The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism revealed that conservancies in Namibia have created about 5,000 permanent and temporary jobs, although it remains concerned with prevalent cases of human-wildlife conflict.
Minister Pohamba Shifeta said human-wildlife conflict incidents overshadow the benefits of the conservancies.
There are nearly 80 conservancies in Namibia.
“Through the conservancy programme close to 5,000 jobs were facilitated, comprising 998, community members employed in conservancies: 774 full time and 62 part-time employed in joint venture tourism enterprises. A further 130 full time and 188 part time worked in the conservation hunting sectors, while the remaining are employed in small and medium enterprises,” Shifeta said.
In addition, he said, a total of N$91.7 million of cash and in-kind, was generated from conservancies benefiting 238 701 members of the community.
“The Ministry is also engaged in providing meat to community and national events to the value of over N$9.2 million. However, incidences of human wildlife conflict remain a concern as they seem to overshadow the benefits as well as opportunities created for Namibians,” the minister stressed.
He narrated that such incidents mainly involve infrastructure damages, livestock losses, crop damages, and in some unfortunate loss of life and injuries to people.
“These incidents all affect the livelihoods of our people. To manage and address the impact of human wildlife conflict, the Ministry has developed the National Policy initially implemented in 2009 and revised in 2018.
“Together with other stakeholders we are involved and implementing measures such as elephant and lion collaring; early warning system, lion ranger programme, construction of predator proof kraals, translocation of problem causing animals, as well as declarations of putting down of problematic,” he added.
According to statistics provided early this the Ministry has to date paid out N$24 million in compensation since 2019. This includes 33 claims for loss of life, of which 15 were in 2022 and two were recorded in 2023.
In terms of crop damages, 2,637 hectares were destroyed by wild animals, of which 270 hectares were recorded in 2022 and 60 hectares so far in 2023 mainly damaged by elephants
As a burning matter, Shifeta said the Ministry is planning to host a national conference in May, where stakeholders will dissect the issue of human-wildlife conflict and propose long lasting solutions to address it.
In the same vein, he urged communities and property owners in human-wildlife conflict prone areas to put in place preventive and mitigation measures.
