Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

The Ju/’hoan in Namibia 127
training, and facilitation of community problem
solving to strengthen the NNFC’s ability to plan
and manage a conservancy. The NNFC also used
LIFE funds to add staff, hiring the wildlife biologist
and range management expert mentioned in
the introduction, and later a tourism advisor and
a craft specialist. Second, the LIFE Program
worked as a broker between the community and
the MET, often assisting both groups to find
underlying commonalities by creating opportunities
to share viewpoints and perspectives. When
members of each side met in sessions of the
NNWMC to discuss conservancies, they discovered
that the goals of the MET and the indigenous
community were amazingly consistent. 5
The LIFE advisor had prepared the way by leading
the NNFC through a goal-setting activity that
allowed the community to articulate its objectives
without influence or pressure from the MET.
A March 1996 meeting facilitated by the LIFE
advisor provides a sense of how dialogue between
the two parties evolved. MET representatives and
the NNFC leadership were asked to independently
identify the five or six wildlife species that
were most important to them. Each group also
had to specify the criteria used to rank importance.
Not surprisingly the two parties chose
many of the same species, with the important
exception of the community initially omitting elephants
and predators (lions, leopards, and hyenas).
The groups identified different criteria,
however, with one important exception. The
community’s criteria emphasized importance for
manufacturing household items; spiritual value
for healing; meat; and income. The MET’s criteria
emphasized importance to biodiversity conservation,
ecological integrity, and financial returns.
Each group then explained their “picture” to the
entire group. After a long discussion of biodiversity—what
it is and why it is important—the
community members agreed to add this criteria to
their matrix. And when the community realized
the financial benefits that elephants and predators
could bring to the community, those animals were
added to the species list.
Perhaps more important than the actual matrix was
the discussion it sparked. Both groups saw value
in managing the wildlife, and the MET was willing
to accept use by the community in return for
their anticipated support. Similarly the Ju’/’hoan
were willing to tolerate the threat and costs of elephants,
lions, and other predators if they could be
assured of financial return from these species.
Both sides saw the importance of collaboration
with the private sector in meeting their objectives.
The LIFE Program agreed to facilitate contacts
with vendors to solicit bids and terms.
One of the last remaining hurdles was agreeing
on how to determine baseline population numbers
for each species in order to set offtake quotas.
Although the face-to-face dialogues had
made progress in resolving problems between
the two parties, the long history of mistrust and
lack of transparency and accountability made it
impossible for either side to simply accept
information provided by the other stakeholder in
a matter this crucial. Senior MET officials
joined the NNWMC dialogue soon after
Parliament passed the conservancy bill, but
holdover staff in Tsumkwe seemed either
incompetent to perform the technical tasks
assigned to them or unwilling to do so. From
MET’s point of view, the NNFC had no experience
in conducting so complicated a task.
The LIFE Program addressed this mismatch by
providing funds for the NNFC to hire their own
wildlife biologist and range management expert
as consultants. They were to play a dual role,
helping the community develop a plan that could
stand on its merits and providing analysis of MET
figures to assess their reliability. As discussions
between MET staff and the NNFC leadership
unfolded, it became clear that undertaking independent
data collection and comparing results
would only exacerbate the conflict. When this
was factored into the duplication of costs and the
number of skilled people it would take, the consultants
suggested a combination of approaches
(Stuart-Hill and Perkins 1997). MET would conduct
a regional census of game populations to
provide a broad view of distribution and population
trends. MET and the NNFC would jointly
carry out a census to obtain estimated populations
in Nyae Nyae. Each party would independently
evaluate the buffalo population to assess its condition
and gender and age distributions, and then
compare the results. Finally, the NNFC would be
responsible for monitoring harvested game.
In May 1997, just as the final snarls seemed
smoothed out and the conservancy was on its