Copyright

Selma Lendelvo; Sian Sullivan; Ute Dieckmann

Published On

2024-08-02

Page Range

pp. 109–140

Language

  • English

Print Length

32 pages

3. CBNRM and landscape approaches to conservation in Kunene Region, post-Independence

Chapter of: Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast: Conservation Histories, Policies and Practices in North-west Namibia(pp. 109–140)
We review how national post-Independence policy supporting Community-Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) has played out in Etosha-Kunene, highlighting a new impetus towards a “landscape approach” for conservation in communal areas. Communal land immediately to the west of Etosha National Park is currently divided into a series of communal area conservancies, inhabited by pastoralist populations relying additionally on varying combinations of horticulture, gathering and hunting. A new donor-funding trend is now noticeable towards recognising how landscapes with conservation and livelihood value overlap these areas. In the 2000s a Kunene People’s Park was proposed to connect the Hobatere, Etendeka and Palmwag Tourism Concessions between Etosha Pan and the Skeleton Coast, although this was never formalised. In 2018 proposals for a ‘People’s Park’ were reignited with international support by conservation donors and the British royal family. Present proposals for an Ombonde People’s Park/Landscape currently comprised primarily of two conservancies on the western boundary of Etosha National Park are being implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism with support by multiple donors. We provide an overview of conservation changes in Etosha-Kunene for the three decades since Namibia’s Independence in 1990.

Contributors

Selma Lendelvo

(author)
Associate Research Professor at University of Namibia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9793-6950

Selma Lendelvo is an associate research professor in life sciences, and currently the Director for the Centre for Grants Management and Resource Mobilization at the University of Namibia (UNAM) with a research and project management experience spanning over 20 years. Her work and publications have mainly been on community-based natural resources management and rural development including cross-cutting aspects such as gender and climate change. Selma also works closely with the government and other practitioners on the ground to strengthen natural resources management, conservation and community development in Namibia and beyond. She serves on the Namibia National Committee for the Rio Conventions, the Namibian Nature Conservation Board and the Namibia Association for CBNRM Support organisations (NACSO). Her collaborations with regional and international partners have been instrumental in shaping and advancing her research and professional career.

Sian Sullivan

(author)
Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0522-8843
http://www.futurepasts.net/

Sian Sullivan is Professor of Environment and Culture at Bath Spa University. She is interested in discourses and practices of difference and exclusion in relation to ecology and conservation. She has carried out long-term research on conservation, colonialism, and culture in Namibia (www.futurepasts.net and www.etosha-kunene-histories.net), and also engages critically with the financialisation of nature (see www.the-natural-capital-myth.net). She has co-edited Political Ecology: Science, Myth and Power (2000), Contributions to Law, Philosophy and Ecology: Exploring Re-embodiments (2016), Valuing Development, Environment and Conservation: Creating Values that Matter (2018), and Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis (2021).

Ute Dieckmann

(author)
Anthropologist at University of Cologne
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9640-6942
https://www.xoms-omis.org/

Ute Dieckmann is an anthropologist at the University of Cologne and currently German Principal Investigator for Etosha-Kunene Histories (www.etosha-kunene-histories.net), supported by the German Research Foundation and the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. She has carried out long-term research in Namibia on colonialism, nature conservation and indigeneity. For many years, she has worked at the Legal Assistance Centre in Windhoek, doing research with and advocacy for marginalised and indigenous communities in Namibia and was coordinator of the Xoms |Omis Project (https://www.xoms-omis.org/). She has edited Mapping the Unmappable? Cartographic Explorations with Indigenous Peoples in Africa (2021) and co-edited Scraping the Pot? San in Namibia Two Decades After Independence (2014).