Conservancy failings
Despite their well-documented benefits, however, Namibia’s conservancies remain a work in progress. Three issues, in particular, are raising concerns within the government, donor, and NGO communities. The first is that the ad hoc manner in which some conservancies distribute their benefits does not always favor the poorest households. The second is that limited participation in conservancies is hampering genuine local governance and empowerment. The third is that the recovery of wildlife populations has increased the number of natural predators of the livestock upon which many conservancy households depend. A deeper, more structural problem is the limited nature of local rights, with conservancy residents denied full property or tenure rights. Despite periodic discussion of land reform, ownership of all communal lands is retained by the government, in a holdover from colonial times.
Limits to poverty alleviation
Every conservancy must produce a plan for equitably distributing benefits before it is registered by the government. In theory, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism could de-register a conservancy that violated this policy. But in practice, there is no blueprint for what constitutes “equitable” sharing of benefits, leaving conservancies to go their own way. Some specifically target poorer, more vulnerable households; others do not. Some spend revenue on social services such as school equipment or water supply maintenance, others on cash payouts. Some only distribute benefits to registered conservancy members, others to all households.
To promote self-governance, NACSO support organisations encourage communities to set their own priorities. Chris Weaver, WWF-LIFE program director, acknowledges this can create teething problems. “In some cases there has been a pushpull between wealthier households, who own livestock, and will have to give up grazing land for wildlife management, and poorer households who will benefit a lot more from conservancygenerated cash handouts than better-off households.” He insists, however, that communities must run their own affairs if conservancies are to succeed long-term. “We don’t prescribe. We believe the committees should make their own mistakes, learn from them, and adjust the next year” (Weaver 2004).
This laissez faire approach, however, was criticized by an international panel of social scientists that in March 2004 urged Namibia’s government to ensure benefits were targeted to the poor. On the basis of an intensive three-year study covering eight conservancies, known as the WILD report, they recommended that the Ministry of Environment and Tourism:
- give conservancies strict guidelines on equitable distribution
- encourage them to target benefits to pre-identified groups of poor people
- help committees review whether their existing conservancy membership provided a fair basis for benefit distribution
- adopt a “pro-poor” national tourism policy, focusing on conservancy-based developments that “contribute directly to poverty reduction, enhanced livelihood security, and social empowerment” (Long 2004:xvii).
Limits to local governance
A second major challenge facing Namibia’s conservancies is their democratic deficit. Many local people do not register themselves as conservancy members or vote for committee members. Although typically a majority of in-boundary adults join up, the WILD report identified several conservancies with a minority membership. A 2002 survey of a thousand households in seven conservancies found that only 34 percent identified themselves as “conservancy participants” (Bandyopadhyay et al. 2004:15).
In addition, the 1996 legislation originating conservancies vests legal ownership rights over wildlife in management committees, not directly in the conservancy membership. Conservancy committees are elected by the membership and hence are clearly meant to be directly accountable to conservancy members, but there is no legal obligation for this enshrined at the national level (Long 2004:35).
Limited participation in a conservancy’s membership and activities can contribute to other problems, such as slow distribution of cash and meat to resident families. Even flagship Torra Conservancy did not make any cash payouts to members until January 2003, three years after it became financially independent (Baker 2003:1).
In some conservancies there is also evidence that more highly educated community members disproportionately control management committees. Field researchers for the WILD project, working in eight conservancies in Caprivi and Kunene, also found that people employed in conservancybased tourism tended to come from wealthier local families (Long 2004:17). On the other hand, the 2002 World Bank research team found no evidence that social elites were capturing a bigger slice of benefits than other community members. “In Caprivi there was some evidence that poor households benefited more than richer ones, whereas in Kunene we found that benefit distribution was poverty-neutral, with everybody benefiting equally,” said Kirk Hamilton, lead economist at the World Bank Environment Department (Hamilton 2004).
According to Margaret Jacobsohn, high-handed behavior by wealthier residents has mainly been a problem during conservancy development. “In one area, an elite group blocked a conservancy for two years until a locally constituted Dispute Resolution Committee helped resolve the situation. A conservancy has since been registered, with a democratically elected committee that represents the whole community.” While acknowledging that the conservancy movement is “a long way from perfect democracy,” Jacobsohn remains optimistic. “The technical support providers—NGOs and government—are constantly adjusting to ensure that as much power as possible is devolved to the local, household level. It’s an evolutionary process, improving year by year” (Jacobsohn 2004)
Some government officials have argued that every adult resident should automatically receive conservancy membership. But NACSO organizations have resisted, arguing that community-based management will only work if citizens accept 121 responsibilities as well as rights (Jacobsohn 2004). Nevertheless, expert criticism of the limits to community participation is growing. The 2004 WILD report, submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, argued that higher membership levels were essential to increase pressure on committees to act competently, distribute benefits efficiently and equitably, and take actions approved by a majority of residents.
While praising the conservancies’ achievements, the WILD report bluntly concluded that “the extent to which rural people will continue to support conservancies… depends on them gaining a stronger voice in local decisionmaking. The requirement now is to shift attention to supporting local capacity to address improved participation, and, in so doing, develop a more inclusive approach to planning that specifically addresses issues of livelihood security and diversification at household level, particularly for poorer groups” (Long 2004:9, 12).
Sensitive to such criticisms, NACSO and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism have drawn up plans to strengthen participatory democracy across conservancies. Performance indicators, to help residents and support organisations measure committee performance and hold management committees to account, are also in the works. “Getting more involvement from the community membership and more transparency in how a conservancy operates will be a key focus over the next five years,” asserts Chris Weaver. Practical proposals include delegating decision-making down to the village level instead of conservancy committees, increasing information flow by posting regular financial and other bulletins in public locations, and making annual committee meetings more transparent (Weaver 2004).
Wildlife-people conflict
While tourism based on the attraction of Namibia’s majestic wild animals has brought undisputed benefits, the recovery of wildlife populations is not without trade-offs. Livestock in Kunene, and crops in Caprivi, are still the main breadwinners for many conservancy households. Tension is growing in some areas as cattle, goats, and crops succumb in increasing numbers to predators or marauding elephants. In Caprivi, for example, average crop losses equal 20 percent of local households’ average annual income. Research suggests that poorer families suffer the most, which undermines the anti-poverty efforts of conservancies. It also encourages illegal, low-level wildlife poaching for food, a problem especially prevalent among poorer households (Long 2004:xxi).
Although the Ministry of Environment and Tourism acknowledges rising human-wildlife conflicts, it has no policy on how institutions should deal with the problem. In 2003 IRDNC (a support NGO) took action by successfully piloting a compensation scheme in four Kunene and Caprivi conservancies for households that had lost livestock to predators. In 2005 the compensation schemes will be extended to cover elephantinduced crop damage in some conservancies (Jacobsohn 2004).
A related problem, likely to get more urgent as wildlife numbers rise, is lack of land tenure. Unlike white-owned freehold farms, conservancies cannot bar outsiders from bringing their animals to graze on communal lands within their boundaries, even though this causes pressure on resources used by local wildlife and livestock. In Torra, for example, the conservancy committee zoned land for wildlife and tourism use and developed internal rules to regulate grazing access on this land. But livestock farmers from outside the conservancy simply ignored these rules, and continued to assert their open access grazing rights (Long 2004:148). The conservancy’s lack of full property rights prevents it from legally excluding them.
