New wildlife bill coming

The environment ministry aims to enact the Wildlife and Protective Areas Management Bill by early next year. A final national consultative meeting on the bill was held yesterday during which the ministry announced it aims to table it in parliament next year. In its current state, the draft bill is 228 pages long. It will be the most important piece of legislation governing wildlife and protective areas as it repeals two acts that previously dealt with this. The bill will repeal Nature Conservation Ordinance Number 4 of 1975 and the Controlled Wildlife Products and Trade Act Number 9 of 2008 that implemented the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, 1973. According to the deputy environment minister, Bernadette Jagger, the Nature Conservation Ordinance has been on the statute book for far too long and has been amended several times. “Though still operational and implementable, it is not readily available in the law books since there is no reprint of those books to make all the old laws readily available.”She said the Controlled Wildlife Products and Trade Act needs to be repealed because it almost provides for the same matters as provided in the Nature Conservation Ordnance. “The bill is therefore necessary to bring wildlife and protected area management on par with new developments in wildlife and land management in order to contribute to sustainable development, poverty reduction and eradication.” The new bill has 12 sections of which the section dealing with wild animals and protection of species is the largest. This part contains 33 sections on wild animals and protection of species. The bill will also now deal with the profession of conservation hunting. It introduces a formalised and regulated conservation hunting profession and contains registration of the profession, training in conservation hunting as well as regulations to acts of misconduct. According to Jagger, Namibia is committed to wildlife protected area management and the sustainable use of wildlife resources and has made good progress in this regard. “But now is the opportunity and time to improve on our legislation to better manage our wildlife and protected areas to benefit our country,” Jagger said.“It has taken very long to draft this bill. We are now at the right stage that we have a document that we are comfortable with. The final product is one that responds to the conservation and protected area needs of Namibia,” said acting permanent secretary Teofilus Nghitila. According to him the drafting of the bill started at the same time as the Environmental Act which was passed in 2007. ELLANIE SMIT

New wildlife bill coming

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-15

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New wildlife bill coming

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-15

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