Conservancies contributed N$880 million in 2018

A total of N$8.375 billion has been contributed to Namibia's net national income through community conservation since 1990 to the end of 2018, while in 2018 alone, the contribution stood at N$884 million.

Community conservation continues to expand, increasing the number of people who benefit from natural resources as well as the areas under conservation.

Communal conservancies now cover more than 20% of the country with an estimated 222 871 residents, while providing 4 926 jobs.

Comparatively, N$2.5 billion has been invested into the conservancy programme since 1990, of which the majority of the funding came from donors.

This is according to the 2018 State of Community Conservation Report that the environment ministry and Namibian Association of Community Based Natural Resource Management Support Organisations recently launched as a website.

The 2018 printed report is in production and will be available later this year.

“The total cash income and in-kind benefits generated in ­conservancies (including the Kyaramacan Association) grew from less than N$1 million in 1998 to more than N$147 million in 2018,” says the ­report. Of this, tourism generated slightly more than N$100 million and conservation hunting generated N$30 million. This included 397 722kg of game meat that was distributed to conservancy residents, valued at N$9.5 million.

Indigenous natural products generated N$4.58 million and miscellaneous income (including items such as interest) totalled N$ 2.82 million.

According to the report, conservancy residents earned total cash income of N$77.5 million from enterprise wages, of which N$48.6 million was from joint-venture tourism, N$20.8 million was from conservancies, N$4.3 million from conservation hunting and N$3.6 million from SMEs.

Conservancy residents earned cash income of N$3.1 million from indigenous plants and N$1.7 million from crafts.

A total of N$15.3 million in cash benefits was distributed to conservancy residents and used to support community projects.

According to the report, at the end of 2018, there were 86 registered communal conservancies where more than 220 000 residents were benefiting from the wildlife-based economy.

There are also 42 community forests in the country, most of which overlap conservancies and are jointly managed, and one community association located inside Bwabwata National Park - Kyaramacan Association. This community association is constituted and works like a conservancy.

A total of 169 756 square kilometre of land was encompassed by the conservancies and community forest conservancies at the end of 2018. This represented 55.4% of all communal land in Namibia.

Of this area, conservancies manage 166 179 square kilometres, which comprises 20.2% of Namibia.

“At independence in 1990, there were no registered community conservation areas and a mere 14% of land was under recognised conservation management.

At the end of 2018, land under gazetted natural resource management covered 38.2% of Namibia,” the report says.

With regards to employment, the report says that at the end of 2018, there were 38 conservancies directly involved with tourism activities and 61 joint-venture tourism agreements with enterprises employing 1 174 full-time and 50 part-time employees.

Furthermore, 159 full-time and 119 part-time employees were employed through 48 conservation hunting concessions and 22 SMEs employed 82 full-time and 22 part-time employees.

Conservancies employed 943 staff, while 890 conservancy representatives received allowances. Another 1 083 members benefited from being indigenous plant product harvesters and 414 members were craft producers in communal conservancies in Namibia.

ELLANIE SMIT