A community-based approach to maintaining wildlife corridors in Zambezi Region, Namibia

Community Conservancies in Zambezi Region, Namibia have identified wildlife corridors in their zonation plans. Several of these conservancies fall within Wildlife Dispersal Areas identified by the KAZA TFCA and their corridors... [ view full abstract ]

Community Conservancies in Zambezi Region, Namibia have identified wildlife corridors in their zonation plans. Several of these conservancies fall within Wildlife Dispersal Areas identified by the KAZA TFCA and their corridors facilitate movement of wildlife across international boundaries. However there are several threats to these corridors including establishment of new settlements and fields, registration of customary land rights, and provision of infrastructure and services along main roads. The Namibian NGO, Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation has been working with conservancies to identify how corridors can be maintained while meeting human needs. A methodology has been developed that includes the following:

• Meetings with conservancy management committees, game guards and indunas (headmen) to identify problems in maintaining corridors and solutions to problems;
• Awareness for indunas on importance of corridors and importance of their role in maintaining corridors;
• Village meetings to verify support for the conservancy zonation plan, including the corridors;
• Research on settlement in corridors, the number of people claiming customary land rights, attitudes to wildlife and corridors, and on conditions under which members would be willing not to settle in a corridor or to relocate from a corridor; 
• Mapping of customary land rights;
• Provision of feedback on the results of the research to conservancy management committees and indunas;
• Exploration of Payment for Ecosystem Services to support maintenance of corridors through income to the community.

Results: Dzoti and Sobbe Conservancies developed detailed plans and actions for maintaining corridors which were approved at Annual General Meetings. Sobbe in particular is making good progress in implementing its plan. A similar approach is being followed in the Salambala and Nakobolelwa conservancies where elephant and zebra use wildlife corridors to move between Botswana and Namibia.

We suggest the potential success of the approach is that it is based on zonation plans designed and approved by the communities rather than top down drawing of lines on maps by external agencies which is common in the design and implementation of TFCAs in southern Africa.