Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

CHAPTER 7
Environmental Governance: Lessons
From the Ju/’hoan Bushmen in
Northeastern Namibia
Barbara Wyckoff-Baird 1
I. Introduction
Smoke hangs in the still air, pierced by sunlight
slanting through the doorway of the training center’s
conference room. On one side sit leaders
and community rangers from the Nyae Nyae
Farmers Cooperative (NNFC), representing about
3,000 Ju/’hoan Bushmen living in northeastern
Namibia. On the other side are staff of the
Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism
(MET). It is something of an accomplishment
just to have both parties sitting quietly together
in the same place. It is even more unusual that
they are listening intently to the same thing.
Everyone has come to hear a wildlife biologist
and a range management expert from Botswana
who were hired by the NNFC to help draft a
game management plan. The wildlife biologist is
quite blunt. He says the Ju/’hoan are not using
their wildlife sustainably. He suggests that the
community curtail its hunting.
As the translator conveys this message, it sparks
sharp comments in Ju/’hoansi, the local language.
NNFC representatives direct these comments
not at the biologist, but toward one
another. Most of these men are old; many are
expert hunters who have tracked on foot and used
bows and arrows to bring down buffalo, giraffe,
eland, kudu, and other animals. The Ju/’hoan
people, who are also known as the !Kung and the
Ju/Wasi, are no longer, strictly speaking, huntergatherers.
They pursue a mixed economy, combining
foraging and subsistence hunting with
livestock production, small-scale dryland agriculture,
craftwork, and wage labor. In the Nyae
Nyae area they still exploit a wide variety of
resources, including more than 120 species of
edible plants and dozens of large and small mam-