Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

The Ju/’hoan in Namibia 129
The effort to expand activities from the conservancy
beyond wildlife to crafts that can be sold
to tourists visiting the area and the Khaudum
Reserve can also be viewed in this context. It
not only makes good economic sense, it is also a
way of building support for the conservancy in
villages that do not have ample game. It also has
the advantage of bringing a broader array of
resources into the community-based system of
sustainable management.
However a new problem has accompanied the
new opportunities. Now that the Ju/’hoan see
many of their crafts as valuable sources of
income, the traditional view of ownership has
come under stress. By custom the raw materials
belong to all members of the n!ore in which
they occur, but they become the property of the
person doing the craftwork. The n!ore kxao, as
leader of the group and steward of its common
resources, manages the resource base for the
benefit of everyone. So it was a surprise when
a steward, just before the conservancy opened,
began charging craft producers fees for the
resources they had collected and were using.
The issue was discussed at a village meeting,
and the villagers, at the urging of NNFC, agreed
to uphold the traditional system. The n!ore
kxao went on charging fees anyway. His
actions were confined to one village, but they
point to a new set of issues that will not go
away and that the Ju/’hoan will have to address.
Versions of private ownership may arise that can
result in social and economic inequality and
fracture support for the community institutions
managing the conservancy. Serious resource
degradation could follow, as happened in Kenya
when the government created “group ranches”
on land that the Masai had previously held collectively
(Lawry 1990).
Many of the problems that the Ju/’hoan face are
not of their own making. What they are being
asked to do is extraordinarily difficult—to manage
a resource to which they have limited rights,
and to do so without secure tenure over the communal
land upon which the sustainability of that
resource ultimately depends. The final section
looks at some of the lessons this project offers to
community-based resource management not just
in Nyae Nyae, but in Namibia and elsewhere.
V. Lessons from the Ju/’hoan
Bushmen
The story of the Ju/’hoan is unique in many
ways. It is developing against a backdrop of a
relatively progressive policy and legislative
framework, with secure long-term funding in
which money and technical assistance are well
matched to the tasks. It describes a homogeneous
community with a strong cultural identity
that holds dear its wildlife for both intrinsic and
subsistence values. Furthermore the community’s
goals are compatible with those of the
MET, the leading conservation organization in
the area. Perhaps most important, there is still
time left for Nyae Nyae. Ecologists say the
habitat remains intact because the Ju/’hoan have
so few cattle. Given additional water sources,
the game should recover (Stuart-Hill and
Perkins 1997).
Yet the Ju/’hoan are traveling a road that many
other local communities will find familiar. The
status of the Real People as indigenous and marginalized,
for instance, has led some outsiders to
assume that the most effective strategy is to do
things for the Ju/’hoan rather than to strengthen
their ability to do things for themselves. Others
have noted, in myriad places, the damage that can
spread from this misperception. This perspective
“reveals the dangers inherent in links between
community and external actors. External interventions
can easily shift from facilitation to cooption”
(Murphree 1994). Murphree concludes:
“Community-based conservation programs thus
pose a dilemma: [T]hey require the very community–external
linkages that have such high potential
to subvert the community itself.” Murphree
suggests that clear priorities should be specified
for all activities and that the community’s interests,
responsibility, and authority should be paramount.
Jones (1996b) adds, “Institutional
relationships must be structured so that outside
organizations are cast firmly in the role of supporting
agencies to community organizations.”
The following lessons can be drawn about conservancies
and community-based natural resource
management (CBNRM). They ring with greater
authority for other communities in Namibia, but
they offer insights that will be of use elsewhere.