Human-Wildlife Conflict in a ‘successful’ Community Conservation Programme: Economic and territorial impacts on Namibia's conservancies

Highlights

• Conservation ‘success’ in terms of wildlife growth intensifies Human-Wildlife Conflict.

• Human-Wildlife Conflict costs are often perceived as outweighing conservation-related benefits.

• Human-Wildlife Conflict and mitigation measures lead to land division and restriction of access to resources.

• HWC and mitigation reinforce discourses prioritizing conservation-related land uses vs agropastoralism

• Mitigation measures contradict Community Conservation’s vision of open rural areas shared by wildlife and communities.

Abstract

Since the 1990s Namibia's Conservancies have been depicted as one of the most successful examples of Community Conservation. The growth in game numbers caused by the conservation programme, however, has led to an increase in Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC) incidents. These include damages to crops and to infrastructure, the killing of livestock, attacks on humans, and higher levels of psychological stress among affected populations. Local voices often express the feeling that neither compensation payments nor conservation-related benefits outweigh HWC costs. Furthermore, HWC has territorial impacts: it is leading to more restricted access to some areas of land and it reinforces government and NGO discourses in favour of conservation rather than agropastoral land uses. Through the analysis of some specific case-studies we will try to understand these processes, to provide a nuanced view of events on the ground and to explore the potentialities and difficulties of combining wildlife and agropastoral activities on the same lands. It will be shown how, even in reasonably successful conservation schemes, it is difficult to provide rural residents with benefits that would offset HWC costs, and how, most importantly, contrary to the initial Community Conservation ideas of coexistence of human and wildlife populations in open areas, HWC and the measures advocated to prevent it are pushing for stricter boundaries and growing enclosure of separate areas for humans and fauna.

Introduction

In the last decades numerous African countries have implemented Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programmes, aimed at improving both biodiversity conservation and the socioeconomic development of rural communities. Where these initiatives have resulted in an increase of wildlife populations, one of the consequences has been an intensification of Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC) incidents, especially in places where wild animals are close to inhabited, cultivated and grazed areas.

HWC has been reported in many countries despite continental wildlife decreases throughout the twentieth century. Human population increases, growing wildlife numbers due to conservation programmes and the fragmentation or loss of habitats are amongst the main causes of HWC (Naughton-Treves and Treves, 2005: 253–254; Barua et al., 2013: 310). Increasing damages attributed to carnivores have been recorded worldwide (Rust et al., 2016: 1079–1080), and significant levels of conflict occur in Mozambique (Dunham et al., 2010: 185), South Africa (Anthony et al., 2010: 225–226), Kenya (Evans and Adams, 2016) or Tanzania (Goldman et al., 2013: 5–6), to mention just a few examples.

HWC may have multiple impacts on the affected human populations and their livelihoods. These may range from damages to crops and to infrastructure (boreholes and other water points, fences), the killing of livestock, and attacks on humans. Wildlife can also assist in the spreading of livestock diseases. HWC does not affect people evenly, as not everybody is equally vulnerable to it nor capable to recover from its consequences (Khumalo and Yung, 2015: 232). Unsurprisingly, HWC tends to impact more heavily on ‘weaker socioeconomic sections of society’ (Barua et al., 2013: 310), who experience more difficulties to afford the cost of mitigation measures and on whose livelihoods damages have a more severe impact (Adams, 2004: 115–117). Conservation institutions have acknowledged that ‘many of the people affected by HWC are some of the most impoverished on earth’ (WWF, 2008: 5).

Besides the more visible or evident effects, HWC causes what have been called ‘hidden’ impacts. They include, on the one hand, physical and psychological stress on rural residents due to the dangers inherent to coexistence with some species of wildlife and to the extra workload required by preventive measures and reconstruction efforts. On the other hand, it may lead to the abandonment or reduction of agricultural activities that are perceived as too costly or not remunerative enough in view of growing HWC-related losses (Barua et al., 2013: 310). Assessing the impact of HWC is, therefore, an important part in the analysis of CBNRM, not only in order to understand the effects described above, but because, as it will be seen, HWC-related damages and its compensation is often linked to the valuation of conservation schemes by local residents.

Since the 1990s Namibia - one of the most arid countries in Africa South of the Sahara, with 70% of its land being considered as arid or semi-arid (Dieckmann et al., 2013: 33–36) - has been implementing a programme of Communal Conservancies described as among the most successful in Africa, both in terms of its contribution to rural populations’ economy and of wildlife numbers increases outside of Protected Areas (PAs) (Bollig and Olwage, 2016: 14–15; Naidoo et al., 2016: 3). It is important to mention that research and monitoring of wildlife numbers is not always carried out according to systematic and scientific methods within the programme and that not all Conservancies are witnessing wildlife increases (Verschueren et al., 2020). Trends are not linear either and, as it will be seen in more detail, drought may lead to reduction in game numbers. It can, however be safely stated that in general the CBNRM programme has contributed to an increase in wildlife numbers, especially as the previous period (1960s–80s) was a time of widespread poaching and warfare, accompanied by a severe drought in the 1980s, that resulted in declining wildlife populations (Bollig and Olwage, 2016).

On Communal Lands, communities can establish Conservancies which are granted the right to manage wildlife within their boundaries, as well as an annual quota of trophy and consumption hunting, and which can initiate communal tourism enterprises or joint-ventures with private partners. In 2017 there were 83 Conservancies, occupying, together with Community Forests, 53% of all Communal Lands, and delivering over N$ 132 million (8,67 million €) in cash income and in-kind benefits (NACSO, 2018: 7, 28, 65).

Expanding wildlife, both in terms of numbers and geographical range, has led, though, to an increase in HWC. A report by the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA)¹ stated that, for the period 2006–10, HWC damages had resulted in ‘significant financial loss’ for members of the Conservancies supported by the institution (Brown, 2011: 2). In recent years, continued and severe droughts have made the problem worse, as wildlife and livestock compete for the scarce grazing and water resources, and predators intensify their preying on domestic animals. Reports are innumerable. In 2016, in Oshikoto region 100 cases of killed livestock, 219 ha of destroyed crops and 4 human deaths were reported (Haidula, 2016). In the same year, in Kavango, the VaGciriku Hompa (Traditional Authority), Kassian Shiyamba, asked the government ‘to look into the issue of human wildlife conflict as residents are affected’ (Muyamba, 2016). In Torra Conservancy, cattle, small stock, kudus (Tragelaphus strepsiceros). and gemsbok (Oryx gazella) numbers were all decreasing due to drought and the use of the same grazing areas. Carnivores, on the rise due to the conservation programme, were reported as more prone to attack livestock in view of the reduction in ungulate populations (Felton, 2016).

Data collected by the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organizations (NACSO), the institution that coordinates NGOs providing support to community conservation in Namibia, established the yearly number of reported incidents at 7.095 in 2008 (134 per Conservancy), 7.279 in 2012 (95 per Conservancy) and 8.067 in 2017 (106 per Conservancy). The increasing trend in incidents during the drought years is clearly visible, but NACSO also highlights that the average cases of HWC has remained stable, as the increase in attacks also reflects a bigger number of gazetted Conservancies. The number of incidents affecting crops (13,1 per Conservancy) seems to be declining, while those involving livestock (91,1 per Conservancy) are far more numerous and on the rise (NACSO 2018: 44, 45).

The Namibian case is worth exploring in detail as it will help us understand the effects of HWC on rural populations within a conservation programme considered as successful - or at least more successful than other African experiences. In order to do this, this paper will not only focus on the socioeconomic and safety impacts but also on what I call the territorial consequences of HWC: how HWC and its preventative measures influence the use of land by the affected populations.