Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Eiseb and Omuramba ua Mbinda conservancies in the Omaheke region earned an income of about N$672 800 from 11 613 kilogrammes of devil’s claw from three harvesting seasons.
According to a statement from Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF), this was done under the threeyear project – Income Generation Through Sustainable Devil’s Claw Harvesting in two Omaheke conservancies, funded by the Social Security Commission (SSC) through its development fund and co-funded by FNB Namibia through the FirstRand Namibia Foundation from 2018/2019, which ended in June this year.
Of the total income, N$627 400 went directly to the harvesters, contributing to household income levels. The remaining N$46 400 00 went into maintaining already constrained conservancy activities to ensure the functionality of conservancies and continuity of devil’s claw support.
“The overall goal of the NNF project was to promote self-employment, strengthen conservancy management structures and their ability to manage natural resources in line with the Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme,” said the statement.
The NNF is a funding institution which initiates, supports, and promotes activities that conserve the environment, protect biodiversity, and foster the sustainable and ethical use of natural resources.
The project also aimed to support the better delivery of the devil’s claw harvesting project by assisting conservancy managers with quality control and buying point coordination, and to support game guards’ resource monitoring activities.
“Through this project intervention, a total of 139 beneficiaries participated in game guard training, financial training and devil’s claw harvesting training.
“Furthermore, the project’s medium-term impact was to ensure high financial accountability and a transparent system being implemented and also assisting the conservancies with compliance in risk management,” said senior CBNRM coordinator at the NNF Nabot Mbeeli.
According to the statement, a sustainability plan was developed alongside a benefit sharing formula as one of the key requirements for compliance with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism.
At the official hand-over of the project to the communities on the 16 and 17 November 2022 in Eiseb and Omuramba ua Mbinda, representatives from NNF, SSC and project beneficiaries discussed the outcomes of the implemented activities and lessons learnt.
As part of the official project hand-over to the community, the SSC presented each conservancy with a fully-constructed storage unit.
“This is outstanding work by the NNF and especially seeing what the project beneficiaries managed to accomplish. We are so pleased to see how projects such as these are successfully implemented. The project activities and the outcomes presented in the final report are definitely worth noting,” said SSC development fund manager Olga Katjiuongua.
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