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The very success of Namibia’s community-based natural resource management program is producing enormous, some say unrealistic, expectations for the future. With an estimated 100,000 people actively supporting the registration of 40-50 new conservancies, one in every nine Namibians may soon live in a communal area conservancy (WWF and Rossing Foundation 2004:iv). Namibia’s government is anxious to use this expanding network of citizen-led local governance institutions as a broad vehicle for rural development in a poor nation.

In 2001 new legislation made provision for communityrun forests, managed by community bodies (including conservancies) with ownership rights over forest products. In 2003 new freshwater fisheries laws allowed community institutions, including conservancies, to assume management of local fisheries (WWF and Rossing Foundation 2004:13). The government is also encouraging conservancies to diversify into social programs, including HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.

But some NGOs caution that conservancies should not take on responsibility for implementing government programs or move too far from their original conservation objectives. As Chris Weaver sees it, “Conservancies were developed as a conservation initiative with spin-off benefits for development. They are contributing significantly to national income, but they are not going to solve all the poverty or rural development problems of Namibia” (Weaver 2004).

Conservancies also remain far from self-sufficient, with most still dependent on donor support. Of the more than 40 established and fledgling conservancies that IRDNC assists, only two are self-financing, although a majority are expected to be independent or earning significant income by 2010. While joint-venture tourism and sport hunting offer the best revenue-generating opportunities, they still provide a minority of jobs in most conservancies. Experts see a strong need to diversify livelihood options, especially among poor families, to avoid over-reliance on tourist income (WWF and Rossing Foundation 2004:44-45).

At the political level, pressure is also growing on government ministers to institute land reforms that will increase the security and long-term viability of conservancies by granting tenure to residents of communal lands. The WILD report recommended to Namibia’s government that securing community tenure over conservancies was “a necessary step in strengthening conservancies’ rights and authority with respect to resource use and allocation.” Such rights were needed, the authors argued, to give conservancy committees legal grounds for excluding outside livestock herds which were depleting conservancy resources and revenues (Long 2004:157). New regional Communal Land Boards, to be established under the Communal Lands Act 2003, may provide a vehicle for land reform, as both conservancies and traditional authorities will appoint representatives alongside those of various government departments. The boards will be responsible for granting land-use leases, but their full responsibilities and the influence that conservancies may wield on them are yet to become clear (Long 2004:157).

To address all these challenges and expectations, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, USAID, and WWF launched a new five-year plan in October 2004 that aims to make most conservancies self-sustaining, with a broader rural development role, by 2009. Chris Weaver summarizes the approach as “an expanded conservation strategy with add-on benefits for development.” Conservancies will be encouraged to expand beyond tourism and wildlife use into forestry, fisheries, water management, and sustainable farming, and to use the income gained to invest in other enterprises such as small support businesses.

In six short years, Namibia’s conservancies have developed from a hopeful experiment to the cornerstone of government plans to reform the management of the country’s unique natural resource base. For local support NGOs, however, the central focus for the next five years will be on improving conservancy governance and participation.

On the front line in Kunene, Dr. Jacobsohn is clear that financial self-sufficiency alone will not guarantee long-term success for the conservancy movement. “Earning income is not the hardest part. It is learning to run a local institution effectively and efficiently that is the biggest challenge. We are requiring remote rural dwellers, the majority of whom are subsistence farmers, to manage not just wildlife, but also staff, an office, and a vehicle.We are asking them to stick to a constitution, be transparent, communicate with members—do everything that managing a democratic institution involves. These are the conditions towards which NGOs are aiming so that we are no longer required.”