Namibia Community-Based Natural Resource Management - Communal Conservancies

Namibia's Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme is one of Africa's most-documented biodiversity-focused payments-for-ecosystem-services schemes. Enabled by the Nature Conservation Amendment Act of 1996, the programme grants rural communities the legal right to establish conservancies, manage wildlife, and receive income from natural resource use on their communal lands.

The first communal conservancy was registered in 1998. By 2023, 86 conservancies covered approximately 166,179 km2 (16.6 million hectares) — about 20% of Namibia's total land area — and supported more than 230,000 community members. NACSO (Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations) coordinates programme monitoring and publishes annual State of Community Conservation (SOCC) reports. Technical and financial support comes from WWF-Namibia and USAID (via the LIFE Project from 1993).

The programme has produced remarkable wildlife recoveries. In northwest Namibia, elephant populations rose from approximately 50 in 1993 to over 500; mountain zebra from 500 to 14,000; and springbok to 100,000. Namibia now hosts the world's largest free-roaming cheetah population (estimated 2,500 individuals). Community income derives from tourism, trophy hunting concessions, craft sales and conservation partnerships; revenues reached N$2.35 million across 31 conservancies in 2004 and have grown substantially since. Academic literature describes the programme as an unrecognised PES scheme because wildlife-use income directly compensates communities for coexisting with and conserving wildlife on their communal lands.

Read the full analysis: https://nacso.org.na/