Human-wildlife conflict is detrimental to the conservation of threatened carnivores and the livelihoods of rural communities. This paper compares perceived levels of human-carnivore conflict experienced on five Namibian communal conservancies and four resettled farming areas. Factors explored include how reported depredation was affected by livestock husbandry practices, the perceived annual cost of depredation and the reported problem predator species. Of the 147 respondents interviewed, perceived depredation was greater than in previous studies; high perceived depredation was associated with greater rates of predator removal, increased ranking of predators as problems and increased predator sighting frequency. Small stock species were the most commonly depredated livestock. The most frequently perceived predators were: jackals on goats and sheep, wild cats on chickens, leopards on horses and spotted hyenas on cattle. The financial cost of this predation was US$508898, mostly attributable to cattle depredation, and agricultural training schemes recommending good livestock management may help reduce this cost. A move from small to large stock farming could be promoted in areas with an abundance of small- to medium-sized carnivores and a lack of large carnivores. Further incentives, such as meat provision and income from consumptive and non-consumptive tourism could ensure benefits outweigh costs of wildlife coexistence.

Cost of carnivore coexistence on communal and resettled land in Namibia

Zoonoses, which account for approximately 75% of emerging human infectious diseases worldwide, pose a re-emerging threat to public health. With an ever-increasing interrelationship between humans, livestock and wildlife species, the threat to human health will rise to unprecedented levels. Wildlife species contribute to the majority of emerging diseases; therefore, there is an urgent need to define control systems of zoonoses of wildlife origin but very little information exists. In this review, we examine prevalent zoonotic infections reported in Namibia between 1990 and 2009 and assess their potential impact on the growing wildlife industry. A wide spectrum of zoonotic diseases was confirmed in both livestock and wildlife species, with rabies and anthrax cases being over-represented and also showing the widest species distribution. Whilst vaccination and ante-mortem inspection against these diseases may curb infected livestock species from entering the human food chain, such practices are difficult to implement in free-ranging wildlife species. In this context, there is a need to improve existing control measures and/or develop novel and better interventional strategies to reduce the threat of this re-emerging global problem. This review provides the basis for initiating a multidisciplinary evidence-based approach to control zoonoses in countries with thriving wildlife and game farming.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/iee.v2i0.18365

Zoonoses: a potential obstacle to the growing wildlife industry of Namibia.

South Africa is facing a surge in rhino poaching driven by the high and rising price of rhino horn, which benefits criminals but not landholders or conservation agencies. It is estimated that illegal traders earned $5000/kg of rhino horn in 2009, rising to $10 000/kg in 2010 and $20 000/kg by the end of 2011, or $60 000 - $80 000 for each animal poached. Rhino conservation in South Africa has historically been hugely successful. From fewer than 100 rhinos in 1910, there are now 19 000 white rhinos and 2000 black rhinos, of which 4500 occur on private land. The income from live rhino sales has provided significant income to South African National Parks and provided 74.9% of KwaZulu-Natal's parks budget between 2008 and 2011. But rhinos now face the strange paradox that they are so valuable that the private sector is questioning whether it still wants them. At issue are the economic consequences of traditional conservation policy, and the extraordinary ways that these policies twist economic signals.

The sustainable use approach could save South Africa's rhinos : commentary

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The sustainable use approach could save South Africa’s rhinos

Private Wildlife Governance in a Context of Radical Uncertainty: Dynamics of Game Farming Policy and Practice in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, but well known for its richness in species and sustainable natural resource utilization. The Namibian farming sector consists mainly of extensive farming systems. Cattle production contributes 54% of the livestock sector’s production output, followed by sheep and goats (25%), hides and skins (9%), and other forms of agricultural production (12%). Namibia’s freehold farmers have obtained ownership rights over land and livestock since the early 1900s; commercial rights over wildlife and plants were given to freehold farmers in 1967 and to communal farmers in 1996. Natural resource-based production systems then overtook agricultural production systems and exceeded it by a factor of at least two. The shift from practicing conservation to sustainable utilization of natural resources contributed to the rapid growth of wildlife utilization. The wildlife industry in Namibia is currently the only animal production system that is expanding. There are in total at least two million head of different wildlife species. The broader impact of the utilization of wildlife on the economy is estimated to be around N$ 1.3 billion. Tourism, live sales and trophy hunting, cannot sustain further growth. Wildlife farming could offer better opportunities for ensuring long-term sustainability. As the game meat trade in Namibia is not formalized, harvesting wildlife to satisfy the demand for game meat in export markets is still in its infancy. Sustainable harvesting of wildlife for meat production, however, has the potential to increase earnings to the beneficiaries in the wildlife sector.

/pdf/the-contribution-of-wildlife-to-sustainable-natural-resource-4zjhmbf8ma.pdf

R. Corli Witthuhn

Papers

The contribution of wildlife to sustainable natural resource utilization in Namibia: a review.