is often described as the world’s finest.
Most important is the hospitality guests may expect from smiling conservancy members who are knowledgeable about the environment the guest is visiting, because they come from the nearby farms and villages, and have grown up with the ecology and wildlife.
Source: Namibian Association Of CBNRM Support Organisations
