Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

120 The Ju/’hoan in Namibia
local resource manager see clear linkages
between costs and benefits: As farmers manage
resources more intensively to increase population
numbers, they receive the benefit of higher quotas.
These quotas generally translate into financial
returns through live sale, tourism, and trophy
hunting. It is assumed that these benefits will be
incentives to use natural resources sustainably,
thereby helping to improve conservation of biodiversity
and habitats outside of protected areas
like the Khaudum Game Reserve.
Although Namibia now has strong legislation for
community wildlife management, it does not
directly address the greatest threat to the
Ju/’hoan, the lack of secure tenure over their land
and other resources. In the case of the challenge
posed by the Herero cattle herds, the partnership
between the NNFC and MET to establish a conservancy
may have influenced the government’s
decision in June 1997 to order the Herero to
leave Nyae Nyae. However the growing pressure
being brought to bear by Bushmen both inside
and outside the country for tenure rights may
also have played a role. 2 At any rate, by the end
of 1997 all but one Herero family had complied.
III. The Evolution of Communitybased
Natural Resource
Management in Nyae Nyae
The story of how a partnership formed to bring
effective community-based natural resource management
to Nyae Nyae is complicated. It extends
over nearly a decade and involves an extensive
cast of actors (see figure 7.3). The story proceeds
in three phases: impasse and the search for new
approaches; revamping community institutions to
take ownership of the project; and negotiating with
outsiders to create a conservancy. Because there
are so many diverse threads to this story, these
phases contain areas of overlap. Like snapshots
taken at three intervals, they show the growth and
capacity of community organization among the
Ju/’hoan as they struggle to become effective
stakeholders in managing the land they live on.
3.1 Institutional Gridlock and a New LIFE
(1990–1995)
To a great extent, what is happening in Namibia
today would not have been possible without fundamental
policy changes at the national level.
MET did not begin with a blank slate. It inherited
field staff, policies, and a history of conflict
with communities from its colonial predecessor,
the Department of Nature Conservation (DNC).
Charged with managing wildlife throughout the
country, the DNC concentrated on a system of
parks and game reserves and limited its rural outreach
activities to law enforcement, the control of
problem animals (predators killing livestock and
elephants destroying crops), and ad hoc environmental
awareness-building. In Nyae Nyae, most
of the effort went into building up the infrastructure
of the Khaudum Game Reserve and restricting
its use by local people. Water points were
constructed to encourage game to enter the
reserve, and DNC staff patrolled to control
poaching by local people. They had the authority
to enter people’s homes to apprehend suspects
and to build campsites on community land for
use by government staff. Many such activities
were carried out without consulting local residents
or n!ore leaders.
Following independence, the DNC was replaced
by MET. The pace of change since 1990 has
been rapid, as the new ministry has increasingly
focused on the development of ideas and practices
that link conservation with development to
improve the quality of life for all Namibians. In
1991, MET began reaching out to local NGOs to
conduct socio-ecological surveys of local views
about resource management to identify problems
and solutions. The survey in Nyae Nyae was the
beginning of a different kind of relationship
between the agency and the community. While it
did not result in joint planning and implementation
of wildlife management, it legitimized faceto-face
contacts and began a dialogue that might
one day make those outcomes possible.
At the time, of course, one could not tell what
direction was being followed. Certainly MET
delivered confusing and contradictory messages
to the people of Nyae Nyae. Those messages
reflected deep conflicts within the ministry
between those who thought nature had to be protected
from local people and those who wanted
to find a new way. One day representatives from
MET would arrive bringing promises of local
control over and benefit from the community’s
wildlife, while the next day another set of staff
would install pumps at water points for game