Conservancies programme gets US $26.5 million in donor support

Namibia has received US $26.5 million in donor support to help it make better use of its natural resources. Initiatives focusing on community-driven land management will be bolstered by funds from by the World Bank, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Wildlife Fund. The government launched the community-based natural resources management programme, allowing rural communities to register their areas as conservancies, almost a decade ago. Local communities were granted rights to manage the land and reap the benefits from tourism, while any income generated was paid out directly to individual members of conservancies or pooled to pay for necessities like water tanks, wind pumps and the development of local infrastructure. Today 31 registered conservancies covering 78,000 square km benefit an estimated 100,000 people. Since the start of the programme in 1995, there has been a gradual shift from wildlife management to a broader range of ways to use natural resources. In some cases this has meant collecting and selling medicinal plants, such as the appetite-suppressant hoodia plant. The fruit of the indigenous marula and mangetti trees are already recognised for their commercial value. "With innovation we will find economic opportunities from unused resources everywhere in the conservancy system, and we will jointly come up with management and monitoring systems to ensure that such resources are used sustainably," Environment and Tourism Minister Philemon Malima said at the launch of the donor funding this week in the capital, Windhoek. Three second-generation projects in natural resource management are expected to benefit from the funding. Around US $7 million from the World Bank's Global Environment Fund will go to the Integrated Community-based Ecosystem Management programme, with a community-funding facility set up to enable rural people in conservancies to start income-generating activities related to wildlife, tourism and forestry. Almost US $10 million from USAID will kick-start the third phase of an initiative addressing policy and legal bottlenecks, so that conservancies can gain greater rights and become more financially self-sustaining. The remainder of the money will be spent on similar programmes in northwestern and in northeastern Namibia. The conservancy system has brought several benefits to Ndapendula Shilumbu, a widow who used to struggle to make a living from subsistence farming in northern Namibia. Now she is a member of a conservancy and her additional income supports her and her four children, who are able to attend a nearby rural school. "Our [conservancy] committee pays us a share of money the tourists pay to see our area and the wild animals, and they sleep at our community campsite," she told IRIN. "I make additional money because I can weave baskets from the leaves of the omulunga palm tree and sell them to the tourists. We now look after our palm trees; we do not allow the men to destroy them anymore just to make an alcoholic brew from the fleshy top of the palms. The palm trees die from that and then we don't have any leaves to make baskets," she said.