Wildlife strategy wins kudos

A vast conservation area in southern Africa is attracting attention for innovative strategies aimed at minimizing conflict between cattle herders and predators.

The Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area encompasses lands where the borders of Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Angola meet.

According to a report by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the United Nations Environment Programme, an integrated approach to managing human-wildlife conflict has led to a 95 percent reduction in livestock killings in the area. The farmers have not retaliated against lions, among the main culprits in livestock losses. The numbers of the previously threatened predators have begun to recover.

The movement of lions across borders and between national parks is supported by the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area Treaty, signed by the five member states. It ensures that wild species are protected and the livelihoods of people living within those areas are enhanced.

In 2012 and 2013, cattle predation in community conservancies next to two smaller parks in Namibia, the Mudumu and Rupara national parks, peaked with the killings of 135 animals. In retaliation, 17 lions from one of the national parks were killed. The situation deteriorated to the extent that only a lioness from one pride remained by the end of 2014, the report said.

The Kwando Carnivore Project－set up in the Zambezi region of Namibia, an area central to the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area－started addressing the issue in 2013, the report said.

It was evident that predations occurred when free-ranging, unprotected cattle roamed the area at night. The installation of fixed and mobile lion-proof corrals for nighttime protection in risk-prone areas led to fewer killings of cattle.

The practice also opened new opportunities for sustainable agriculture, since the manure produced by the corralled cattle can be used as fertilizer.

The report, titled "A future for all－the need for human-wildlife coexistence", praised the conservancy approach with its monitoring practices, mitigation through the offsetting of losses, and the promotion of tourism.

Today, eight reproducing prides of lions are found in the Kwando landscape, and young adult males are moving into Botswana and Angola.

"The Kwando Carnivore Project has demonstrated that effective human-wildlife conflict management enables lions to thrive in an agricultural landscape inhabited by 100,000 people and 150,000 cattle, resulting in multiple ecosystem services benefits," the report said.

Legal framework

The report also recognizes Namibia for its success in developing a legal and operational framework for the management of human-wildlife conflict, noting that the country has some of the most progressive environmental protection laws in the world.

It is one of the few countries where the constitution promotes the adoption of policies aimed at maintenance of ecosystems, ecological processes, and biodiversity.

Namibian community-based natural resource management policies provide for decentralized rights over wildlife and tourism to be bestowed upon communal area conservancies, which are self-governing legal entities.

The conservancies, represented by an elected committee, work to protect their wildlife and environment and earn revenue from the sustainable use of natural resources, including tourism and hunting, the report said. Since the establishment of conservancies in the 1990s, the elephant population has tripled, the largest population of free-roaming black rhinos has been secured, and conservation has contributed about $86 million to Namibia's net national income.

In 2018, the conservancies generated about $10 million from tourism and trophy hunting.

The report, which featured contributions from 155 experts from 40 organizations based in 27 countries, said human-wildlife conflict is as much a development and humanitarian issue as it is a conservation concern, affecting the income of farmers, herders, artisanal fishers, and indigenous peoples.

"The report is a call for the adoption of approaches that identify and address the deeper, underlying causes of conflict while developing systemic solutions with affected communities as active and equal participants in the process," said Susan Gardner, director of the UNEP's ecosystems division.