Human-wildlife conflict must recognise community rights

Despite successes, living with wildlife often carries a cost and growing wildlife populations in communal and freehold farming areas result in more frequent conflict between people and wildlife.

Human-wildlife conflict needs to be managed in a way that recognises the rights and development needs of local communities, promotes biodiversity conservation and self-reliance, and ensures that decision-making is quick, efficient and based on the best available information.

Namibian vice president Nangolo Mbumba said to achieve this, appropriate mitigation and monitoring methods need to be developed, and all stakeholders must be capacitated to effectively manage human-wildlife conflicts.

He made these remarks last week at the National Conference on Human-Wildlife Conflict Management, which he officiated on behalf of President Hage Geingob.

Complex problems

He said that human-wildlife conflict is complex and therefore requires multidimensional solutions.

Mbumba said the impact of this conflict on people and their properties is a difficult challenge that conservation agencies and institutions such as the environment ministry are faced with.

"Innovative approaches are being considered to reduce human-wildlife conflict to ensure that the benefits of conservation by far outweigh the costs and to build on significant successes already achieved."

Highlighting some of the successes, he said that conservancies are now benefitting a total of 245 000 of people through employment, income, in-kind benefits and social projects.

"Our government also views national parks as a cornerstone of conservation programmes that play an important role in ecosystems and biological diversities."

Mbumba said that the national parks are some of Namibia’s most valuable assets, and their tourism potential should be harnessed for the benefit of all Namibians.

"In addition, the government has also encouraged the management of wildlife for commercial use on freehold farms in terms of existing legislation."

Joint responsibility

He said the government developed the national policy on human-wildlife conflict management, and called on stakeholders to review and discuss progress, challenges, and opportunities in the implementation of the policy to find solutions and actions to implement preventive, protective and mitigation strategies.

"Human-wildlife conflict should not be the responsibility of the government alone, the responsibility of the ministry of environment alone, the responsibility of only those regions where animals are plentiful. It should be the responsibility of all citizens and state agencies to minimise the losses and the impact caused by wild animals."

He said the environment ministry continues to receive several requests from the public asking for compensation for damages caused by wildlife to humans and properties, as well as livestock and crops.

He said this indicates that there is a serious need to reduce the growing tension around human-wildlife conflicts.

Environment minister Pohamba Shifeta said due to the scale and urgency of the human-wildlife problem, the government developed an integrated, flexible, and comprehensive policy towards dealing with human-wildlife conflict.

He said it provides a framework for all stakeholders and can meet the country’s national and international commitments to biodiversity conservation while taking into account the rights and development needs of its people.

"We believe more has been done in the implementation of this policy and in putting mitigation and preventative measures in place to manage human-wildlife conflict. We also recognise that a lot still has to be done."