Namibia has enacted an innovative approach to rural development, which
recognizes and stimulates the interconnected nature between conservation,
community development and tourism. It’s
called the National Community-Based Natural Resource Management Program or
CBNRM. The program includes conservancies and community forests and is both a
conservation and rural development initiative, improving rural livelihoods
while ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources and the protection of the
environment.
Conservancies generate significant income for community
development through their own initiatives and partnerships with the private
sector, including over 40 joint venture tourism lodges. Today, communal
conservancies cover over 17 % of Namibia’s land area and embrace one in four
rural Namibians. The benefits they generate allow conservancies to cover their
own running costs, invest in community development projects and provide
individual household benefits.
Local communities, through conservancies, are the custodians and
active managers of communal natural resources. The program has delivered great
conservation results, but it has also provided important employment,
significant income and a great range of other benefits to rural people in
remote areas who in the past had few livelihood options. Each conservancy
employs a number of game guards to monitor resources, mitigate human wildlife
conflict and control poaching. Wildlife is monitored using an innovative,
home-grown Event Book system, as well as through annual game counts. The annual
North West Game Count is the largest road-based game count in the world. Around
300 people take part, covering over 17 million acres and 4,350 miles of road, to
simultaneously count game in 30 adjacent conservancies and tourism concessions.
Conservancies are vast, unfenced sanctuaries for free-roaming
wildlife in some of the most spectacular landscapes of Namibia. Joint-venture
lodges offer stylish accommodation in stunning settings and around 25 community
campsites offer excellent camping opportunities. In 2010, Namibia’s Communal
Conservancy Tourism sector was selected as a finalist in the Tourism For
Tomorrow Awards, organized by the World Travel and Tourism Council.
Learn more about opportunities to explore Namibia’s communal
conservancies by visiting www.namibiawildifesafaris.com