Why WILD and why livelihoods?

WILD was owned and initiated by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) and funded under a bilateral agreement between the UK and Namibian Governments through the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

The idea for the WILD project emerged in response to changes in the situation on communal land brought about by the 1996 legislation that made legal provision for the formation of communal area conservancies. These conservancies provided the potential for communal area residents to benefit from wildlife-based enterprises, in a similar way to the freehold farmers, yet little was known about how communal area farmers could make best use of the opportunities available to them and how these would fit with existing livelihoods. The experiences of the freehold farmers had clearly shown that given the right conditions and level of government support wildlife-based enterprises offered some possibilities for diversifying farm enterprises and livelihood opportunities. The differences between the organisation of freehold farm enterprises and the nature of small scale farming on communal lands are great – not least of which being the lack of security of group land tenure, and private ownership over resources for communal area residents. Therefore, lessons provided by the freehold context would not necessarily provide an understanding of the kinds of trade-offs and impacts that integrating wildlife with livestock or cropping based livelihoods would have for communal farmers. The rationale for the project also emerged in response to increasing concerns for addressing rural economic development and improving livelihood opportunities within communal areas and the government’s concerns for reducing poverty. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism established the WILD project to explore options for livelihood diversification based on wildlife-based enterprises.

During the preparatory phase of WILD it was broadly agreed that there was a need to understand the relationship between different land and natural resource uses and rural livelihoods. Participatory workshops in two sites in the north west of Namibia during the preparations for WILD (in 1996) had revealed that communal farmers were interested in gaining a better understanding of not only what benefits new wildlife-based opportunities may bring, but also the costs associated with wildlife and an assessment of any livelihood trade offs involved in adopting these new land uses. WILD then was to focus on the livelihood implications of integrating wildlife and tourism as a land use strategy. During the initial design phase there was a general consensus among participants that the project should focus research on the opportunities that wildlife as a land use presented in support of diversifying livelihoods. The research was deemed to be useful not only to local community members, but also to technicians, government decision makers, development workers and donors.

WILD research was designed to support decision making in CBNRM so as to enhance benefits to livelihoods. The key questions that WILD aimed to address were:

1. What are the implications for livelihoods of changing NRM activities and options within conservancies?

2. Which critical factors affect these and how?

3. Who within communities is affected and in what ways?

The core of WILD research focused on collecting community and household level livelihood data to explore the following:

• Peoples’ current livelihood strategies: What are the main types of activities, options and impacts of change? Who is experiencing what kinds of impact?

• What are the costs, benefits and trade-offs for individual households (who is affected and how)?

• What are the key factors that shape livelihoods and decision-making?

By focusing on livelihoods the project aimed to address poverty issues including, but not restricted to, the following; resource access, vulnerability, minimising risk, coping with drought, and issues of community differentiation, membership, cohesion and equity.

To address these questions required research that was focused on two core components and their interface. A comprehensive livelihoods analysis was needed combined with an understanding of the NRM activities and options that were the focus of CBNRM. This would include research that focused on peoples’ existing strategies and activities, the resources they had access to and the range of critical factors, including local institutional and political contexts, the interventions of service providers, policy and legislation, and the prices and markets that affected livelihood outcomes. This analysis would be used to explore the various ways in which changing resource management practices (both practical and institutional arrangements) had implications for livelihoods. In essence the research and analysis aimed to explore the interface between livelihoods and integrating wildlife and tourism through the support provided by the CBNRM programme.

The Research

Field research was implemented by two field research teams and a project team leader. The field teams consisted of senior researchers and graduate level research assistants. One team was based in Kunene region and the other in Caprivi region. The project was coordinated and run by the project team leader based in Windhoek. Implementation was carried out in direct partnership with both the MET CBNRM sub-division (CSD) in the Directorate of Parks and Wildlife Management (DPWM), and the DEA Environmental Economics Unit (EEU) and NGO’s. A project Steering Committee, with membership drawn from government, the NGO sector and research bodies provided strategic guidance to the project during its three-year duration.

The main field sites where research was carried out in Caprivi region, were Salambala and Mayuni conservancies, but other research was carried out in Kwandu and Mashi conservancies. In Kunene, core research was conducted with Torra and ≠Khoadi //Hôas conservancies. Other less intensive research was conducted with Ehirovipuka conservancy, in northern Kunene and Sorris Sorris conservancy in Erongo region.

WILD adopted a sustainable livelihoods perspective and research framework in the implementation of the research and took an holistic view, encompassing both social development and economic perspectives. Research at household level focused on existing consumption and production strategies and resource access/availability (sources of incomes and food); the contribution that the new opportunities CBNRM provided; the variety of ways in which these are governed in terms of institutional and social relationships at the local and wider levels and what effect these have on different groups of people within conservancies. This resulted in not only an analysis of costs and benefits associated with CBNRM, but also explored issues relating to governance, policies and institutions at both the local and national levels. It is important to recognise that WILD was not designed as a programme evaluation, and yet taking an holistic approach also entailed an analysis of the range of external factors that affect livelihoods. A combination of participatory, qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed by the project.

Details relating to the characteristics of the research sites, the framework and methods used can be found in the research papers, and final project report provided through this website.

Summary of key conclusions:

Overall Impact of the CBNRM Programme

Namibia’s CBNRM programme evolved from the activities of a handful of NGO personnel, government staff and traditional leaders to address wildlife conservation. It has grown into a national programme, supported by rights based policy and legislation. CBNRM has the dual objectives of addressing both sustainable natural resource management and use, and socio-economic development. In the context of supporting rural development CBNRM also aims to contribute directly to social empowerment and capacity building in rural areas. CBNRM is now explicitly recognised by government as a legitimate strategy that can contribute to sustainable development. The implementation of CBNRM is organised through the Namibia Association of CBNRM Support Organisations (NACSO) and the MET CBNRM Sub-division. Key areas of support focus on what are known as the ‘three pillars’ of CBNRM, namely, Natural Resource Management, Enterprise Development and Institutional Development. Current benefit streams aimed at providing benefits to households at conservancy level include:

• Employment through tourism and the conservancy,

• Income generation through craft sales,

• Access to meat from community harvesting,

• The distribution of household cash dividends,

• Addressing livelihood threats from living with wildlife and mitigating Human Wildlife Conflict.

At a number of levels CBNRM has achieved much. It has contributed to the protection and recovery of wildlife species, and improved wildlife management practices. It has promoted wildlife and tourism as land uses in communal areas and demonstrated the economic value of these resources to the national economy. It has enabled communities to generate substantial incomes from consumptive and non-consumptive tourism. It has contributed to the social empowerment of formerly disadvantaged rural peoples, and has enabled them to take more control over tourism and development activities in their areas. CBNRM also actively supported government to bring changes to policy and legislation in favour of restoring rights over wildlife to rural communities. CBNRM approaches have now entered the mainstream and outside of the wildlife and tourism sectors are being adopted and adapted as an implementation strategy in the forestry, fisheries and water sectors.

CBNRM is a fast expanding and growing programme, but is still in its infancy. Some argue that it is therefore too soon to evaluate the impacts of the programme at a household or livelihood level, nor is it appropriate yet to explore the potential effects of CBNRM in terms of broader national development objectives (poverty reduction, economic growth, job creation, etc). As the findings of WILD research demonstrate, however, it is, on the contrary, very important to assess progress as early as possible and to be able to use research in a dynamic way to adjust strategies and implementation practices.

CBNRM in the wildlife sector has increasingly faced a number of challenges. Not least of which is the exponential growth of registered conservancies. The logistical challenge of providing support to the huge number of communities actively involved at one stage or another in the development of conservancies, practically outstrips the capacities of government and NGO support organisations to provide the requisite support needed. Not withstanding this formidable challenge there are other challenges relating to meeting the development objectives of CBNRM that are also pressing.

Government has expressed concerns over the extent to which CBNRM is able to directly support the livelihoods of rural communities and in so doing contribute directly to the national development targets of poverty reduction and rural economic growth. CBNRM has enjoyed the support of major international donors over the last 10 or more years, but the long standing partnership with key donors (principally USAID and WWF) is now entering a new phase. Questions are being raised about the extent to which CBNRM has been able to address issues of governance and reduce poverty - there has been very little evaluation and monitoring of impacts at the conservancy level and there is no system of monitoring and evaluation to track the effectiveness of CBNRM within conservancies. Within the CBNRM programme itself, some practitioners (particularly those concerned with community and rural development) are also expressing similar concerns. At the community level people are concerned about the extent to which the benefits of CBNRM are being widely distributed among the rural populations, and in some cases the extent to which decision making is dominated by local political and wealthy elites is also of concern. At the community level there are also concerns relating to the effectiveness of CBNRM to deal with critical issues like Human Wildlife Conflict.

The research materials available here provide an analysis of these challenges and offer a number of recommendations to address them.
 

Project outputs and findings

The final report of the WILD project provides an overarching analysis of project data. The report includes a description of the framework and methodologies employed, and analysis and discussion relating to the following areas:

• The evolution and implementation of CBNRM and associated policy, legislative and institutional arrangements (Chapters 3 and 4)

• Peoples’ existing use of resources, their key livelihood strategies, activities and priorities (Chapter 5)

• The role of wildlife (huntable game) for livelihoods in terms of both household use and the collective use of wildlife through community harvesting and institutional issues associated with governing wildlife use at conservancy levels (Chapter 6)

• The implications of living with wildlife in terms of costs (Chapter 7)

• The relationship between opportunities from tourism and livelihoods (Chapter 8)

• Institutional arrangements and power relationships at the conservancy and wider levels (primarily in terms of access and control over resources and implications for livelihoods (Chapters 6 and 9))

• A narrative conclusion and series of specific recommendations

The project working papers, provide research materials that relates to the various components of the research and present the research data and preliminary analysis. The research discussion papers focus on a number of key livelihood and CBNRM issues. Also available here for download are poster format summaries of survey data for each of the conservancies that were surveyed. These are in the form of PDF files.
 

Document downloads

• Project working papers

• Final report

Resource links

A series of links to other CBNRM web resources are provided below:

• CBNRM NET - www.cbnrm.net

• Frameweb - www.frameweb.org

• University of north western cape - www.cbnrm.uwc.ac.za

Contacts

DEA Project Director (Teofilus Nghitila)

Directorate of Environmental Affairs, Ministry of Environment and Tourism
Tel: +264 +61 +249015
Fax: +264 +61 +240339

And

J. Barnes, Environmental Economics Unit within the DEA.