Africa-Press – Namibia. Dempers said the CBNRM programme needs to contribute towards the livelihoods of participating communal farmers.
CHAIRPERSON of the Namibian Association for Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Support Organisations Ronny
Dempers made these remarks on Friday at the conservancies chairpersons’ forum for southern regions at Keetmanshoop. Namibia’s CBNRM programme provides rural communities with incentives to manage their natural resources and further unlock tourism development opportunities and benefits from the use of wildlife.
Since the gazetting of the first communal conservancy in 1998, there are now 86 registered communal conservancies, 43 community forests and two community associations in the country.
Dempers said there is greater need for diversification options and out of the box thinking for the CBNRM approach to contribute towards livelihood improvements of communal residents.
Areas to consider for diversification of income streams are renewable energy projects, the green hydrogen initiative and the Neckartal Dam to unlock agriculture potential.
“These must be considered to see how conservancies can benefit from such opportunities, the need for improved water conservation and management, grazing and rangeland management, combined with livestock improvement and livestock marketing options.
“All of these should be part of a suite of resources to be supported,” said Dempers. He noted with the mooted national CBNRM stocktaking process, this is timely, especially for the south where the question of the extent that the CBNRM model contributes towards improving livelihoods needs to be asked.
“I would therefore advocate a regional CBNRM stocktaking process, as a run-up to a national CBNRM stocktaking process.
“What comes out of the chairperson forum should form the basis for such a process. But given that CBNRM is not only about conservancies, it should include other CBNRM users, such as water point committees, farmers associations, etc. and line ministries and relevant stakeholders,” said Dempers.
Speaking at the same occasion, environment minister Pohamba Shifeta said there would be no successful wildlife conservation without the involvement of local communities, and an incentive mechanism to offset the cost of living with such wildlife.
Shifeta said as an ongoing effort to support conservancies and livelihoods, the ministry established the Conservation Relief, Recovery and Resilience Facility (CRRRF) with donor partners, to provide relief and enable communal conservancies and community forests to pay salaries for game guards, forest monitors and staff, to continue with wildlife monitoring activities such as patrols, anti-poaching, and to respond to human-wildlife conflict during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The Covid-19 pandemic heavily impacted rural livelihoods, and we estimated that over 3 000 jobs in our sector were at risk, as the programme relies heavily on photography, tourism and conservation hunting to support operations and livelihoods.
“To date, the facility has disbursed N$73 million as follows: N$44,7 million to communal conservancies and community forests, and N$28,3 million to tourism business support lodges and campsites, SMEs, crafters, hunters, and to ensure the businesses continue to operate,” said Shifeta.
CRRRF is supported by the United Nations Development Programme in Namibia, Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia, Worldwide Fund for Namibia, Community Conservation Fund of Namibia, and GIZ, as well as the Nedbank Go Green Fund, the Namibian Chamber of Environment, The Nature Conservancy, B2Gold and Tourism Supporting Conservation.
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