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National Workshop on Human Wildlife Conflict Management 2005 Current legal framework for HWC in Namibia, status report on current MET approach to HWCM and envisaged measures in the new Parks and Wildlife Management Bill Good morning ladies and gentleman, Director of Parks and Wildlife Management, Ben Beytell Conflict between humans and wildlife is not new – it is centuries old. Wherever people practice farming in areas where wildlife occur, conflict with wild animals is inevitable. The practice has always been to try and eliminate wildlife in order to allow humans to farm successfully. Allow me to quote something to you from Ezekiel: “I will make a covenant with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert and skip in the forests in safety.” Yes, this quote is from the Bible, and the ‘they’ here are what we know as small stock or sheep and goats. In the Afrikaans translation of the Bible, ‘wild beasts’ are called roofdiere or predators. The drafters of Ordinance 4 of 1975 might have read the above and decided to apply it in the legislation. The whole of Namibia south of Windhoek was considered the small stock farming area. It was fenced in with what we know as jackal-proof fencing, and because of the threat they posted to the booming karakul industry, animals such as black-backed jackal and caracal were declared ‘problem animals’ and their control became compulsory. Later on, a cleaver scientist discovered that seven dassies eat as much as one sheep, and they were also declared problem animals. Then, some of the cattle farmers said: “What about the bleddie wild dogs that kill our cattle” And they were declared. And then some farmers said: “And the bleddie baboons, what about them Did you know that in times of drought, as we experience more often than not, baboons kill karakul lambs to eat the melk pensie.” And they were declared problem animals. Then, the small stock farmers complained that it became very difficult to maintain jackal-proof fences with ant bears and honey badgers being around (their nature being to dig under those fences, and the tendency of a honey badger to kill anything from a geelslang to several karakul sheep just for the hell of it) and albeit that these animals are protected species, you may kill them at any time and by any means whatsoever in the small stock areas. Soon the steenbok started to multiply in the absence of natural predators, and because they also deprived sheep of food, they were declared as huntable game on jackal-proofed fenced farms. Species like lion and the hyenas were classified as ‘wild animals’ and in accordance with the Ordinance (Section 40), the owner or lessee of land could kill or capture wild animals on such land for any purpose whatsoever. Lion and wild dog, at least, were declared protected game by Cabinet later, and now they have the some status in the Ordinance (Section 27). 16
National Workshop on Human Wildlife Conflict Management 2005 The owner or lessee of land or occupier of communal land may kill protected game on such land in defence of a human life or to prevent a human being from being injured or to protect the live of livestock, poultry or domestic animal of such owner, lessee or occupier, whilst the life is actually being threatened. What is not mentioned here is, for example, a sable antelope bull which a game farmer has purchased at N$90 000 and was killed by a lion from Etosha. Another misconception here is that the law allows the farm owner to kill a lion on his farm. If the Ministry wants to claim ownership of the lion, we must be prepared to pay the N$90 000 loss. But what if the owner/lessee/occupier cannot kill the lion Then the Minister should allow someone else to do the job under a permit. We can allow a neighbour to help, but the best option is a professional hunter who can trophy hunt it and pay the land owner/occupier a fee. We have ignored specially protected game, but exactly the same applies as with protected game, except when you hunt game to protect grazing, cultivated lands and gardens (Section 37). Here, the owner or lessee or any employee in permanent service of the owner/lessee may hunt any game, excluding elephant, hippos and rhinos, destroying crops or plants on such level during daytime and at night time, when it is larger than 100 hectares and game-proof fenced. The occupier of communal land may hunt any game, excluding the above-mentioned, if the land is fenced in with a fence approved by the director. In both cases – protected and specially protected – such killing must be reported in writing within 10 days to the nearest MET or Police office. The Minister may also issue a permit to the owner/lessee of a farm or any other land to hunt any species of game to protect grazing (Hartmann zebra, hartebeest). The option here is to issue a capture permit (subject to policy). Section 53 of the Ordinance provides for the declaration of problem animals: The Minister may declare any wild animal a problem animal throughout Namibia or within such part or parts of Namibia as he/she in his/her discretion determine. But it should be published in the Government Gazette every time. If the Minister must declare an elephant, it must be published in the Government Gazette to say it is a problem animal. Now if you think of the process, from the time we receive the complaint, our staff must do an inspection in the fields to determine if this animal really caused a problem, followed by correspondence up to the eventual declaration or signature of the Minister, then legally it must still be gazetted, it could take four to five months. Therefore we decided the Minister may approve any animal under the conditions he or she determines, and that is the system we follow if you want to declare a problem animal. But that is strictly speaking what is happening, we write to the Minister to say there is a problem, and we may, for example, have organised a professional hunter with a client who can hunt a lion or elephant causing problems in a community, then we inform that community or headman that they have a lion or elephant, this guy will contact you soon, and we advise that you should not sell it cheap because this is what the going price for a lion or elephant is. And in that we wash our hands and the professional hunter or concessionaire makes a deal with the community and the community gets their compensation from that professional hunter as paid by the client. But as the PS has said, the issue is confusing. I think this is about the seventh problem animal workshop/meeting I have attended, and we still haven’t come up with a solution. 17
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