Namibia wins big at Berlin travel awards

The Land of the Brave won big at a global travel awards show, with Namibia being recognised as the Best Safari and Wildlife Destination for 2019.

Tourism minister Pohamba Shifeta also scooped the award for the Tourism Minister of the Year for Emerging Destination.

Namibia received the accolades at the Pacific Areas Travel Writers Association (PATWA) awards that took place last week in Berlin, Germany, at the Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin (ITB).

“I want to give the main credit to the women and men in our rural areas, for whom living with wildlife means striving for balanced land use and a healthy environment.

“Game does not need to be eradicated from a landscape because it may pose a threat to crops or livestock, but can be integrated with other rural livelihood activities,” Shifeta said at the ceremony.

He said community conservation covered 163 396 square kilometres in Namibia, which was about 53.4% of all communal land.

Conservancies manage 19.4% of land in Namibia and contribute in excess of N$4 billion to the country's net national income. Community conservation supports wildlife recoveries and environmental restoration.

Shifeta said the success story of Namibia stemmed from the government realising right at the onset at Independence that its natural assets were the bedrock of the tourism industry and ensured that the protection of Namibia's nature and wildlife was enshrined in the constitution.

According to Shifeta Namibia strives for the maintenance of its ecological biodiversity for the benefit of its citizens and the world. Namibia's conservation is therefore based on three pillars.

One of these pillars is conservation across the borders in the form of transfrontier conservation areas.

“Through this approach Namibia is integrating the aspect of conservation to other countries in the SADC region to ensure that fragmented wildlife habitats are joined into an interconnected mosaic of protected areas and transboundary wildlife corridors, which facilitates and enhances the free movement of animals across international borders,” said Shifeta.

Furthermore, they promote long-term protection and sustainable use of natural resources and cultural heritage within member countries.

According to Shifeta Namibia is a member of three transfrontier conservation areas: the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, the /Ai /Ais-Richtersveld Transfrontier Park and the Iona-Skeleton Coast Transfrontier Park.

He said another pillar was the internationally acclaimed community-based natural resources programme which empowered communities and created incentives for sustainable development and co-existence with wildlife.

“Namibia has gained a worldwide reputation for its innovative approaches of linking conservation to poverty alleviation through this conservancy programme and pro-poor tourism initiatives.”

He said this programme would continue to provide communities with incentives to manage and conserve their areas and natural resources to unlock enormous tourism development opportunities and benefits from the use of wildlife.

There are currently 83 registered conservancies in Namibia benefiting thousands of rural communities through employment, cash income, social projects and in-kind benefits.

Shifeta said the third pillar was the protected areas network that included the country's national parks.

“This is significant for economic development through tourist attraction to such protected areas.”

Namibia has 20 state-run protected areas covering about 17% of the country's land surface. These protected areas conserve biodiversity and ecosystems by protecting some of the country's most important habitats and species of national and global significance.

“We pride ourselves in being among the global leaders in conservation and that we offer tourists not only a safe and incredible safari and wildlife experience, but an opportunity to contribute to ecological preservation and biodiversity protection,” said Shifeta.

According to him the awards could not have come at a better time than now, when Namibia was battling to control poaching of rhinos and elephants.

“This will encourage us as the authority and our various stakeholders to do more to stop poaching of high-value species,” he said.

The PATWA International Travel Awards are handed out once a year at ITB Berlin in March.

The ITB attracts an average of 109 000 visitors and 10 000 exhibitors from all over the world.

More than 30 Namibian tourism companies, under the banner of the Namibia Tourism Board, are represented at the tourism trade fair.

ELLANIE SMIT