Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

130 The Ju/’hoan in Namibia
5.1 Legislation to grant rights to select
resources can be self-defeating if collective
communal units do not also have or
receive strong property rights to the
land itself.
In Namibia the conservancy legislation clearly
stipulates that the community does not have
rights over the land, only usufruct rights over
some of the wildlife and the benefits derived
from them. This creates a double bind. The
official policy to decentralize wildlife management
by handing it over to the local community
is subverted by denying the community the
secure tenure it needs to maintain sustainable
game populations. For example, in Nyae Nyae
the community has no legal authority to prevent
the Herero from moving again into the conservancy
to graze their cattle. There is no guarantee
what will happen if government turns a blind
eye. Unless the conservancy is grounded in
secure tenure, it will be in constant danger.
The lack of comprehensive legislation is not simply
a question of the state trying to retain final
authority. It also points to how policy reform is
rarely coordinated, and how the state often
speaks with more than one voice. Although senior
policy makers at the MET are aware of the
double bind, the agency lacks the power to
address it directly. It has chosen instead to work
closely with local NGOs to play a prominent role
in developing an NGO position paper to clarify
and sharpen the public debate on land reform.
International conservation NGOs can support
policy analysis necessary for reform and provide
this information to the advocates of change. The
LIFE Program supported a critique of the conservancy
legislation by the University of Namibia
and outreach activities by others.
5.2 Legislation is hollow without the
resources, skills, and political will for
implementation.
By almost any standard, the legislation in
Namibia is progressive—it gives local communities
the authority to manage and benefit from
their resources. What sounds good, however,
may not be good in practice. In Nyae Nyae the
MET lacks the financial and human resources to
carry their share of the load, which threatens to
undermine the building of an effective partnership
with the community. MET’s local branch
staff is frequently unable to meet its commitments
to collect data or attend meetings.
Indeed there are doubts about how fully committed
the agency is to carrying out the legislation.
A debate still rages within the ranks of MET
between advocates of preservation and of community-based
natural resource management. Senior
officials talk the new talk. But field staff tend to
change attitudes only with the addition of new
personnel when holdovers leave by attrition,
rather than through some systematic process. The
MET has yet to change job descriptions, performance
criteria, and training procedures to support
CBNRM, and many field staff lack the skills and
experience necessary to work with the community.
As one MET official casually stated, “I took
this job because I wanted to be alone in the bush
with the wildlife, not to work with communities.”
This debate exists within many conservation
institutions, and will not be easily resolved. Yet
unless change occurs throughout an institution,
the handful of dreamers and visionaries who
speak for the organization will be unable to shift
its approach and philosophy on the ground.
International conservation NGOs can support
training—targeted at both field staff and national
policy makers—as well as create forums for policy
debate. Conservation NGOs are in a position
to see the big picture and address an institution as
a whole, rather than argue a narrow point of view
shaped by the interests of patrons or the guarding
of bureaucratic turf. However seeing the big picture
and offering help is not always enough.
Namibia illustrates the paradox that can ensue.
LIFE’s attempts to address the lack of political
will within MET were met by indifference to the
opportunities for change offered by the program.
Training works only if the institution wants its
people trained and if the staff is open to new
ideas and approaches. The challenge for conservation
organizations in finding ways of encouraging
institutional reform and capacity building is
not simply a question of finding and distributing
the right manual. One must work closely with
staff and design efforts that are adapted to the
specific circumstances at hand.