BLACKBOOK REPORTAGE THE CONFLICTS OF CONSERVATION Perched on Africa’s southwest corner, Namibia may well hold Africa’s key to preserving its wildlife. GRAHAM BOYNTON reports on the challenges and meets a man who has dedicated his life to promoting and safeguarding its remarkable riches Despite the unforgiving nature of Namibia‘s terrain, animals such as oryxes and springboks are surviving in healthy numbers A larm bells are ringing for Africa’s wildlife. Poaching gangs employed by international crime syndicates are swarming across the continent shooting, hacking and mutilating everything in their path and smuggling out body parts, mainly to the Far East. Rhino horn, elephant ivory and lion bones are the parts they are trading, and the black-market prices are stratospheric. Rhino horn now sells for between ,000 and ,000 per kilo, actually above the price of gold. As a result, desperate pleas are going out to Western donors and NGOs around the world to save the rhino, the elephant, the lion, the cheetah, all of which, we are told, are heading for extinction. And yet here in Namibia, in this harsh, remote corner of the continent, the populations of all these animals have actually been flourishing. While Kenya has lost perhaps 80% of its wildlife population over the last 40 years, there are 20,000 elephants here, up from 7,500 in 1995; 150 lions, up from just 25 in 1995; and more than 1,200 black rhino, one of the largest wild populations in Africa. The size, emptiness and beauty of Namibia are beyond all reason: you have to travel through the country to appreciate them – and 24 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM Photography by PHILIP NORTH-COOMBES
