Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

128 The Ju/’hoan in Namibia
way, the governor of Otjozondjupa Region
refused to ratify the boundaries. Apparently this
stemmed as much from uncertainty about, as
rejection of, the concept. Conservancy advocates
in Namibia had not brought local government
into the process sufficiently for officeholders to
understand the policy or its effect on their interests.
Outreach was limited to an explanatory letter
from the Permanent Secretary of MET and to
a governors’ workshop held jointly by MET and
LIFE in June 1997. Most regional authorities
simply did not know what conservancies were
when the first communities approached them for
approval of proposed boundaries. Once the MET
explained the policy, its importance, and the role
of regional government, the governor signed the
application. As a senior staff member in the
MET explained it, “Many regional councils are
now behind the conservancy policy. We are the
only ones paying any attention to them.”
In January 1998, the MET officially recognized
the Nyae Nyae Conservancy as the first in the
country and approved an offtake quota of valuable
wildlife species. With this authority the NNFC
leadership, having discussed options with the conservancy
members at district meetings, negotiated
a contract with a prominent safari operation that
included both trophy hunting and photographic
tourism. In addition to paying fees to the community,
the operator agreed to provide training
and employment for some conservancy members.
IV. The Road Ahead—Problems
and Opportunities
The NNFC and the community it represents
finally got their conservancy. But can they make
it work over the long term now that they face the
very real challenge of limiting subsistence hunting?
While local residents have agreed to a
moratorium on threatened species, it is unclear
whether community cohesion and the institutional
framework are strong enough to make the
decision stick. Discussions about how to use
money from the conservancy illustrate the difficulty.
Most conservancy members have agreed
that it is critical to use earnings from tourism to
purchase stock to replace the meat that will be
lost from reduced subsistence hunting. The
debate has centered on purchasing springbok (a
species of small antelope) or goats. The NNFC
would manage the springbok as a common
resource, while the goats would belong to each
n!oresi. An elder made the following telling
comment: “We would prefer the goats because
they would be ours and we would take care of
them. The springbok would move all around
and would be taken by people living elsewhere.”
Much will depend on the ability of the NNFC to
resolve its own inner contradictions so that all
elements of the community believe their interests
are being served and protected. Much remains to
be done because linkages to the community as a
whole are still tenuous. Only a few board members
go beyond their immediate n!ore to report
on decisions of the NNFC leadership. Adding
women board members was an important step,
but it did not open access to information or more
involvement in decision making for the majority
of women. One idea to redress these problems
has been to expand the community rangers.
Women would be selected who would focus on
craft production, commercialization of wild
foods, monitoring the impact of game and livestock
on wild plants around water points, and
making sure that the board is exposed to a
broader set of issues and concerns.
This is not simply a matter of gender equity but of
using the conservancy to build a more secure base
for the future. The Ju/’hoan are dependent on
more than game for survival. One indication of
this came in the difficulty the community had in
establishing conservancy boundaries. The task
seemed simple enough from the outside. The veterinary
fence to the south, the border fence with
Botswana to the east, and the Khaudum Reserve to
the north left only the western border to mark.
Meetings were held with n!oresi in the west, but
these communities and their leaders chose not to
join the conservancy. The senior community
ranger visited the westernmost villages that wished
to join and took Global Positioning System (GPS)
readings for their resources that would demarcate
the last remaining boundary line. It still took several
months for the NNFC leadership to resolve the
matter. Some community members not only
wanted to include the villages that had declined to
join but areas even farther west that lay outside
Nyae Nyae altogether and had no wildlife. When
asked why, people explained that they did not want
to be cut off from gathering bush foods essential to
their livelihoods during times of drought.