usaid/nambia environmental threats and opportunities assessment

Overall, land productivity, particularly in areas that are marginal for livestock or crops (most of Namibia),
should be improved under conservancy management. This is because conservancy management plans
promote the sustainable use of natural resources. To date CBNRM has been successful from a socioeconomic
and environmental point of view – largely due to NGO support and collaboration.
There is a need to expand the scope of resources that fall under community-based management to include
rangelands and fisheries, and to integrate the community-based management of all of these resources much
more strongly especially with a focus towards strengthening public/private partnerships.
4. LAND
The Ministry of Lands and Resettlement (MLR) is in charge of land use planning, land allocation, and
resettlement. Land administration in communal areas is under the control of Communal Land Boards
and Traditional Authorities. Regarding land allocation, the main tasks of the Land Boards is to control
the allocation of customary land rights by Chiefs and Traditional Authorities, and to grant rights of
leasehold on communal land.
State-led acquisition of land for resettlement has been through the “willing buyer – willing seller”
approach but is frustratingly slow, and MLR is considering expropriation of farms in the public interest
(MLR 2005). Between 1992 and 2002, 209 commercial farms and an estimated 9,138 people were
resettled through the MLR’s resettlement programme (Harring and Odendaal, 2007) and a further 625
farms (incorporating 3,470,000 ha) had been acquired through the Affirmative Action Loan Scheme
(LAC 2007). In addition to resettlements on commercial farms, 27,942 people were resettled by the
MLR on communal land that has been identified as “underutilized” (ibid).
Under the Communal Land Reform Act (CLRA), resettled farmers must be granted leasehold of the
land they receive. Yet very few resettlement farmers have been registered, so rights to use this land as
collateral for financial support are still mostly absent. Many emerging commercial farmers are unable to
develop the agricultural potential of the farms fully due to remoteness, inadequate skills, poor
infrastructure, high debt burdens, and other factors (MLR 2005). Also, the size of resettler plots
(average 1,500 ha) are too small to be viable and most resettlement farms have very limited options for
crops, so that source of livelihood is unavailable. There has been little diversification of livelihoods on
resettlement or Affirmative Action Loan Scheme (AALS) farms. Post-settlement support packages are
granted on lenient terms to previously disadvantaged emerging farmers yet profitable farming by most
beneficiaries is still elusive.
Most resettled farms occur on land that was once freehold and some have reduced land-use options as a result
of severe bush encroachment (NPC 2007a; LAC 2007).
Socio-economic problems are rife on many resettlement project farms and resettled communities have
repeatedly been described as poor/extremely poor and vulnerable. The problems that have arisen on these
farms are well documented in Harring and Odendaal (2007), DRFN (2007), Cloete (2009), and Werner and
Odendaal (2010). These include: a lack of governance; ethnic tensions; high levels of food insecurity and a
culture of dependency; high levels of alcohol abuse, violence, and crime; no access to electricity or other
energy sources (communities depend heavily on wood fuel); limited/no support from the Ministry of
Agriculture, Water and Rural Development (MAWRD), and, in many cases, limited access to a reliable water
source.
The Land Policy opens the way for communities to have proprietorship over certain renewable natural
resources. This includes Water Point Associations managing boreholes, and conservancies and
28 USAID/NAMIBIA ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES ASSESSMENT