Conservation and the Environment in Namibia 2021

CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NAMIBIA 2021

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL

T H E C O N S E R VAT I O N R E L I E F , R E C OV E R Y A N D R E S I L I E N C E FA C I L I T Y

A RIVER IN TROUBLE T E A M WO R K A N D S C I E N C E E N A B L E S C O E XI S T E N C E B E T W E E N FA R M E R S A N D C H E E TA H S

GLIDING INTO A BRIGHTER FUTURE A L B AT R O S S E S A N D N A M I B I A N FISHERIES

824,268 km²

CAPITAL: Windhoek

INDEPENDENCE: 21 March 1990

CURRENT PRESIDENT: Hage Geingob

Secular state

Multiparty parliament Democratic Division of power between constitution executive, freedom of religion legislature and

90%

Christian

judiciary

Freedom of the press/media

BIGGEST EMPLOYER:

NATURE RESERVES:

20% of surface area

HIGHEST MOUNTAIN: Brandberg OTHER PROMINENT MOUNTAINS: Spitzkoppe, Moltkeblick, Gamsberg PERENNIAL RIVERS: Orange, Kunene, Okavango, Zambezi and Kwando/Linyanti/Chobe

EPHEMERAL RIVERS:

Numerous, including Fish, Kuiseb, Swakop and Ugab

30%

14

vegetation zones

400 species

Agriculture

of trees

FASTEST-GROWING Information SECTOR: Communication Industry

CURRENCY:

The Namibia Dollar (N$) is fixed to and on par with the SA Rand. The South African Rand is also legal tender.

Foreign currency, international Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Diners Club credit cards are accepted.

TAX AND CUSTOMS

All goods and services are priced to include value-added 15% tax of 15%. Visitors may reclaim VAT.

ENQUIRIES: Ministry of Finance

Tel (+264 61) 23 0773 in Windhoek

TRANSPORT

Public transport is NOT available to all tourist destinations in Namibia.

There are bus services from Windhoek to Swakopmund as well as Cape Town/Johannesburg/Vic Falls.

Namibia’s main railway line runs from the South African border, connecting Windhoek to Swakopmund in the west and Tsumeb in the north.

There is an extensive network of international and regional flights from Windhoek and domestic charters to all destinations.

680 ENDEMIC plant species

120+ species of lichen LIVING FOSSIL PLANT:

BIG GAME:

Elephant, lion, rhino, buffalo, cheetah, leopard, giraffe

20 250 256 50 699

ROADS:

5,450 km tarred

antelope species mammal species (14 endemic)

reptile species frog species bird species

ENDEMIC BIRDS including Herero Chat, Rockrunner, Damara Tern, Monteiro’s Hornbill and Dune Lark

DRINKING WATER Most tap water is purified and safe to drink.

Visitors should exercise caution in rural areas.

37,000 km gravel

HARBOURS:

Walvis Bay, Lüderitz

46

MAIN AIRPORTS: Hosea

airstrips Kutako International Airport,

Eros Airport

RAIL NETWORK: 2,382 km

narrow gauge

TELECOMMUNICATIONS: Direct-dialling facilities to

lines per

Welwitschia mirabilis

FAUNA

MONEY MATTERS

MINING:

Diamonds, uranium, copper, lead, zinc, magnesium, cadmium, arsenic, pyrites, silver, gold, lithium minerals, dimension stones (granite, marble, blue sodalite) and many semiprecious stones

INFRASTRUCTURE

6.2 telephone

FLORA

ECONOMY MAIN PRIVATE SECTORS: Mining, Manufacturing, Fishing and Agriculture

ENVIRONMENT

PHYSICAL

GENERAL

SURFACE AREA:

ON NAMIBIA

100 inhabitants

MOBILE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM: GSM agreements with

221 countries

117 countries / 255 networks

INFRASTRUCTURE

SOCIAL

FAST FACTS

13,650 people 4 medical doctor per

privately run hospitals in Windhoek with intensive-care units

Medical practitioners (world standard) 24-hour medical emergency services

POPULATION

2.5 million 420 000 inhabitants in Windhoek (15% of total)

ADULT LITERACY RATE:

92%

DENSITY: 2.2 per km²

OFFICIAL LANGUAGE:

English

14 regions 13 ethnic cultures 16 languages and dialects POPULATION GROWTH RATE:

2.6%

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS:

over 1,900 schools, various vocational and tertiary institutions

TIME ZONES GMT + 2 hours

ELECTRICITY 220 volts AC, 50hz, with outlets for round three-pin type plugs

www.travelnewsnamibia.com

FOREIGN REPRESENTATION More than 50 countries have Namibian consular or embassy representation in Windhoek.

from the PUBLISHER There are so many wonderful things to celebrate about Namibia, but by far our biggest success as a nation have been the tremendous strides in conservation over the past three decades. From rebounding wildlife populations to the implementation of systems of governance that have transformed the conservation landscape, not only in Namibia, but in southern Africa as a whole. Today we carry our conservation success stories as a badge of honour and try to share the tales far and wide with anyone who will listen. They are tales of incredible effort and perseverance. They are tales of ingenuity. Most of all they are tales of teamwork. Of organisations, private citizens or companies, Government and communities standing together and collectively working to protect and preserve our nation’s landscapes, fauna and flora.

Namibia’s world-renowned Community-based Natural Resource Management programme and strong conservation policies embedded in the fabric of government are but two of the drivers of this success. There are few places left on earth with such an abundance of space, where wildlife roams freely and man and nature coexist. Paired with a strong and dedicated conservation culture, the country is devoted to preserving its most precious asset – its natural wealth.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous effect, even on conservation. Many of Namibia’s conservation initiatives are driven through income derived from tourism, and the near-collapse of the industry has been felt within the conservation community too.

Conservation cannot be put under lockdown though. The boots on the ground must persevere if our success story is to remain the status quo.

As a media company we have long understood the importance of sharing stories and making sure that these successes are, firstly, known about, and celebrated. Stories matter, and we are dedicated to sharing Stories that Matter.

That’s our mantra at Venture Media. Sharing stories, information and inspiration with an audience that understands and values why certain things matter.

Why conservation, tourism, people & communities, businesses and ethics matter.

CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NAMIBIA

2021

is published by Venture Media in Windhoek, Namibia www.travelnewsnamibia.com Tel: +264 61 383 450, Hyper City Unit 44, Maxwell street, Southern Industrial PO Box 21593, Windhoek, Namibia PUBLISHING EDITORS Elzanne McCulloch elzanne@venture.com.na LAYOUT & DESIGN Liza de Klerk design@venture.com.na CUSTOMER SERVICE Bonn Nortjé bonn@venture.com.na COVER IMAGE Christin Winter PRINTERS John Meinert Printing, Windhoek

2015

and the Environment in Namibia

14

YEARS

1

CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NAMIBIA 2021

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL

T H E C O N S E R VAT I O N R E L I E F , R E C OV E R Y A N D R E S I L I E N C E FA C I L I T Y

How these elements interrelate and how we can bring about change, contribute to the world and support each other. Whether for an entire nation, an industry, a community, or even just an individual.

We hope you find value in the stories in this publication and that in turn the sharing of these stories can be of value to the dedicated conservationists who spend their days fighting for a better future for Namibia, her people and her nature.

Elzanne McCulloch

A RIVER IN TROUBLE T E A M WO R K A N D S C I E N C E E N A B L E S C O E XI S T E N C E B E T W E E N FA R M E R S A N D C H E E TA H S

GLIDING INTO A BRIGHTER FUTURE A L B AT R O S S E S A N D N A M I B I A N FISHERIES

The editorial content of Conservation and the Environment in Namibia is contributed by the Namibia Chamber of Environment, freelance journalists, employees of the Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) and NGOs. It does not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies held by MEFT or the publisher. No part of the magazine may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.

Le Roux van Schalkwyk

ABOUT VENTURE Media Venture Media is the pioneer of Namibia tourism promotion. We are the leader in spreading the tourism word around the world. We distribute accurate, credible, up to date and regular tourism-related information on paper, in social media, on the World Wide Web, and on mobile apps.

We have reached hundreds of thousands over almost three decades.

Be part of our community and let’s do it together.

TELL, GROW, SHARE YOUR STORY WITH US IN 2021

In 2021, we're focussing on telling and sharing STORIES THAT MATTER across our various magazines and digital platforms. Join the journey and share your stories with audiences that understand and value why certain things matter.

Why ethical business, conservation, tourism, people and communities matter. How these elements interrelate and how we can bring about change, contribute to the world and support each other. Whether for an entire nation, an industry, a community, or even just an individual.

www.venture.com.na

or email us at info@venture.com.na for a curated proposal.

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FlyWestair July 2021

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In 2021, we're focussing on telling and sharing STORIES THAT MATTER acro our various magazines and digital platforms. Join the journey and share you stories with audiences that understand and value why certain things matte

July 2021

Your free copy

Why ethical business, conservation, tourism, people and communities matte

discover Windhoek | lifestyle |

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conservation | royal hustlers | economic pulse | looking global | explore etosha

How these elements interrelate and how we can bring about change, contribute to the world and support each other. Whether for an entire natio an industry, a community, or even just an individual.

ABOUT Namibian chamber of environment The Namibian Chamber of Environment (NCE) is a membership-based and -driven umbrella organisation established as a voluntary association under Namibian Common Law to support and promote the interests of the environmental NGO sector and its work. The Members constitute the Council – the highest decision-making organ of the NCE. The Council elects Members to the Executive Committee at an AGM to oversee and give strategic direction to the work of the NCE Secretariat. The Secretariat (staff) of the NCE comprise a CEO, Director and Office Manager. Only the Office Manager is employed full-time. The NCE currently has 56 Full Members - Namibian registered NGOs whose main business, or a significant portion of whose business, comprises involvement in and promotion of environmental matters in Namibia; and 14 Associate Members – individuals running environmental programmes and nonNamibian NGOs likewise involved in local to national environmental matters in Namibia. A list of Members follows. For more information on each Member, their contact details and website link, please go to the NCE website at www.n-c-e.org/members.

THE NCE HAS FOUR ASPIRATIONAL OBJECTIVES AND FIVE OPERATIONAL OBJECTIVES AS FOLLOWS: Aspirational Objectives • Conserve the natural environment • Protect indigenous biodiversity & endangered species • Promote best environmental practices • Support efforts to prevent & reduce environmental degradation & pollution Operational Objectives • Represent the environmental interests of Members • Act as a consultative forum for Members • Engage with policy- & lawmakers to improve environmental policy & its implementation • Build environmental skills in young Namibians • Support & advise Members on environmental matters & facilitate access to environmental information

The NCE espouses the following key values: • • • •

•

Elzanne McCulloch

•

To uphold the fundamental rights and freedoms entrenched in Namibia’s Constitution and laws, including the principles of sustainable use, protection of biodiversity and inter-generational equity; To promote compliance with, uphold and share, environmental best practice, recognising that the Earth’s resources are finite, and that human health and wellbeing are inextricably linked to environmental health.

To recognise that environmental best practice is best promoted by implementing the following seven principles: sustainability, polluter pays, precautionary, equity, effectiveness & efficiency, human rights and participation; To develop skills, expertise and passion in young Namibians on environmental issues; To ensure political and ideological neutrality, be evidence-based and counter fake information; and To promote inclusiveness and to fiercely and fearlessly reject any form of discrimination.

TO EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENT THESE OBJECTIVES AND VALUES, THE NCE HAS DEVELOPED EIGHT STRATEGIC PROGRAMME AREAS: 1. Support to Members

The NCE provides office facilities, boardroom, internet and safe parking for its out-of-town Members when in Windhoek; in partnership with Westair, a Cessna 182 for conservation purposes such as aerial surveys, radio-tracking and anti-poaching work; 4x4 double cab vehicles for short to medium-term use by Members; registration and research permit facilitation; dissemination of EIA announcements from the printed media; sharing of information on topical issues such as on new reports, publications, grant funding and scholarship announcements and any other support requested by Members.

2. National facilitation

The NCE organises symposia and workshops on topical and priority issues; strategic Best Practice Guides at sector level, the first on mining, the second (in preparation) on hunting; review of policy and legislation on and/or impacting Namibia’s environment; and representing the sector and Members on national bodies.

3. Environmental information

The NCE hosts and supports the development of Namibia’s Environmental Information Service (EIS at www.the-eis.com) in partnership with Paratus Telecom, a one-stop-shop for all environmental information on Namibia. The EIS comprises an e-library with over 21,100 reports, publications, maps, data sets, theses, etc., which are searchable and down-loadable. There are also three new section on the EIS covering Wildlife Crime, Wildlife Population Surveys and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Reports. It provides an Atlasing platform for citizen science data collection that currently covers mammals, reptiles, amphibians, butterflies, invasive alien plants and archaeology, and records are conveniently entered via a free cellphone App. The NCE has also established a free, open access scientific e-journal – Namibian Journal of Environment – now in its fifth year (www.nje.org.na). The NCE and Venture Media recently launched a new environmental website “Conservation Namibia” (www.conservationnamibia.com) to tell Namibia’s conservation stories via blogs, factsheets, video and articles from this magazine. The NCE informs the public on topical environmental issues on its website (www.n-c-e.org) and Facebook page.

4. Environmental advocacy

The NCE addresses national threats to Namibia’s environment and natural resources by first attempting to work constructively with the relevant government or other entity but, if necessary, through public exposure. The NCE has addressed the issue of Chinese incentivised poaching and illegal trade in specially protected wildlife, the over-fishing of pilchards in Namibian waters, illegal and unsustainable timber harvesting and export, and the need to reduce and eliminate single-use plastic from Namibia’s environment. It has also initiated a highly successful Pangolin reward scheme in partnership with MEFT, some NCE Members and communities. The scheme rewards people for providing information on pangolin trafficking leading to arrests – 282 criminal cases were opened and 522 suspects arrested on suspicion of pangolin trafficking between 1 August 2017 and 31 July 2021.

5. Environmental policy research

Elzanne McCulloch

When we talk about the “environment” we mean the interrelationship of ecological, social and economic aspects – essentially sustainable development. This is appropriate for a country with an economy reliant mainly on natural resource-based primary production where ecological and socio-economic issues are two sides of the same coin. However, this conceptual approach is rarely understood by people from western industrialised countries who think of environment as being just the green environment. To get around this problem, the NCE has established a socio-economic / livelihoods component that works seamlessly with the environmental component. The current focus of the new component is on the urban environment where about 50% of Namibians now live, projected to rise to 70% by 2030. The priority areas are access to affordable urban land for housing, appropriate sanitation, energy and research on the economics of poverty and how best to escape this trap.

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6. Young Namibian training and mentorship

Over the past three academic years the NCE in partnership with Woodtiger Fund has provided 9provided 97 bursaries in the broad environmental field (including subjects such as environmental economics, environmental law, environmental engineering) and 29 internships, to the total investment of N$ 4 083 419 million mainly for NCE bursary-holders, that involves close mentoring by experienced environmental professionals. The aim is to build the capacity and confidence of young Namibians to become the environmental leaders of tomorrow.

7. Fund raising

Core funding for the NCE is currently provided by B2Gold. This means that all additional funding received is invested directly into environmental projects and programmes – there are no overhead costs. The NCE focusses on corporate support and avoids targeting funding sources that may compete with its Members. The corporate sector assists with fund raising by approaching their clients, partners and networks. Our main sponsors are shown on the back cover.

8. Grants making

Funds raised by the NCE are used strategically to support priority environmental projects and programmes in Namibia. Emphasis is placed on legacy initiatives that have tangible outcomes. These are often based on national policy and bring together government and NGO partners, communities and the private sector, and frequently lead to investments by larger bilateral or multilateral funding organisations. An on-line grant application process allows NCE Members to apply for funding. To date more than 50 grants have been awarded to projects and programmes, 80% of which are to NCE Members. Some of these projects are showcased in this magazine.

MEMBERS FULL MEMBERS AA. Speiser Environmental Consultants cc African Conservation Services cc Africat Foundation Agra ProVision (Agra Ltd) Ashby Associates cc Biodiversity Research Centre, NUST (BRC-NUST) Botanical Society of Namibia Brown Hyena Research Project Trust Fund Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) Conservation Association of Namibia (CANAM) Desert Lion Conservation Trust Development Workshop Namibia (DW-N) Earthlife Namibia Eco Awards Namibia Eco-Logic Environmental Management Consutling cc EduVentures Elephant Human Relations Aid (EHRA) Environmental Assessment Professionals Association of Namibia (EAPAN) Environmental Compliance Consultancy (ECC) EnviroScience Felines Communication & Conservation Consultants Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) Gobabeb Research & Training Centre Greenspace Integrated Rural Development & Nature Conservation (IRDNC) Jaro Consultancy Kwando Carnivore Project LM Environmental Consulting N/áan ku sê Foundation Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust (NaDEET) Namibia Biomass Industry Group (N-BiG) Namibia Bird Club Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF) Namibia Professional Hunting Association (NAPHA) Namibia Scientific Society Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations (NACSO) Namibian Environmental & Wildlife Society (NEWS)

Namibian Hydrogeological Association NamibRand Nature Reserve Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia (NNDFN) Oana Flora and Fauna Ongava Game Reserve & Research Centre Otjikoto Trust Progress Namibia TAS cc Rare & Endangered Species Trust (REST) Research & Information Services of Namibia (RAISON) Rooikat Trust Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) Scientific Society Swakopmund Seeis Conservancy SLR Environmental Consulting Southern African Institute of Environmental Assessment (SAIEA) SunCycles Namibia cc Sustainable Solutions Trust (SST) Tourism Supporting Conservation Trust (TOSCO) Venture Media

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS Black-footed Cat Research Project Namibia Bell, Maria A Bockmühl, Frank Desert Elephant Conservation Irish, Dr John Kohlberg, Herta Leibniz Institute for Zoo & Wildlife Research Lukubwe, Dr Michael S Mountain Zebra Programme Namibia Animal Rehabilitation, Research & Education Centre (NARREC) Sea Search Research & Conservation (Namibian Dolphin Project) Seabirds & Marine Ecosystems Programme Strohbach, Dr Ben Wild Bird Rescue

CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NAMIBIA 2021

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Le Roux van Schalkwyk

Foreword Another year has gone by and COVID-19 is not only still with us, but is now more deadly than before. The impact of this disease on Namibian society and the economy are frightening. The only way to end this saga is for many more Namibians to get vaccinated as soon as possible. These are dark times, but NCE members have been extremely busy during this period and have produced some reasons to celebrate, which we are pleased to share with you here.

The COVID Relief, Recovery and Resilience Facility is perhaps the biggest talking point in Namibian conservation this year. This monumental effort saved hundreds of jobs and fully revealed just how important the communal conservancy programme is to the Namibian government, private sector donors and conservation organisations. NCE is proud to be a part of this initiative and we want to encourage our members, donors and government partners to maintain the momentum. You can read more about the impressive scale of this facility and its achievements thus far in All for One and One for All on page 10.

Despite the coronavirus, conservation in communal conservancies continues – Rhino Rangers are still patrolling vast distances in the northwest, while critical wildlife corridors are maintained in the northeast. A new environmental education and training centre in the Kunene Region is also a welcome development that will increase our capacity to supply rural communities with information.

Another major success story in Namibia this year was the stunning 98% reduction in seabird deaths caused by local commercial longline fisheries.

From being among the deadliest marine fisheries on the planet, today our waters are a much safer place for albatrosses, petrels and a host of other species. This story exemplifies good conservation – thorough research, introducing international best practices in close cooperation with the government and the private sector, and helping local entrepreneurs to be part of the solution. Find out what all this means for the most graceful flyer of all seabirds, the albatross, in Gliding into a Brighter Future on page 26.

Moving to our coastline, we read about research on Cape fur seals that elucidates how they find each other and prevent deadly conflict within the densely populated Cape Cross colony. From the coast we head into the mountains and share some exciting discoveries made during a scientific expedition to unexplored mountaintops in Namibia and Angola. Scientific research is the starting point for good conservation, and it is especially urgent right now for the world’s most trafficked animal – the pangolin.

In more good conservation news, livestock losses to cheetahs have been enormously reduced by cattle farmers who use information on cheetah movements to guide livestock management. Like the albatross success story, this project involved collecting hard scientific data and sharing

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knowledge with the most affected parties. In Teamwork and Science (page 46) we highlight the importance of building relationships and trust between conservationists and people who live with wildlife, a key tenet of conservation that cannot be overemphasised.

Long-term coexistence is the ultimate goal, but solutions to immediate human-carnivore conflict are still required. Two articles discuss the case for translocating problem-causing animals (lions and wild dogs) rather than killing them. Staying with carnivores, we look at how detection dogs can be trained to find cheetah scat and thus help researchers to find out more about this species.

Conservation is not all good news, unfortunately, and there are serious concerns about the future of the Okavango River. Notwithstanding the potential threat of oil drilling and problems that may arise due to climate change, this river system is under severe threat right now from rapidly expanding agricultural lands and unregulated water use. Although the threats are largely confined to Angola and Namibia, the country with the most to lose is Botswana, which hosts the globally important Okavango Delta. A River in Trouble (page 62) sounds the alarm bells and calls for more transboundary cooperation to address these concerns.

Although the good rains were welcomed across Namibia this season, they nearly spelled extinction for a newly discovered plant species that grew in places which are now inundated with the waters of Neckartal Dam. Quick-acting botanists sprang into action and saved as many specimens as they could. While some plants face extinction, others can cause ecological damage – exotic species of cacti are threatening to invade Namibia. Again, timely conservation action was required and implemented; this time involving biological control. Finally, we take a step back from individual species and consider the looming threat of climate change – and what Namibia should do about it.

Conservation is not on lockdown, but it certainly needs all the support it can get during these difficult times. In these pages you will find that conservationists are accustomed to overcoming challenges of every kind to achieve their goals. From walking thousands of kilometres to protect rhinos to catching a ride on a helicopter to find new species, these dedicated individuals and organisations continue to go above and beyond in their quest to conserve our natural environment. We encourage you to visit the websites of contributing organisations and find out how you can get involved and do your part.

Yours in conservation

Chris Brown and Gail Thomson CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NAMIBIA 2021

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Elzanne McCulloch Elzanne McCulloch

contents From the Publisher About Venture Media About NCE Foreword

1 2 3 6

ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL 10 – The Conservation Relief, Recovery and Resilience Facility The Kunene Rhino Ranger Awards 14 – Honouring those who keep an eye on Namibia’s free-roaming rhinos Wildlife Corridors – Paths of connection and hope

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Environmental education and training centre in desert-adapted elephant country 22

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GLIDING INTO A BRIGHTER FUTURE – Albatrosses and Namibian fisheries

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Conversations in the Cacophony 32 – How Cape fur seals communicate within their massive breeding colony Helicopter science 36 – Unlocking the botanical secrets of the Kaokoveld mountains Taking a scientific approach to pangolin conservation in Namibia

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“ The wildlife and it’s habitat cannot speak, so we must and we will...

- Theodore Roosevelt

TEAMWORK AND SCIENCE ENABLES COEXISTENCE BETWEEN FARMERS AND CHEETAHS Namibia’s desert-adapted lions – the benefit of translocating conflict-causing individuals The future for conflict African wild dogs in Namibia – Is a metapopulation approach the answer?

Dogs help CCF geneticists study cheetahs without invading their space

A RIVER IN TROUBLE 46 52

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58

62

A newly discovered plant species saved from the rising waters of Neckertal Dam 70 Bring in the bug squad – Controlling alien invasive plants in Namibia

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Namibia’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Climate Agreement: Is it acievable?

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NCE Supports

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CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NAMIBIA 2021

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All for one and

one for all

the Conservation Relief, Recovery and Resilience Facility

By Victoria Amon and Siphiwe Lutibezi Images by Community Conservation Fund of Namibia (CCFN)

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Above and far right: The CRRRF has ensured reduced job losses in the tourism sector through the wage support grants to joint venture lodges. Captured here are staff of Gondwana’s Namushasha River Lodge.

Left and right: The Mashi Craft Centre in the Zambezi Region received support as part of the income replacement grant to crafters and craft-related enterprises in conservancies.

T

he COVID-19 pandemic affected many people across the world and has been especially devastating for developing countries with a strong international tourism sector. Like many other African countries, one of the worst impacts for Namibia (which has had a recent increase in COVID-19 cases and related deaths) have been socio-economic, particularly in the tourism sector, which is one of the largest-earning industries in the country. Namibia expected 1.7 million international arrivals in 2020, which would have generated N$ 26.4 billion (or 11.7% of the GDP) in a sector that employs about 16.4% of its workforce.

On 17 March 2020, President Hage Geingob declared a State of Emergency, and air travel to and from Qatar, Ethiopia, and Germany was suspended for 30 days. In Namibia and around the world, additional restrictions and lockdowns followed, and by 31 March more than one third of humanity was under some form of lockdown.

This was the beginning of the end for most of the international travel to Namibia for the remainder of 2020, a situation that has persisted into 2021. When tourist arrivals came to a halt, a substantial amount of funding for conservation in Africa dried up, which led many concerned parties to predict massive increases in poaching linked to dwindling local support for wildlife conservation. In Namibia, the communal conservancies were in dire straits as their income from tourism that used to be spent on conservation and development was abruptly cut off.

For the past thirty years, Namibia’s community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) movement has worked with the government to transform wildlife conservation into a viable and sustainable landuse option for rural communities. Today, 86 communal conservancies

and one community association cover more than 20% of Namibia’s land surface and are home to approximately 10% of Namibia’s human population. These conservation management areas have provided increased protection from poaching and thus allowed for wildlife recoveries. With more wildlife (including high value species like rhino, elephant and lion), communal conservancies and their joint venture partners have built a conservation economy based largely on international photographic and hunting tourism. Conservancies are thus able to finance their own conservation efforts including anti-poaching activities, resource monitoring, human wildlife conflict mitigation measures and social development projects.

Conservancy income from tourism operations generates approximately N$ 60 million (US$ 4.2 million) per year for the conservancies and their members, with an additional N$ 65 million (US$ 4.6 million) paid in salaries by private sector operators to tourism staff living in conservancies. The income from joint venture tourism activities in communal conservancies has helped to transform the lives of rural Namibians. One of them is Reuben Mwamo, who says “With the income I receive from working as a Food and Beverage Supervisor at Nambwa Tented Camp, I have been able to pursue my studies in business management and provide for my family.”

By cutting off income from international visitors, COVID-19 posed a severe threat to the livelihoods of thousands of rural Namibians like Reuben. These included 716 community game guards and rhino rangers, 408 conservancy support staff and 1,966 locally hired tourism staff, whose income is directly or indirectly linked to tourism. The question on everyone’s mind was: would the communal conservancies and their joint venture tourism partners survive this extreme shock?

CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN NAMIBIA 2021

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Above, below and opposite page top left: Inspection of a newly constructed predator-proof kraal in Omatendeka Conservancy, Kunene Region. to weather the economic storm which followed the pandemic and are in a position to recover as quickly as possible in a post COVID-19 era.

The CRRRF, which garnered over N$ 123 million (nearly US$ 9 million) at the time of writing, has provided critical funds for conservancies during this time of crisis. A further €5 million is currently being negotiated by the MEFT. In June 2020, emergency grants for 84 conservancies had been processed and the first payments of N$ 6.5 million (US$ 0.5 million) were disbursed to conservancies to cover their employees’ salaries and operating costs. Continuing their operations includes supporting anti-poaching patrols and responding to human-wildlife conflict. The conservancies’ hardworking field officers collectively support more than 6,000 family members, while their work protects the wildlife economy that generates an estimated US$ 8 million per annum to these rural areas. Assisting conservancies is thus in line with the broader goals of poverty eradication, food security and the sustainable development of rural communities.

Launch of the Conservation Relief, Recovery and Resilience Facility

On 5 May 2020, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) took the bold step of launching the Conservation Relief, Recovery and Resilience Facility (COVID-19 Facility) to develop a coordinated response to the COVID-19 crisis. The CRRRF brought together concerned parties in the Namibian public and private sector and international donors to provide financial relief to CBNRM institutions affected by the pandemic. A task team was appointed by the MEFT to mobilise resources and allocate funds in an equitable and transparent manner. The ultimate goal of all of the CRRRF support is to ensure that CBNRM entities are able

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“The grant has helped us to monitor wildlife in our conservancy and fight against poaching, hence we did not have any poaching activity for the whole year. It has also helped us to keep all our staff without retrenchment. The conservancy office has kept its doors open, while the game guards have kept their boots on the ground daily,” says Lorna Dax, Manager of the ≠Khoadi-//Hôas Conservancy.

In addition, COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment in the form of masks and sanitisers has been and continues to be distributed to all 86 conservancies. These commitments have been made up to December 2021 with the hope that tourism and the community institutions that rely on it will see some recoveries by then.

As Richard Diggle from WWF points out, the CRRRF facility encompasses more than conservation, it is also about securing people’s immediate needs and livelihoods. “At a time when so many people around the globe have been financially impacted, it’s incredible that we can rely on our donors’ generosity to keep conservancies going,” he says.

The funds have also directly supported the monthly salaries or incomes of 1,966 employees at 35 lodges and campsites, four small-to-medium enterprises and two craft centres situated in conservancies and benefiting their members. This has ensured continued operations of these establishments, reduced job losses, maintained livelihoods and helped tourism-related businesses to survive this crisis.

Tapiwa Makiwa, CEO of the Community Conservation Fund of Namibia, mentioned the importance of ensuring that the value of wildlife is preserved in such a way that people will still want to live with wildlife. In the absence of tourism, communities and other stakeholders are trying to identify other environmentally friendly income-generating activities that can help people to survive during this time. “Once the pandemic

The CRRRF has received generous support from the German Development Bank (KfW), the Community Conservation of Fund Namibia (CCFN), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Environmental Investment Fund of Namibia (EIF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), NedBank Namibia via the Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF), B2Gold, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) via Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC), The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) via Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia (NNDF), the Namibian Chamber of Environment (NCE), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Gmbh, and Tourism Supporting Conservation Trust (TOSCO).

is over, communities must shift from survival mode to planning ahead,” Makiwa adds.

Recognising the need to prepare against future system shocks, partners in community conservation are exploring ways to diversify Namibia’s wildlife economy to ensure that conservancies are not wholly dependent on tourism to fund conservation. Bennett Kahuure, MEFT Director of Wildlife and National Parks, stresses the need for diversification: “We must now venture into the process of resilience.

We are not out of the woods yet, the pandemic is still with us, so we must build for the future in terms of resilience.”

While the pandemic has come with many challenges, the rapid, coordinated response of the CRRRF has been impressive. Many developing countries have been hit hard by the socio-economic impacts of COVID, and Namibia is no exception. This shock has especially tested the strength of Namibia’s commitment to community conservation and its relationship with external donors. We now believe that together we are ready to face any challenges that come our way.

Above and top right: Local tailors received materials for the production of fabric face masks as an alternative source of income.

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THE KUNENE RHINO AWARDS

Honouring those who keep an eye on Namibia’s freeroaming rhinos

By Save the Rhino Trust

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The winning photo of the 2019 competition. Taken by the Puros rhino ranger team, led by IRDNC.

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Rangers who have recorded 100 or more sightings of rhinos are given a special Rhino Heroes jacket to acknowledge this achievement.

Simon Kangombe receiving his prize for walking the most foot kilometres in 2019 – over 2,400 km in some of the roughest terrain on the planet. Simon definitely deserves his new set of KWay Hiking Boots

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Images by SRT

he black rhino population in Namibia’s north-western Kunene Region is one of the last truly free-ranging rhino populations in the world. Covering a rugged, mountainous semidesert region the size of a small country (25,000 km2), these rhinos give us hope for their Critically Endangered species. In a period of 2.5 years (2018 to mid-2020), not a single rhino in this population was poached. This is a stunning achievement, considering that these rhinos live in an unfenced landscape on formally unprotected communal lands. What is the secret to this success?

Protecting rhinos in the northwest is a huge team effort, which involves a unique collaboration among relevant government ministries, police, Traditional Authorities, non-governmental organisations, private sector tourism companies and communal conservancies. This network of institutions and individuals working collaboratively to protect rhinos share intelligence, create local pride in the rhino population and, crucially, support intensive rhino monitoring efforts led by teams of dedicated rangers.

Since the threat of rhino poaching in Namibia raised its ugly head once more (reaching a peak in Namibia during 2013), anti-poaching patrols in Kunene increased 12-fold and the number of rhino sightings recorded by rangers increased five-fold. This effort is even more impressive in reality than it sounds – to find just a few rhinos with individually identifiable ear notches, rangers must hike long distances over the roughest terrain imaginable, camp in the wilderness for days on end, and be prepared for extreme desert temperature swings from 40°C on summer days to sub-zero winter nights. The constantly updated information on rhino movements obtained in this way ensures that even one rhino going missing for an abnormal length of time will not go unnoticed.

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Besides finding rhinos and recording their whereabouts, the rangers create an important link between government authorities and the people who live in the area. Spearheaded by Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) in 2012, the Conservancy Rhino Ranger Incentive Programme fundamentally seeks to shift the rhino conservation agenda from what has been historically a government and NGO-led initiative to a more community-driven approach. This programme was established in response to the conservancies’ leaders who back in 2011 requested to be more engaged and empowered in rhino protection.

The priorities have therefore been to train, equip and enable conservancy appointed and employed Rhino Rangers to monitor the rhino population often alongside rangers employed by SRT and Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC), most of whom also hail from the Kunene Region. Rhino Rangers are trusted and respected for their role in keeping the rhinos safe on behalf of everyone else. The people living in Kunene therefore know who to call when they see suspicious activities. In this way, several would-be poachers have been caught before they even killed a rhino, and are liable for the same criminal charges as those who actually did the evil deed.

To honour and recognise these hard-working men and women (to date, five rangers appointed by conservancies have been women), SRT hosted the first-ever Kunene Rhino Awards ceremony in March 2020. Over 60 rangers who work for SRT, IRDNC and ten communal conservancies attended. Many local community leaders were present at the ceremony to show their appreciation and recognition of the rangers on behalf of their communities. The awards consisted of 200 prizes including medals, equipment, and custom ‘Rhino Hero’ jackets across more than a dozen performance categories.

Simon Kangombe was awarded for walking 2,439 kilometres during his 2019 patrols, which is a lot further than the distance from Swakopmund to Cape Town! Unsurprisingly, Simon was part of the team that won the best patrol award – measured in terms of distance walked and days spent in the field. Taking good photos of the rhinos is another important part of patrols, and the winning photo award (decided by vote of all present) was given to the Puros Rhino Ranger team led by IRDNC. The prizes for most courteous driver and best new ranger went to Martin Nawaseb and Hofney Hoeb respectively, while a special award for bravery was presented to two women – Jessica Kharuxas and Fiona Goses from Sorris Sorris and Tsiseb Conservancy, respectively – who recently joined the programme. These were just a few of the awards presented to rangers at the event, all of whom were especially proud of their joint achievement of keeping the Kunene rhino poaching-free for 2.5 years. One ranger exclaimed, “I am so excited to show these medals to my children!”

At SRT we recognise that the best-laid plans and strategies for protecting rhino would be totally ineffective without the right people putting in the hard yards day in, day out. The free-ranging black rhino population is the pride of the local communal conservancies and the whole of Namibia – these precious animals are worth every bit of effort we collectively spend to conserve them. The Kunene Rhino Awards is set to become an annual celebration of the dedicated rangers in the northwest, which is a small yet much appreciated way of saying “thank you” for keeping our rhinos wild and free.

Funding for this event was provided by WWF in Namibia through the USAID Combating Wildlife Crime Project and the Minnesota Zoo.

Rhino rangers are out in the veld all day, making sure that Namibia’s desert-adapted rhino population stays safe.

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WILDLIFE CORRIDORS Paths of connection and hope

By Ingelore Katjingisiua and Ginger Mauney

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Images by NACSO/WWF Namibia

rom the air, Namibia is a maze of paths – some start as wide “animal highways” and merge into a single track before trailing off into dust, while others are long and deep, etching a path that crosses rivers, borders and memory. The generational knowledge of where they lead and why they exist is known by a myriad of species from elephants to ants, and also the people who live alongside these wildlife corridors.

Members of the Sobbe Conservancy who are at the forefront of wildlife corridor protection in the Zambezi Region.

Animals use corridors for a variety of reasons: elephants traverse shorter paths between grazing lands and water, while using longer paths between their wet and dry season home ranges. Large carnivores also prefer to use well-worn paths while patrolling their territories. Knowing where wildlife corridors are in the landscape and what animal species use them is thus critical for planning human use for the land. Crops planted or livestock corralled too close to these paths are in danger of being destroyed, so it makes sense to identify key corridors and plan accordingly.

Taking wildlife corridors into account is especially important in Namibia’s Zambezi Region, which lies at the heart of the five-country KavangoZambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA). It is home to people and wildlife that all use the same landscape. The Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) therefore recognises the importance of maintaining wildlife corridors as a means of reducing human-wildlife conflict and keeping wildlife populations healthy.

Communal conservancies in the Zambezi Region are ideally suited for identifying and maintaining wildlife corridors. Conservancies are local institutions that utilise the wildlife within their respective boundaries to create jobs, improve food security and support rural enterprises; they are also tasked with monitoring wildlife populations and addressing human-wildlife conflict in partnership with MEFT. Conservancies therefore feature strongly in a report on the strategic wildlife corridors

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in the Zambezi Region that was submitted to MEFT in March 2020.

Although maintaining wildlife corridors is highly valuable for the whole KAZA landscape and the larger wildlife economy, it comes at a cost for farmers who live in these areas and might want to use the land for farming purposes. Conservancies and other stakeholders must therefore identify key wildlife corridors in the Zambezi Region and come up with recommendations for incentivising the farmers who live along these corridors to leave them intact. One way of achieving that is through a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme that links the status of wildlife corridors directly to the income of conservancies, which in turn is used for the benefit of communities living in these areas. From the communities’ point of view, this system means that a well-protected wildlife corridor equals improved living conditions.

Namibia’s homegrown PES is called Wildlife Credits – an innovative conservation initiative that rewards conservancies for proactive, verifiable conservation results. Wildlife Credits payments go directly to the stewards on the ground for conservation results already achieved: e.g. corridors protected or rare animal species sighted. Traditional funding is used to cover expenses such as boots on the ground, vehicles and training, all of which are important components of conservation, but they do not always achieve conservation results. Paying for results through Wildlife Credits thus complements traditional funding and recognises conservancies for their contribution to conservation.

Using new technology to monitor and protect an ancient wildlife corridor.

Using Wildlife Credits to help protect wildlife and its habitat isn’t hypothetical: there is ample proof that it works, from the proactive protection of lions in the Wuparo Conservancy to rhino sightings in the Huab. In 2018, Wildlife Credits was applied to the protection of a wildlife corridor for the first time, focusing on a key elephant corridor in the Zambezi Region. Distell Namibia and Amarula, the liquor that is synonymous with the African elephant, formed a partnership with Wildlife Credits and the Sobbe Conservancy. Distell invested N$ 130,000 into the national Wildlife Credits fund to pay the Sobbe Conservancy for successfully protecting the critical corridor that runs through its land.

This payment was based on independently verified data showing the continued protection of the corridor and evidence that wild animals continue to move through this area. The former was confirmed through satellite images captured over a ten-month period, while the latter was shown by photos from camera traps placed along the corridor.

Together, this evidence reveals that the communities living in the Sobbe Conservancy avoid planting their crops or building any structures along the corridor, which allows wildlife to move freely.

The conservancy put the payments received through Wildlife Credits (which added to the funds from Distell) to good use by connecting villages in this remote part of Namibia to the electricity grid during 2019. Six villages received transformers and electric poles, five of which now have electricity (the infrastructure for the sixth is being installed at the time of writing). This project benefits 1,012 members of the conservancy and contributes to Goal 7 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): affordable and modern energy for all.

Monitoring the wildlife corridor is an ongoing effort. In 2020, the conservancy introduced the SMART mobile application to capture

data that complements the camera traps deployed in the corridor.

Additionally, the Sobbe Conservancy increased foot patrols of the corridor from twice a month to once a week. The corridor functions as a transit highway for elephants moving between Angola, Zambia, Namibia and Botswana. They are part of the estimated 220,000 elephants in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), the largest elephant population left on the planet.

The corridor monitoring efforts have further revealed how many other species use this highway: African wild dogs, civets, bush pigs, roan antelope, side-striped jackals, zebras, giraffes and porcupines, among others. Images from the camera traps even had a surprise in store for Lise Hanssen, director of the Kwando Carnivore Project, who has worked with communities in the Zambezi Region since 2007 and is assisting the Sobbe Conservancy with this project: “Although we expected [and found] five of Africa’s large carnivores using this important area [lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, spotted hyaena], we were amazed to find an image of a brown hyaena, which is now the northern-most confirmed record of this species.”

It is only through long-term collaborative work with communities and long-term support from businesses like Distell Namibia and Amarula that these exciting discoveries are possible. They are more than just facts – they add significantly to the conservation imperative for KAZA as a whole and highlight the importance of this critical wildlife corridor for long-term conservation efforts. Further, these encouraging results boost the communities’ pride in their conservation achievements. This year (2021), Distell Namibia and Amarula have pledged to build on this success by renewing their partnership with the Sobbe Conservancy and Wildlife Credits and expanding their support to include two more vital wildlife corridors in the Zambezi Region.

Camera trap images reveal the surprising variety of rare and endangered species using the wildlife corridor in the Sobbe Conservancy.

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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING CENTRE

in desert-adapted elephant country

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By Anna Sheehama, Conservation Programs Assistant at Elephant Human Relations Aid. Images by Christin Winter

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lephant-Human Relations Aid (EHRA) has started building its Education Centre on the northern bank of the Ugab River in the southern Kunene Region. This is a great stride forward for our environmental education programme.

The Education Centre is the latest development in our ongoing PEACE (People and Elephants Amicably CoExisting) Project, an elephant-focussed education programme that was launched in 2009 to address the increasing human-elephant conflict issues.

Through our PEACE Projects, we have experienced first-hand that by dispensing knowledge and raising awareness we can empower and inspire both young and old community members to develop and implement sustainable solutions to the problems related to sharing resources with elephants. In our approach, we recognise the communities’ custodianship over natural resources and seek to develop their sense of environmental protection and appreciation of the natural environment.

Our education currently centres on the topics of elephant conservation and fostering a peaceful co-existence between the local communities and elephants through our conflict mitigation workshops. But the Kunene Region is not just famous for its elephants. It has pristine mountainous environments, rich in wildlife and culture. One cannot

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talk about the conservation of a species without talking about the environment with which it interacts. The new Education Centre will therefore go beyond elephant conservation and include all aspects of environmental conservation.

At the new centre, PEACE will offer a five-day environmental education programme that is designed to fit into the national school curriculum for both Upper Primary and Secondary schools. We are extremely grateful for the guidance provided by the Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust (NaDEET), which has shared its experience with our team and aided us in developing our environmental education programme adapted to our project area. We hope to complement each other’s work regarding education for sustainable development and nature conservation.

Apart from hosting environmental education courses for school learners and human-elephant co-existence workshops for the communities, the centre will host training events and workshops on various subjects related to sustainable living for community members, livestock herders, communal and commercial farmers and tour guides. Topics will include: regenerative agriculture and perma-culture for those wanting to grow their own food; arts, crafts and recycling projects to generate income from local products and waste; wildlife photography and tour guide training for community members interested in wildlife-related careers.

Construction of the new centre is well underway, and we are determined to keep the negative ecological impacts of all our activities during and after construction to an absolute minimum.

We care for and love our environment, which is why we have opted for an eco-friendly building made with locally sourced materials and using as little cement as possible. The walls are made of rock gabions, steel beams are used for the roof construction and doors are made of local timber. These materials blend well into the surrounding environment and will not harm it while in use or after disposal as they can be easily recycled or reused elsewhere.

The centre is designed to maximise the participants’ ability to learn by providing a comfortable, distraction-free environment.

We offer an indoor learning space large enough for more than 50 participants at a time, as well as an outdoor learning space for more practical, hands-on learning experiences. We believe that linking the two is the best way to teach and to ensure effective learning and retention of knowledge.

The construction of our Education Centre was sponsored by the UK ice-cream brand NUII and the environmental conservation organisation WildArk. We highly appreciate their support during such a tough year. If you would like to contribute to the future upkeep of this centre, which will provide valuable information to the surrounding communities, please visit our website: ehranamibia.org.

We are on track to complete the facility and make it available for public use by the end of 2021. We are excited to take our environmental education into a new era that will make a valuable contribution to nature conservation and sustainable living in this special part of Namibia. The future of our environmental education project looks promising!

For further information on our programs and activities please contact: info@desertelephant.org Website: www.ehranamibia.org

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GLIDING INTO A BRIGHTER FUTURE John Paterson

Albatrosses and Namibian fisheries

An Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross gliding over the ocean.

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By Gail Thomson with Titus Shaanika, Samantha Matjila and John Paterson

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fluffy little albatross chick is born on Gough Island in the Tristan da Cunha archipelago far off the African coastline in the southern Atlantic Ocean. With a large body, tiny wings and webbed feet, he doesn’t exactly look like one of the most graceful birds on the planet. Yet, under the care of both parents that bring back fresh supplies of regurgitated fish, his little wings will grow long and narrow, while the chubby body continues to put on weight.

At around seven months old, he will join many others of his species in running (i.e. waddling at speed) along the ground into the wind, eventually taking to the skies. He will spend the next five years gliding ever more gracefully and efficiently over the ocean, rarely touching land. The combination of a heavy body and long, narrow wings make it difficult to take off and land (crash-landings are common!), but the real advantage is in the air.

Albatrosses have what is known in aerodynamic terms as high wing-loading (i.e. very heavy relative to their wing size) and a high wing aspect ratio (i.e. long and narrow wings), plus a special sheet of muscle that keeps the wing locked in position during gliding. Albatrosses boast the longest wingspan of any bird in the world, with the largest species (the wandering albatross) topping the charts at a staggering three metres.

Taken together, these features make the albatrosses perfect gliders – allowing them to fly for thousands of kilometres with minimal energy spent on wing flapping.

John Paterson

Similar to soaring birds on land that use wind thermals to gain height, albatrosses use the wind generated just above the ocean surface to maintain their momentum with a technique called dynamic soaring. They alternate between gliding in the same direction as the wind to pick up speed – while losing altitude – and then banking to face the wind just before they touch the ocean surface to create lift. Once they have gained sufficient altitude against the wind – but just before they lose speed altogether – they bank again to glide downwards with the wind. In this manner, the wandering albatross can maintain a speed of 80 km/h for days on end and circumnavigate the globe in only 46 days!

A black-browed albatross nearly touches the surface of the ocean before banking into the wind.

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The albatross’s flying abilities have inspired human engineers in their search for ever more efficient gliding machines – particularly for developing large drones that can fly with minimal fuel loads. Yet this inspiring family of birds is severely imperilled by humans: 15 of the 22 albatross species in the world are considered threatened (i.e.

Vulnerable or worse) by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The greatest threat to albatrosses is being caught as “bycatch” in marine fishing operations.

Fishing vessel captains and crew have no desire to catch albatrosses – indeed, killing one used to be considered terrible luck by sailors – but the bait they use to catch fish and the offal they throw overboard are an irresistible attractant for many seabirds, including the albatross.

When seabirds scavenge around these fishing vessels, they could get hooked by the lines used in longline fisheries, tangled in the nets used by trawling vessels, or collide with one of the many cables used to deploy these fishing instruments.

John Paterson

Marine fishing lines can be over 20 km long and carry over 14,000 hooks (each bearing an attractive piece of bait); each line is weighted

and thus sinks to a certain depth to catch fish. While the line sinks, however, it is within reach of seabirds that grab the bait close to the surface or dive for it to a depth of up to 16 metres (in the case of petrels). It is no wonder that longline fisheries are especially dangerous for albatrosses, petrels and other seabirds.

The fluffy little chick described in the first paragraph is an Endangered Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross – one of only 35-70,000 left in the world. If he was born in the early 2000s and fledged successfully, he would most likely have encountered one of the deadliest commercial fishery operations in the world for his kind. He might have been one of the 30,000 seabird casualties recorded for Namibian fisheries in 2009 alone.

Albatrosses take a long time to reach sexual maturity and perfect their complicated mating dance, so our little chick may never have fathered his own offspring. If one of his parents was killed after they had finished raising him, the other one might never find another mate. Each albatross death, whether of an immature or adult bird, is therefore a tragic loss.

The bird scaring lines are deployed outside of the trawl cables to keep the birds at a safe distance from the fishing gear.

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John Paterson

This is why the recent announcement that the Namibian commercial longline fisheries have reduced seabird bycatch rates by a whopping 98% is cause for celebration. Longline fisheries accounted for 22,000 of the 30,000 seabird deaths reported in 2009. So when only an estimated 215 deaths occurred in 2018, bird conservationists were overjoyed. Even more encouraging, no albatross deaths (of either Atlantic yellow-nosed or black-browed albatrosses) were recorded by observers from the Albatross Task Force (ATF) after new fishing regulations were introduced in 2015. Additionally, white-chinned petrel (classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN) deaths declined dramatically after the regulations were introduced – this species accounted for 84% of the thousands of seabirds killed before the regulations came into force.

John Paterson, who started this branch of the ATF, recalls, “Our first task was to determine the extent of the problem by going to sea aboard the fishing vessels and observing seabird interactions with the fishing gear. This is how we discovered just how deadly the Namibian longline and trawling fleets were for seabirds.” This was only the beginning, he says and continues, “We also found out that relatively cheap and simple devices and strategies that had minimal interference with fishing operations were effective in reducing potentially deadly interactions between seabirds and fishing gear.”

John Paterson

This remarkable achievement is testament to over a decade of hard work collecting data at sea and building relationships on land. The ATF is an international project led by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Birdlife International. The Namibian branch of the ATF, operating under the auspices of the Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF), was established in 2008.

The next six years included more data collection at sea and developing a good working relationship with the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR) and the commercial fishing companies. Working with the fishing companies was crucial, as passing regulations without creating awareness of the problem and providing good reasons for following those regulations could lead to limited compliance.

Although the MFMR’s Fisheries Observer Agency (FOA) sends out many observers on board fishing vessels to ensure that they adhere to regulations, they cannot cover every vessel on every fishing trip.

“Building trust with the industry and the FOA was a key part of ATF’s work right from the beginning,” John notes, “even getting permission to board the vessels as observers was only possible after we established a working relationship with them.”

For the ATF the first sign of success was when some fishing companies volunteered to try their suggestions, which paved the way for high levels of compliance once the new regulations were gazetted by MFMR in 2015. One of the most important of these suggestions is to attach ‘bird scaring lines’ to the fishing lines and nets, which do exactly what the name indicates – scare birds away from the deadly hooks and nets.

Other suggestions include increasing the weight attached to the long fishing lines to make them sink out of the birds’ reach more quickly and setting the lines or nets at night, because albatrosses hunt during the day.

Top: White-chinned petrels accounted for most of the seabird deaths recorded in Namibian fisheries before the introduction of bird-scaring lines.

Above: A large number of different seabird species, including albatrosses, are attracted to fishing vessels.

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John Paterson

John Paterson

Benguela Current Convention (BCC)

Bird scaring lines are thrown into the ocean alongside the fishing cables to prevent bird collisions.

The women from Meme Itumbapo manufacturing bird scaring lines for the fishing industry.

The bird scaring lines deployed on either side of this cable keep the birds at a safe distance from the fishing gear.

To support the use of bird scaring lines in the fisheries industry, the ATF partnered with NamPort in 2013 to help five women from Meme Itumbapo Craft (CC) in Walvis Bay start manufacturing the lines to sell to fishing companies. When the ATF met them for the first time, these ladies were making jewellery from seashells in an effort to support their families, but that is a small and unstable market. In recognition of their efforts and self-motivation, the ATF team identified this group as a potential local manufacturer for bird scaring lines. The hard-working women grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

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John Paterson

A shy albatross skimming the foam flecked waves.

The group started making these lines before the regulations came into place, when the first few fishing companies started experimenting with the lines based on ATF’s suggestions. While NamPort funded the start-up costs for manufacturing, the NNF assisted the ladies with administrative tasks and establishing a contract with a local manufacturing company that supplies the fishing companies. Today, Meme Itumbapo runs its affairs independently and is a proudly Namibian manufacturer of bird scaring lines.

The Namibian ATF team’s success has not resulted in complacency, however, as there is still more work to be done. In 2015, Titus Shaanika came on board with the ATF and was joined by his colleague Samantha Matjila in 2016 to build on the ATF’s initial success. Although the Namibian trawl fisheries (i.e. those that use nets rather than lines) were less deadly than the longline fisheries prior to regulations (reporting about 7,000 seabird deaths in 2010), the improvement in this sector has not been as dramatic. Overall seabird deaths in this sector were reduced by 54%, although the proportion of albatrosses and petrels killed by trawlers fortunately declined from 77% to 30% of seabird deaths after the regulations were implemented.

“While most trawlers used the bird scaring lines,” Samantha clarifies, “they were concerned that they would get tangled with the trawl cables when they first set the nets in the ocean.” Consequently, the bird scaring lines were only deployed after nets were set, which leaves a period of time open for birds to collide with trawl cables. Further, if fish offal is discarded overboard during the setting procedure before the scaring lines are deployed, the vessels present a deadly attraction for seabirds during this time. “We are finding ways to address the fishing captains’ concerns about bird scaring lines and working with MFMR to further improve the regulations,” Titus concludes confidently.

threatened albatross and petrel species. Science is informing policy, while bringing industry on board and empowering women from disadvantaged backgrounds. In conservation terms, this is the stuff of fairy tales.

But the fairy tale doesn’t end there. On a small island in the middle of the raging Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of fluffy juvenile Atlantic yellownosed albatrosses will take to the sky in March-April 2022. At first ungainly and unsure, they will eventually join the ranks of the world’s most graceful fliers, making their way to the Namibian coastline with barely a flap of their wings. With far less danger posed by the humans fishing in the ocean below, they will find their own fish, learn to dance and establish life-long relationships with their mates, with whom they will raise yet more fluffy little chicks for many years to come.

Key references: Paterson, J.R.B. et al. (2017). Seabird mortality in the Namibian demersal longline fishery and recommendations for best practice mitigation measures. Oryx 53(2), 300–309. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0030605317000230.

Da Rocha, N. et al. (2021). Reduction in seabird mortality in Namibian fisheries following the introduction of bycatch regulation. Biological Conservation 253, 108915. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108915.

The Namibian government, the fishing industry and conservation groups are working together to save thousands of seabirds, including

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CONVERSATIONS IN

THE CACOPHONY – how Cape fur seals communicate within their massive breeding colony

A territorial male growling.

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Isabelle Charrier

By Mathilde Martin, Isabelle Charrier, Simon Elwen and Tess Gridley

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visit to the Cape fur seal breeding colony at Cape Cross on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia will leave you with two distinct impressions: the fishy smell and the constant noise. The barking, growling and bleating of 210,000 seals sounds like chaos to the human ear, which leaves us wondering: how do mother seals find their pups, or male seals differentiate between mates and rivals in this apparently confusing cacophony?

Seals, sea lions and walruses (collectively known as pinnipeds) are a particularly interesting group of mammals in terms of communications, as they are highly vocal, live in colonies of varying densities and have a variety of mating strategies.

The Cape Cross colony of Cape fur seals provides an excellent case study for investigating pinniped communications; this is the densest colony of pinnipeds in the world, which requires the seals living here to have clear communication strategies.

Surprisingly, while communication among several other pinniped species has been studied, we know nothing about Cape fur seal communication. The Namibian Dolphin Project therefore teamed up with French researchers from Paris-Saclay University to investigate. Although this project is not yet finished, we have already uncovered some of the seals’ strategies for communicating clearly despite the deafening din.

Navigating social life in a seal colony is a complicated business, as seals of different ages, sexes and social statuses all congregate on a small strip of beach. Without clear communication, a pup would lose its mother and starve, or a subadult male would stumble into a dangerously territorial adult male – knowing who you are talking to in the colony is a matter of life and death.

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Isabelle Charrier

Cape fur seal breeding colonies are organised in harems: mature males (bulls) establish territories that encompass 10 to 30 females and their pups. Bulls spend the entire breeding season from late October to early January defending their territory and harem, with no time to go to sea and hunt for their dinner. Females give birth to a single pup in November or early December and nurse it for 10-11 months. During this time, they spend alternate periods on land to nurse their pups and at sea to forage for food. Every time they return to the colony, each mother must find her young among thousands of other pups.

Isabelle Charrier

Cape Cross, the world’s largest pinniped breeding colony

Using microphones, our team recorded 360 seals making over 3800 vocalisations at Pelican Point and Cape Cross during the 2019-20 breeding season. The Pelican Point colony provides a useful contrast with Cape Cross, as the colony is smaller, less dense and occupies a different habitat. Our analysis revealed that Cape fur seals have a relatively small repertoire of five different types of calls. Two of these are attraction calls between females and their pups, while adults communicated with barks, long barks (males only) and growls as part of territorial defence or during close-contact fights. Despite the limited call repertoire, the context in which a call is produced (e.g. mating, fighting) provides enough basic information for other seals to interpret the caller’s motivation.

Considering the complex social life of seals, however, we hypothesised that each call would contain more detailed information about the caller – e.g. sex, age, body condition or even individual identity. Our team therefore ran acoustic analyses on seal calls and performed playback experiments to decipher what type of information Cape fur seals can convey in their vocalisations.

Recording of a calling female at Cape Cross.

We first compared the characteristics of vocalisations (e.g. duration or pitch/timbre) made by seals in different social categories and ages within these categories. We found significant differences between groups and ages. For instance, females produce higher-pitched and shorter barks than adult and subadult males. Similarly, week-old pups produce shorter and more bleating calls than 2-4 months old pups. Finally, we analysed calls made by specific individuals and found that each seal’s voice is unique, thus potentially allowing individual recognition within the seal colony.

Spectrograms of the five call types produced by Cape fur seals. © Mathilde Martin

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Tess Gridley

A pup calling for its mother.

To test whether or not individual recognition is involved in seal communication, we performed playback experiments by broadcasting vocalisations from particular seals to others that did or did not have a direct relationship with the caller. Initial results from our first experiments showed that both mothers and pups are able to recognize each other from their voice (mothers responded more when we broadcast calls from their pup compared to calls from strange pups, with similar results for pup responses). Moreover, this vocal recognition seems to appear very soon after birth, probably in the early days of the pup’s life. Vocal communication thus seems to be the primary way for mother-pup pairs to reunite in the colony after a mother’s foraging trip at sea.

Our playback tests on territorial bulls revealed that they react differently to their neighbour’s barks than to those from strange males.

The bulls appear to be more aggressive with strangers than with their neighbours whom they probably consider to be a lesser threat to their territory. Finally, our investigations showed that territorial males encode their state of arousal in their barks. They bark faster when they are excited or motivated (e.g. during a fight). We found that subadult males – which are too young to hold a harem – responded to our playbacks of adult males with different behaviours based on the level of excitement in the call (e.g. becoming more vigilant when rapid barking is played). Assessing the threat level from barks allows subadult males to reduce the risk of injury posed by aggressive territorial bulls around them.

pups are weaned. Cape fur seals have therefore adapted to their noisy, potentially dangerous living conditions by developing unique voices that can be recognised within their crowded colonies.

The Namibian Dolphin Project and the French research team ‘Acoustic Communications’ are grateful to the Namibian Chamber of Environment (NCE) for assisting with the research permit application for this project.

Namibian Dolphin Project is a research and conservation project working in Walvis Bay and Lüderitz, Namibia www.namibiandolphinproject.org Acoustic Communications team of the Institute of Neurosciences Paris-Saclay, CNRS & Paris-Saclay University, France, is dedicated to the study of vocal communication processes of animals in their natural environment. www.cb.universite-paris-saclay.fr

We compared our results with studies on other pinniped species and found that Cape fur seals had higher levels of individuality in their calls than other pinnipeds. These species live in less challenging circumstances – their colonies are less densely populated, or the males are not territorial, or mothers and pups stay together until the

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Helicopter science

Vera De Cauwer

Unlocking the botanical secrets of the Kaokoveld mountains

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By Rolf Becker1, Wessel Swanepoel1,2, Ernst Van Jaarsveld1,3, Amândio Gomes4, Fernanda Lages5 and Vera De Cauwer1,6

T View towards the southeast from the highest point at Serra Cafema, Iona National Park, Angola

here are few places left on earth that scientists haven’t visited to collect and study fauna and flora. Unexplored places invoke images of the deep ocean, inaccessible parts of Antarctica, or the highest mountains on Earth. It may come as a surprise that there are a few almost totally unexplored places right here in Namibia and just across the border in Angola. The region that covers north-western Namibia and southwestern Angola, called the Kaokoveld, is wellknown by scientists and intrepid tourists. Yet the peaks of the highest mountains in the northern Kaokoveld are so difficult to access that few have ever scaled them to study the plants and animals that live on what appear from a distance to be inhospitable, barren mountaintops. Until now.

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Location of the three mountain tops visited. © Vera De Cauwer

Vera De Cauwer

Kaokoveld. The area receives mainly summer rainfall that ranges from an average of less than 50 mm in the west to up to 300 mm in the east – but it is highly erratic and patchy – while the low-lying and escarpment areas regularly receive fog from the bordering Atlantic Ocean. All of these physical conditions make living here extremely challenging, which is why so many plants and animals are uniquely adapted to this harsh environment.

Helicopter taking off from Middelberg, Otjihipa Range, Namibia During April 2021, a team of adventurous scientists from the Biodiversity Centre at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the Instituto Superior de Ciências de Educação (ISCED) da Huíla in Angola embarked on a modern-day adventure of discovery in one of the last truly unspoiled remote wilderness areas in the world. Our target: three of the highest mountaintops within the Kaokoveld Centre of Endemism, namely Middelberg in the Otjihipa range, Serra Tchamalindi and Serra Cafema.

The Kaokoveld Centre of Endemism is known for its many plants and animals that occur nowhere else on earth (such species are known as “endemic”). The Kaokoveld Centre is bordered in the west by the Atlantic Ocean and stretches 100 to 150 km due east through the Namib Desert, the pro-Namib and the Great Escarpment to the inland plateau of southern Africa. Elevation ranges from sea level to 2065 m in the Ovahimba Highlands just south of the Kunene River and 2573 m at the top of Brandberg mountain (Namibia’s highest peak) in the southern

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Surrounded by vast stretches of drylands in the Kaokoveld, the Otjihipa Range in Namibia and the Serra Tchamalindi and Serra Cafema in Angola rise to heights of about 2000 m above sea level, separated from the isolated shores of the Skeleton Coast and the cold Benguela current by the gravel plains and sand dunes of the Namib Desert. Both the location and altitude of these mountaintops make them tantalising targets for scientists – they could harbour endemic species that are not found in the lower-lying areas, especially Afromontane species (i.e. plants and animals associated with African mountains).

Access to these peaks is notoriously difficult, however. There are no roads, the terrain is extremely rocky, and the stifling heat is even more perilous for human explorers due to the absence of water. To reach them, explorers would have to hike for several days carrying all of their own water, far from any emergency support services. Consequently, very few, if any, scientific expeditions have scaled them, and studying the species on these mountaintops remained a pipe dream.

The only way to reach these mountains in relative safety is via helicopter.

A generous grant from the European Union made hiring a helicopter for this expedition possible, thus turning the dream into reality. Helicopter forays from our base camp allowed our expedition team to reach the peaks with sufficient food, water and necessary equipment to spend several days and nights on each mountain. Although the team represented a range of expertise, and many interesting animal species were found, we focus here on the botanical side of the mission and share some of the most exciting plant species found on each of the three mountaintops.

The Otjihipa Range

Wessel Swanepoel

The Otjihipa range in Namibia is bordered by the Kunene River in the north and the Marienfluss Valley in the west. The team visited one of the highest areas of the easternmost part of this range, a roughly 10 km long, northwest-southeast ridge with the highest peak in the northwest at 1973 m. Our temporary camp was centrally situated on this ridge, which we called Middelberg (translated: middle of the mountain). Unlike what some may expect, the ridge is not bare rock with a few sparse grasses and herbs, but boasts a diverse shrub and woodland vegetation as two geological formations meet on top of this plateau that create different soil types.

Many Kaokoveld endemic plant species were found, particularly from the genus Euphorbia. These included the majestic Kaoko tree-euphorbia (Euphorbia eduardoi) which grows in abundance on the plateau and slopes, the rare short-stemmed candelabra tree (Euphorbia otjingandu) and the smaller, thorny ohahi (Euphorbia otjipembana). One of the most common tree species was the paper-barked milkbush (Euphorbia guerichiana), which was more often than not damaged at the roots and lower stem by porcupine. Perhaps the most exciting botanical find on this mountain was the Angola cabbage tree (Cussonia angolensis) that was previously only known from the Baynes Mountains in Namibia further to the east (other populations are known in Angola).

Wessel Swanepoel

Beyond plants, one of the most spectacular finds on this mountain was a large, two-chambered dry cave with intact stalactites and stalagmites. Our cursory investigation suggested that it was pristine and did not seem to have been visited or used by humans before.

Top: View towards the south from the Middelberg ridge, Otjihipa range, with two young Kaoko tree-euphorbias (Euphorbia eduardoi) that lost their branches, on the left Above: View from Middelberg, Otjihipa range, towards the west with a Kaoko treeeuphorbia (Euphorbia eduardoi) on the left and a paper-barked milkbush (Euphorbia guerichiana) on the right

Vera De Cauwer

Far right: Black stick lily (Xerophyta retinervis) at Serra Tchamalindi

Vera De Cauwer

Right: Ohahi (Euphorbia otjipembana) on the Middelberg ridge in the Otjihipa Range.

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Vera De Cauwer Vera De Cauwer

Wessel Swanepoel

Wessel Swanepoel

Right: Largeleaved sesame tree (Sesamothamnus leistneri ined.) at Serra Tchamalindi, Iona National Park, Angola.

Far right: Euphorbia monteiroi subsp. brandbergensis at Serra Cafema, Iona National Park, Angola

Wessel Swanepoel

Left above: View onto Serra Tchamalindi, Iona National Park in Angola, from the helicopter Above top right: View to the south from the camp area at Serra Tchamalindi with a resurrection bush (Myrothamnus flabellifolius) in front.

Above right: Turnera oculata var. paucipilosa at Serra Tchamalindi

Serra Tchamalindi

Serra Tchamalindi is a 40 km long, crescent-shaped west-east quartzitic sandstone range located immediately north of the Kunene River in Iona National Park in Angola. The undulating upper plateau has an elevation of 1700 to 1900 m and is surrounded by sheer cliffs. Various drainage lines cut through the cliffs from the central west-east watershed forming deep gorges in places. The team visited the easternmost section of this range and set up camp at about 1420 m elevation, as the helicopter could not land higher up the mountain where it was covered with a continuous tree layer.

The vegetation near the camp was a combination of mopane savanna and afromontane savannah. Besides mopane trees, Commiphora (myrrhs) and Combretum (bushwillows) shrubs and trees dominated the landscape. The beautiful Kaokoveld endemic flower Turnera oculata var. paucipilosa thrives on this mountaintop. On the drier slopes we found, amongst others, two resurrection plants: the resurrection bush (Myrothamnus flabellifolius) and the black stick lily (Xerophyta retinervis). As their name suggests, resurrection plants appear to be totally dead during the dry season but suddenly turn green with the rains and even flower under good conditions. The highlight of this mountain visit was finding specimens of the as yet undescribed large-leaved sesame tree (Sesamothamnus leistneri ined.), which extended the known distribution from Namibia into Angola.

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Serra Cafema

Vera De Cauwer

This 2050 m high granite mountain is situated on the western edge of the escarpment zone in Angola, opposite the well-known Marienfluss Valley in Namibia. At 85 km from the coast, it was the closest of the three mountain tops to the Atlantic Ocean. The 7 km north-south plateau gradually slopes from 2050 m in the south down to 1300 m in the north and receives fog and a cool west wind from the Atlantic. We set up camp within 100 m of the highest point.

The top of this high mountain had a surprising amount of vegetation, which consisted of a mosaic of hardy Cape fynbos-like shrubs (known as sclerophyll plants) and dry savanna vegetation with largestemmed Namib resin trees (Ozoroa crassinervia). To our delight, another beautiful Turnera flower was common here (Turnera oculata var. oculata). This large mountain boasts an unexpected variety of ecological niches that host a range of succulent and tree species, from the paintbrush flower (Kleinia longiflora), devil’s trumpet (Tavaresia angolensis) and mother-in-law’s-tongue (Sansevieria pearsonii) to the jacket-plum (Pappea capensis) and the carrot tree (Steganotaenia araliacea).

Vera De Cauwer

We were particularly pleased to find several species that until now were thought to be endemic to the Otjihipa Mountains, such as Commiphora otjihipana and Pelargonium vanderwaltii. Another surprise was the tall Euphorbia monteiroi subsp. brandbergensis that was previously only known from the Brandberg and Spitzkoppe further south in Namibia. Even more importantly, we recorded only the second locality of the ultra-rare Euphorbia leistneri, which was previously known only from the hot Kunene River Valley close to Epupa Falls in Namibia. With its amazing plant diversity, this particular peak was a hot favourite among the plant experts on the expedition team!

An Excellent Expedition

The diversity of interesting fauna and flora we encountered on this expedition made the many months of planning and preparation absolutely worthwhile. The large number of specimens collected will take the team many months, maybe years, to analyse. Although it is still early days, there is already convincing evidence that a number of species new to science have been found and that many range expansions have been recorded, enhancing our understanding of this unique ecosystem.

Even in the midst of our data deluge, however, it is clear that we unlocked only a fraction of the mystery held by these biodiversity hotspots. There is no doubt that yet more weird and wonderful plants and animals are waiting to be discovered on these inaccessible peaks. This taste of discovery has left everyone on the team thirsting for more – a longer return visit is needed to fully come to grips with the interesting biological variety that makes its home on the remote mountain tops of the Kaokoveld.

Acknowledgements This expedition was part of the SCIONA project (Co-designing conservation technologies for the IonaSkeleton Coast Transfrontier Conservation Area of Angola and Namibia) that received funding from the European Union under grant agreement FED/2017/394-802. We would like to acknowledge the other members of the expedition: Francois Becker, Bruce Bennett, Morgan Hauptfleisch, and Pedro Vaz Pinto. We are grateful to the Namibian and Angolan Ministries of Environment and Home Affairs for assisting with all the permits required, to Ansie Bosman who organised all logistics, and Dirk Du Preez from Namibia Helicopter Services for his excellent and flexible piloting.

Plants near the top of Serra Cafema, Iona National Park, Angola Top: Turnera oculata var. oculata.

Above: Mother-in-law’s-tongue (Sansevieria pearsonii)

This expedition was led by members of the Biodiversity Research Centre at the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) and supported by their collaborators at the Instituto Superior de Ciências de Educação (ISCED) da Huíla in Angola. The authors of this article represent the following institutions: 1. Biodiversity Research Centre, Faculty of Natural Resources and Spatial Sciences, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia.

2. Independent Researcher, Windhoek, Namibia.

3. Babylonstoren Farm and Department of Biodiversity and Conservation, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

4. Departamento de Biologia da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade Agostinho Neto, Luanda, Angola.

5. Herbário do Lubango, Instituto Superior de Ciências de Educação (ISCED) da Huíla, Lubango, Angola 6. Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources and Spatial Sciences, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia.

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TAKING A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO

PANGOLIN CONSERVATION IN NAMIBIA

By Kelsey Prediger

Arne Kurscheidt

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T

he pangolin has gained unwelcome notoriety in recent years as the world’s most trafficked mammal, yet pangolins are severely understudied and their ecology mostly remains a mystery. For the few people who have ever seen these elusive animals, they look reptilian or even prehistoric. Pangolins are in fact the only scaly mammal. Eight species are found worldwide, four are in Asia and four in Africa. In Namibia we have the Temminck’s ground pangolin, the only species adapted to an arid environment and found in southern Africa.

Given the high numbers of live pangolins confiscated from illegal traffickers, Namibian conservationists realised that we needed to know more about the pangolin’s ecological requirements to inform our releases. Research from better-known mammal species like carnivores shows that translocating an animal from one place to another is not always successful. Yet pangolins were being confiscated from traffickers, rehabilitated and released into areas that were probably far from where they were initially caught. The lack of information on what makes an ideal pangolin release site and what happens to them after release was thus a major concern for the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) and non-governmental partner organisations that jointly established the Namibian Pangolin Working Group (NPWG).

temperature. The resulting data were analysed and mapped for the entire study period (see map), and separated for different seasons.

We found that the average male home ranges (17.07 km2) were over three times larger than female home ranges (5.51 km2) and male core areas (i.e. where they spend 50% of their time) were nearly four times larger (6.31 km2) than female core areas (1.65 km2). A home range or territory is defined as the area where the pangolin spends 95% of its time, while the core area is a smaller part of the home range where it spends 50% of its time. Pangolins have a polygamous mating system with one male’s territory overlapping with multiple female’s territories.

The males move throughout this area visiting and re-visiting the different females over time.

Kelsey Prediger

Pangolin trafficking in Africa is on the rise, as their scales and meat are sought after in China and other Far Eastern countries. Namibia has not been spared from the global trafficking scourge. Since 2016 there have been over 496 arrests, and in the past few years more pangolinrelated cases have been opened than for rhino and elephant poaching combined. In only four years, Namibian authorities have confiscated 128 live pangolins and 268 skins or carcasses. The live pangolins are rehabilitated and released back into the wild.

To help answer these questions, I focused my Master of Science (M.Sc.) research on pangolin ecology that included individuals found in the wild and those that were confiscated from traffickers, rehabilitated and released into the wild. My academic supervisors and I were especially interested in answering three key questions: 1) How large is the area that pangolins need for their home ranges? 2) What species of prey do they prefer? 3) What kind of burrows do they prefer to use for refuge? Tracking the released pangolins also revealed how successful the releases were in terms of survival and reproduction.

Answering these questions would ultimately help to prioritise release sites for live confiscated pangolins and improve their chances of postrelease survival, which fitted perfectly with the concerns highlighted by the newly established NPWG. Due to security concerns, I cannot reveal exact pangolin numbers or give specific locations, but there are some interesting results that I can share from my work thus far.

How much space does a pangolin need?

To answer this question, we tagged resident and released pangolins with radio and GPS transmitters during 2018-2020. With a radio (or VHF) tag, the research team must locate the pangolin using a receiving antenna as often as possible, but this limits our knowledge to the times when we go out and find them. Later on in the study, extra funding allowed us to attach GPS transmitters to some individuals to collect movement data more frequently and measure the ambient

A pangolin with VHF (right/top) and GPS/UHF (left/bottom) transmitter

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Kelsey Prediger

A pangolin eating from an ant nest after digging open the tunnels.

Female and male home ranges mapped from spatial data for 4 males and 10 females. Male territories are in blue/green, females are pink/purple.

The larger pale areas are territories, while the smaller darker areas are core areas for each individual.

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Both sexes are territorial and use their scent or anal glands to mark their territories; they also drag their tail through their urine or faeces to disperse their scent. On a number of occasions we observed territorial fights between same-sex individuals. These disputes sound very dramatic – like medieval knights clashing their armour. Despite appearing to us as docile creatures, they can seriously injure one another in these fights by thrashing their tails and pulling at the opponent’s scales with their sharp claws. Unfortunately, one released pangolin succumbed to his injuries after fighting with a resident male. Other pangolins that were released at this site were similarly unsuccessful in establishing home ranges, most likely because this site already has a healthy population of residents, leaving little to no space for new individuals.

By contrast, a confiscated female pangolin that was released on a cattle farm in eastern Namibia in July 2020 settled into a territory near the release site and has established a home range of comparable size to that of residents. Excitingly, during a follow-up visit we found a male pangolin pursuing her. We therefore set up camera traps at her known burrows in the hope of recording the birth of a pup, which would be a truly successful release.

What do pangolins eat?

We already know that pangolins only eat ants and termites, using their exceptional sense of smell to locate nests where they are rewarded with larvae and eggs. Only rarely do they feed on adults encountered on the surface. Research in South Africa and Zimbabwe found that pangolins are very picky eaters in terms of which species of ant or termite they eat. We wanted to find out what Namibian pangolins ate and whether they had similarly narrow diet preferences.

To record what species of ant and termite were available in each study area, we set pitfall traps for insects across known pangolin territories.

We then took samples of the species we saw our study pangolins feeding on to find out what they preferred. Dr. John Irish, a prominent entomologist in Namibia, identified our ant and termite samples to the species level. We discovered that Namibian pangolins are picky indeed – they only ate four out of the 24 identifiable species of ants and two out of the five species of termites that were found in their home ranges.

The pangolins we observed fed on ants 82% of the time, although the species that they preferred were not the most commonly found ants in our pitfall traps. Two species of pugnacious ant (Anoplolepis spp.) were especially high on the pangolins’ menu, as they made up 77% of the observed diet, while the snouted harvester termite (Trinervitermes sp.) accounted for 16% of the diet. Two other ant species and one termite species accounted for the remaining 7% of our study animals’ diets.

Where do pangolins hide out?

Although we know very few of the pangolin’s specific habitat requirements, we do know that they need burrows as refuges during the day and safe places to give birth. Much less is known about what makes a good burrow for a pangolin. We therefore selected 151 burrows to measure in terms of height, width, internal and external temperature, general characteristics and surrounding habitat type.

Only 89 (59%) of these burrows remained intact during the rainy season and could therefore be measured when we visited them after the rains. Most of the intact burrows belonged to females, which might indicate that females are better at selecting stable burrows.

Most (79%) of the burrows we measured were deeper than one metre and had a median internal burrow temperature of 14.8 °C. These types of burrows are often dug by other species such as aardvark, porcupine and warthogs. These results suggest that burrows over a metre deep are particularly suitable for pangolins. One likely reason for this is that pangolins are not good at thermo-regulation. Deep burrows remain at a constant temperature across the seasons – warm in winter and cool in summer – thus providing ideal pangolin hideouts.

Finding suitable pangolin release sites and further research The most immediate application for my research is to help find suitable release sites for pangolins caught in the illegal wildlife trade.

First, one would find out whether or not the release site already has many pangolins and if there are any open areas large enough for the released animal to establish a home range (which would be bigger for males than females). Second, a survey of the local ant and termite species would reveal whether suitable prey is available or not. Third, searching for and measuring burrows would determine if the released pangolin would find sufficient refuge in the area.

Meeting these basic ecological needs would greatly increase the chances of a successful release.

Having completed the research for my M.Sc., I realised that we still know far too little about this highly trafficked animal and that there are many more questions yet to be answered. Consequently, I recently founded the Pangolin Conservation and Research Foundation (PCRF) non-governmental organisation to support further research that can be applied to pangolin conservation needs. The University of St. Andrews (Scotland) and the Biodiversity Research Centre of the Namibia University of Science and Technology continue to support my research.

My efforts are part of the bigger pangolin conservation picture in Namibia. Pangolin post-release monitoring is an ongoing collaborative effort among the NPWG members to better understand the survival success of released individuals. Meanwhile, the MEFT and its nongovernmental partners in the NPWG are identifying promising release sites across Namibia on private and state-protected land. This complements continued national efforts to clamp down on illegal pangolin trafficking and keep Namibia’s pangolins in the wild.

Reference: Prediger, K. (2021). Home range size, prey preference, and burrow selectivity of resident Temminck’s pangolin, Smutsia temminckii, in central Namibia. MSc Thesis.

This research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Morgan Hauptfleisch of the Namibia University of Science and Technology and Dr. Monique MacKenzie of the University of St. Andrews. Generous financial and logistical support was received from the Namibian Chamber of Environment, B2Gold, Total, the Pangolin Consortium, University of St. Andrews, Namibia University of Science and Technology, AfriCat Foundation, and Okonjima Lodge CC.

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TEAMWORK AND SCIENCE ENABLES COEXISTENCE BETWEEN

FARMERS AND CHEETAHS

By Gail Thomson with Bettina Wachter and Jörg Melzheimer

C

heetahs are the “black sheep” of the cat family. Their slender physique and incredible speed is totally un-catlike. Neither entirely solitary like most cat species, nor highly social like lions – male cheetahs often form coalitions whereas females are loners when not raising cubs. But their idiosyncratic habits don’t stop there: they use their environment in totally different ways to other cats, and herein lies a promising solution for cheetah conservation.

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Jan Zwilling

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Linking cheetah movements with livestock losses

Dr Jörg Melzheimer is part of the research team from Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) which has been studying cheetah movements using VHF collars since 2001, and started using GPS tracking collars in 2005. “Rather than keep strict territories that lie directly next to each other like other cats,” Jörg says, “some cheetah males defend territories with a lot of open space in between them, whereas other males and the females have large overlapping home ranges, encompassing three to four territories. Yet cheetahs rarely come into direct contact. They nonetheless stay in touch using marking sites such as conspicuous trees that they mark with urine and faeces – the cheetah’s version of Facebook.”

Several farmers already knew where the play trees were on their properties, as their fathers, grandfathers and even great-grandfathers had located them and passed this knowledge on to the next generation. These farmers’ ancestors tried to reduce the number of cheetahs on their farms not only by killing them, but also by cutting down their play trees. This approach nonetheless failed, as cheetahs shifted to using other trees or conspicuous objects such as termite mounds. Farmers who want to reduce their losses to cheetahs in the long term therefore need to incorporate scientific information about cheetahs into their farming practices. This is where the team from IZW could help.

Although knowing how cheetahs use the landscape is valuable scientific information, the greatest value of this research is to help livestock farmers limit their losses to these big cats and thus find a way to coexist with them. Namibian farmers have known for many years that cheetahs use marking sites, which they call “play trees”. Some farmers place traps around these sites to capture cheetahs and remove them from their properties. But killing or removing cheetahs this way only reduces livestock losses in the short term, because other cheetahs soon move in to take over these important communication sites.

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Jan Zwilling

The team found that territorial males claim a core area within their territory which contains many of these marking sites. Due to the importance of these core areas for cheetah society, the researchers call them ‘communication hubs’. By spending most of their time in or near the communication hub, territorial males can keep tabs on the reproductive status of local females and discourage other males from hanging around for too long. “The interesting thing is that communication hubs are very far from each other, on average 23 km” Jörg points out. “This creates hotspots of cheetah activity, as all of the cheetahs within a very large area visit these marking sites regularly.”

A typical “play tree”, or cheetah marking site, is used to capture cheetahs by packing a kraal of thorny bushes around the tree leaving only one entrance open, that leads through the trap.

Jan Zwilling

A farmer in Namibia looks over his cattle herd. Young calves are vulnerable to cheetah predation.

Building trust between farmers and scientists

Besides initiating their research, the IZW scientists worked hard to address biased opinions about who is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in farmercheetah conflict situations – starting with their own biases. “I realised that I should be willing to walk a mile in the farmers’ shoes before I could talk about their actions”, says Jörg. He learnt this quickly when he arrived in Namibia as a young greenhorn scientist motivated to change the world.

Right from the beginning the scientists’ approach was to build trusting relationships with the farmers by being totally transparent about how they collected their data and what they did with it. “We agreed to exchange knowledge and data throughout the project period” says Bettina, “which at first meant that the farmers showed us how to capture cheetahs at marking sites, and in return we explained how we work and analyse data.”

One of the most memorable requests that Bettina recalls was when the farmers wanted to learn what a p-value is, which is a statistical term that is often quoted in scientific papers as an indication of whether a result is ‘significant’ or not. “It was fun giving the farmers a lecture on basic statistics,” she recalls, “but more importantly, we revealed that there is nothing mysterious about scientific approaches.”

Jan Zwilling

“When we arrived in 2001 in our main research area between Gobabis and Windhoek, we asked the farmers what they would like to know about cheetahs,” recalls Dr Bettina Wachter, head of the IZW Cheetah Research Project. “Their main interest was in cheetah movements and feeding ecology, which are the two things that most affect livestock losses.” By first asking for their input, the IZW team showed that the farmers were not just spectators, but active participants in the project. “Initially we were met with a wait-and-see attitude,” Bettina remembers, “but this is understandable because wildlife scientists and nature conservationists are naturally perceived as not having the cattle farmers’ interests at heart.”

Jörg from IZW shakes hands with one of the cattle farmers they worked with to reduce livestock losses to cheetahs.

Similarly, the scientists showed the farmers how to identify hair remains of prey animals in cheetah scats using a microscope. Taking the mystery out of science shows that nothing is being hidden behind the difficult terminology and technical methods that scientists use.

Building trust takes a long time. The farmers took a while to reveal to the scientists how many cheetahs they killed, while the scientists were initially nervous about providing exact cheetah movement data to the farmers. Nonetheless, every data exchange increased their mutual trust as each side realised that their information was only being used to achieve their common goal: finding solutions to farmer-cheetah conflict.

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From dead cats to options for coexistence Jan Zwilling

The most difficult situations for these partners to overcome occurred when farmers killed cheetahs that were threatening their livelihoods.

Jörg recalls his first encounter of this kind: “In my very first week in Namibia, a farmer called us to report that he had killed a cheetah that had molested his cattle calves; he asked whether we wanted to examine the carcass for our research. When I arrived I found three dead cheetahs rather than the expected one, which was really hard for me. But I held back my emotions and instead thanked him for working with us.” Small moments such as this one had a significant impact on the project. The farmers started to realise that they had nothing to fear from the scientists’ reactions to cheetah kills, while the scientists found that putting their emotions aside was the only way to collect valuable data.

Bettina and Jörg retrieve a sedated cheetah from one of their box traps. They will take measurements and collar the animal for their research before releasing it back onto the farm with the farmer’s permission.

From the scientific perspective, it is important to retrieve cheetah carcasses as soon as possible after death to determine the health status of these individuals. The project is not restricted to cheetah ecology, because health risks and infection prevalence are also important factors for determining population sizes and dynamics.

The scientists were therefore grateful that these deaths could at least contribute to scientific knowledge.

Occasionally, some farmers would call IZW before they shot the cheetahs that they had caught, which provided an even more valuable opportunity. “When receiving such calls, we would discuss the advantage of fitting a GPS collar on the animal and releasing it to reveal its movements on the farm,” explains Bettina. “In many cases we were successful, but even when we were not and the farmer decided to shoot the cheetah, we dissected the animal without reproaching him.”

Bettina Wachter

Over the years, the IZW team have had fewer and fewer dissections to do, as farmers increasingly preferred the option of collaring and releasing the animals that they caught. By collaring these cheetahs and others they caught for this purpose, the IZW scientists were able to study the movements of more than 250 cheetahs on Namibian farms, which made it the biggest study of its kind. During this time, they discovered the communication hubs and movement patterns described earlier, which generated a new idea for mitigating the farmer-cheetah conflict. This marked an important turning point in the project – from research to practical application.

To test their idea, the IZW team planned an experiment that would require farmers with high cattle losses to move their breeding herds away from communication hubs on their farms. “The first farmer who was ready to participate in this experiment was sceptical, but ready to give it a try,” remembers Jörg, “He expected the cheetahs to follow the breeding herds no matter where he moved them; we had to admit that we were not sure that the plan would work, but were nonetheless eager to find out.” The experiment was highly successful: the cheetahs did not follow the breeding herds but instead preyed on the game species close to the communication hubs.

Having demonstrated their idea on one farm, the team introduced more farmers to the concept of communication hubs and showed them exactly where the hubs were located in relation to their farms.

Wherever the hubs overlapped with fenced sections of the farm (known as camps), the farmer removed all young calves from that camp and put them in another part of the farm. The results were exciting – farmers were able to reduce their annual losses to cheetahs by 86%!

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Jan Zwilling

This cattle herd will be relatively safe from cheetahs if it is managed based on information about cheetah movements on the farm.

Reducing human-wildlife conflict is complicated but not impossible

Thus the solution to farmer-cheetah conflict is deceptively simple – keep your vulnerable livestock away from communication hubs, and your losses will decrease. Rather than taking the traditional approach of removing “problem cheetahs”, farmers need to focus on avoiding problem areas. Unfortunately it is not always so easy, as the hubs do not necessarily line up nicely with the fenced camps on the farms.

Some hubs may also cover such large parts of the farm that it is difficult for the farmer to find space to put vulnerable livestock. “In these cases, we advise farmers to use supplementary feeding to keep the breeding herds in safe areas of the farm, or cooperate with their neighbours to host their small calves for a couple of months until they are less vulnerable,” Jörg explains. “We are willing to help each farmer tailor a solution to their own situation.”

Not all farmers in Namibia are cattle farmers – some keep valuable wildlife species for trading and/or hunting. Such farmers often erect game fences of about 3.2 metres high, but cheetahs are still able to move through them. If farmers know where cheetah communication hubs are before erecting game fences, they can

avoid them altogether and thus minimise their losses to cheetahs.

“When the game fence has already been erected and encloses either a portion of or an entire communication hub, the most successful approach might be to add an electrified wire at the bottom of the fence to prevent entry,” says Jörg. “Once this is done, any cheetahs still inside the enclosure can be caught and relocated to the other side of the fence”.

Conservation scientists and farmers are concerned with humanwildlife conflict for different, yet overlapping reasons. The scientists see a complex problem that could be solved by collecting and analysing data, leading to science-based solutions. The farmers consider the same complex problem as part of the larger challenge of farming successfully, and they bring their own ideas and thoughts to the table from practical experience. The IZW Cheetah Research Project is a nice example on how to resolve a human-wildlife conflict situation by comparing notes and exchanging knowledge. Although the cheetahs have a special way of using their habitat, all carnivore species use certain areas in their home ranges more frequently than others.

Identifying these areas is a promising way forward to help farmers coexist with other carnivore species, too.

IZW

For more information on Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW), visit their website: www.izw-berlin.de or www.cheetah-research.org

A camera trap photo of a male cheetah leaving information at a marking tree.

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NAMIBIA’S DESERTADAPTED LIONS the benefit of translocating conflict-causing individuals

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By Dr. Maaike de Schepper, Shauna Jenkins and Dr. Rudie van Vuuren.

uman-wildlife conflict in the Kunene Region in northwestern Namibia costs local communal conservancies tens of thousands of Namibian dollars per year. The main species that cause conflict in the area are spotted hyaena, cheetah, jackal, leopard, elephant, and lion. Due to the severe, ongoing drought of the past several years, Namibia experienced a decline in game species, and approximately 30,000 cattle died between October 2018 and March 2019 alone. The loss of livestock has reduced the farmers’ tolerance for losses related to human-carnivore conflict.

The desert-adapted lion population in Namibia has increased over the past 20 years from approximately 20 lions in 1997, to an estimated 112-139 animals in 2018. This resulted in increased conflict between humans and lions, which has become particularly acute due to the recent drought. The drought has had several related impacts, all of which exacerbate the conflict. As grazing was reduced, farmers are increasingly relying on nighttime grazing to allow their

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livestock to maintain their body weight and condition. Bringing animals into the kraal every night reduces the grazing area that they can reach, which is critical when the available grazing is scant. Wild herbivore populations also declined during the drought, which makes the lions increasingly desperate to find prey. Several lions have moved into farming areas and are surviving by killing livestock, which adds to the farmers’ problems.

To address ongoing human-lion conflict, several mitigation methods are being implemented, ranging from collaring lions with GPS and radio collars that are linked to early warning systems, kraaling livestock at night when lions are nearby, and the presence of human herders.

Unfortunately, no method is currently 100% lion-proof. One part of this overall strategy is to remove individual lions that cause repeated losses in one area, or frequently approach human settlements and therefore pose a threat to human life. Removal is most often lethal, but another option is to translocate the lions to areas where they will no longer cause conflict and therefore be safe.

In response to an urgent request for help with a lion problem in August 2018, the N/a’an ku sê Foundation, in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT), relocated two adult females and three approximately fourteen-day-old cubs (two females and one male) from the Tsiseb Conservancy to the fenced Zannier Reserve east of Windhoek. The communities living in Tsiseb reported unacceptably high livestock losses, and therefore threatened to destroy these lions if no alternative was provided by MEFT. Rather than destroying the lions, MEFT permitted N/a’an ku sê to remove the pride from the conflict situation and place them in a temporary holding facility on the Zannier Reserve. They were kept in this facility for seven weeks to help them adapt to the new environment prior to their release on the 8,000-hectare reserve.

After their release, this pride of five lions has hunted for itself without any human intervention. Monitored regularly by the N/a’an ku sê research team, possible kill sites are identified twice weekly by the cluster of GPS points produced by their collars when they spend a long time in one location. The research team then uses skeletal and fur remains at kill sites to identify the prey species. We found that the pride preferred hartebeest during 2018 and in the beginning of 2019.

Due to drought, most of the hartebeest on the reserve died in 2019.

The lions therefore shifted towards hunting gemsbok more frequently (nearly 40% of their kills) than other species. Occasionally they also hunted ostrich, warthog and kudu, among others.

adult females, one sub-adult female, and one sub-adult male on Zannier Reserve. The sub-adult male will be placed in another reserve before he reaches sexual maturity, thus preventing him from breeding with his relatives and making way for the introduction of an unrelated male. Any other conflict-saved lions that N/a’an ku sê receives in future will be similarly managed to prevent mating among close relatives. We will thus ensure that the genetic integrity of these lions is maintained.

These conflict-causing lions adapted well to life within a fenced game reserve, even though they came from an area without game fences, and successfully hunted game that they may not have previously encountered (e.g. hartebeest). By choosing translocation over destruction of the individuals, there remains an opportunity for future offspring to be reintroduced into protected areas. This aligns with the MEFT’s mission and goals and its ‘friends of the park’ initiative.

In an ideal world, one would like to see the desert lions of Namibia coexist with the local communities, and every measure should be taken to achieve this goal. Part of that plan nonetheless includes assisting farmers in desperate situations by removing specific lions from conflict situations. We must therefore answer the question: is a dead lion the best option, or is it better to translocate lions whenever possible, thus allowing them to live another 5-10 years in freedom and safety?

On 21 July 2020 the team noticed that one of the female cubs was missing. After a search of the property, her remains were found the next day. The cause of death was a severe injury, which we suspect happened while the lions were hunting a gemsbok. This has left two

The red lion icon is where the lions were initially captured in Tsiseb Conservancy. The pink square is the location of the release site Zannier Reserve.

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The future for conflict

African Wild Dogs in Namibia

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- is a metapopulation approach the answer?

By Shauna Jenkins, Dr. Maaike de Schepper and Dr. Rudie van Vuuren Images by Dr. Maaike de Schepper

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he African wild dog is one of the most endangered carnivores in Africa. This species has been eradicated from 80% of their historic home range on the continent. Humans are the main cause of their precarious status, as they are killed as a threat to livestock and farmed game, their wild prey species have been over-harvested in many countries, and their natural habitat has been destroyed.

Additional problems arise from competition with other species, mainly lion and spotted hyaena – these larger carnivores regularly steal their kills, and can be opportunistic wild dog killers. Wild dogs are also highly vulnerable to common diseases found in domestic dogs, like rabies, parvovirus and canine distemper. With huge home ranges of up to 2,000 km2, wild dogs require large areas with sufficient natural prey for resident packs, and safe areas for dispersing groups to move through.

As wild dogs are found in lower densities than most other African carnivores, any uncontrollable events, such as natural disasters or random population fluctuations, together with the ongoing human-wild dog conflict, can compromise the long-term survival of the species. The main driving factor for human-wild dog conflict is the killing of livestock by wild dog packs. Despite an adult wild dog weighing between 25-32 kilograms, they can take down adult cattle by hunting in packs.

With only seven African countries holding viable wild dog populations of 400 individuals or more, it is critical to manage the remaining populations in order to preserve genetic diversity. Besides population management, community education, farmer education and conflict mitigation are the key actions required to reduce human-wildlife conflict. In South Africa, fenced protected areas have become critical for the survival of small populations of wild dogs and cheetahs, which are managed as a larger metapopulation (see below).

In Namibia the main focus is on reducing the level of human-caused wild dog mortalities outside protected areas. Although packs of wild dogs occur in several of Namibia’s north-eastern national parks (e.g.

Khaudum, Bwabwata, Mudumu and Nkasa Rupara), they range widely beyond park boundaries and are frequently found on farmlands where they come into conflict with farmers.

What is a wild dog metapopulation?

In a natural situation, a group of young wild dogs of the same sex break off from their original pack to form a new pack in a process known as dispersal. Today, many wild dogs are killed during dispersal, as they have to roam widely over farmlands to find members of the opposite sex before starting new packs.

Furthermore, if they choose a farm to settle down and make a den for their puppies, they are even more vulnerable to being killed by local farmers.

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Human-controlled management of these populations is one way to help dogs move from one safe area to another, whilst maintaining genetic diversity and limiting breeding between related individuals.

Managing several populations that are geographically far apart as though they are part of one large population is known as metapopulation management. By mimicking natural dispersal, reserves in South Africa have recorded increases in their wild dog metapopulation since this type of management was implemented.

In Namibia, however, wild dog populations are in trouble in some parts of their range, particularly where they roam through farmlands far from protected areas. Developing a small-scale metapopulation programme for this species therefore seems to be more relevant than ever. With the creation of a working group of different stakeholders, such as non-governmental organisations, private game reserves, researchers, and the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT), it may be possible to establish an African wild dog metapopulation programme here in Namibia.

An experiment on Zannier Reserve As an experiment to see whether wild dogs could be established on private reserves, which may one day be part of a metapopulation, two wild dog packs were formed between dispersing groups which were rescued on Namibian farmlands and released onto the 8,000-hectare Zannier Reserve by the N/a’an ku sê Foundation.

After rescuing two separate groups of siblings (a one-year-old male and female, and three six-month-old brothers) from a conflict situation in north-eastern Namibia, we introduced them to each other to form a pack. The five dogs were released together as Pack 1 on 15 June 2018 and stayed together on the fenced reserve until 12 February 2019 when three of them were shot and killed by

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© Shauna Jenkins

Heatmaps showing the movements of Pack 2 for one year (left) compared to lion movements during the same time (right) on Zannier Reserve. trespassers. The two remaining males were returned to captivity, and have since formed a new pack with two adult females that are destined for release in late 2021.

The second attempt involved introducing four adult brothers to an unrelated female, all of which were initially rescued as pups. Pack 2 was released into the reserve on 20 June 2019 and has since produced ten puppies, thus creating a pack of 14 dogs. One of these died from rabies, five others were injured or killed by lions or while hunting (gemsbok defend themselves using their sharp horns), and the alpha female was removed for bonding designed to further pack formation for future releases. As of April 2021, there are seven wild dogs remaining on the reserve and six others in captivity awaiting release.

The dominant females in both packs were collared using a global positioning system (GPS) and radio tracking collars. The resulting GPS data were analysed to identify cluster points that indicate where the dogs spent more time than usual. The research team investigated each site to determine if the dogs were just resting, creating den sites, or feeding on a kill. This information creates a detailed picture of how the released packs are faring on the reserve, which is important to explain the success or failure of this experiment and inform future attempts to release packs.

The dogs’ movements were compared with movements of the lionesses that were released in October 2018 to determine if the wild dogs and lions used different areas of the reserve. We found that the different species used hunting areas and water sources on opposite sides of the reserve during a one-year period. Of the three pup mortalities in Pack 2, only one was due to lions – this occurred during a hunt when the pack came upon the pride of lions, which then caught and killed one pup.

Of the three adult mortalities in Pack 2, two were attributed to injuries caused by hunting, while the other was a rabies infection. All adults from both reintroduced packs received a minimum of three rabies vaccinations, administered on an annual basis, prior to their release.

Designed for use in domestic dogs with an extremely high success rate, its efficacy and duration of immunity in wild dogs is unknown.

After the confirmed case, all the pups on the reserve were remotely vaccinated with a rabies vaccination. No additional cases of rabies in the pack have been observed.

of both packs were kept in enclosures surrounded by fences with electrified wires on the inside and outside of the fence. During this time they learnt from accidental exposure that touching the fence produces a shock. As a result, the adults avoid the main reserve’s fence and appear to have taught the pups to do the same.

Important lessons learnt At this stage, we consider the release of wild dogs onto Zannier Reserve to be relatively successful, when compared with other attempted releases in southern Africa. The data collected from the Zannier Reserve shows that the packs can hunt and fend for themselves, despite being brought into captivity at a young age. This is a promising sign for future releases of dogs that are rescued from conflict situations when they are still young. Further, the birth of ten puppies from dogs that would have been killed on farmlands shows the potential for fenced private reserves to provide a safe haven for this endangered species.

If packs that otherwise would be destroyed were to be relocated to private game reserves or national parks instead, a metapopulation programme similar to South Africa’s could be initiated. The metapopulation could serve as a reservoir for larger reintroductions into national parks such as Etosha or Mangetti in the future. Such a programme could provide parks with wild dogs which are vaccinated against diseases, used to electric fences, and able to avoid larger carnivores like lions. However, working together with farmers and local communities is something that cannot be forgotten. A metapopulation programme will not succeed if the nation does not see the value of this species, or if the human-wildlife conflict issues are not addressed.

Wild dogs are especially valuable for tourism, as they are on the must-see list of many reserve and park visitors. A metapopulation strategy that includes private reserves therefore has the added benefit of generating value from this species through tourism. On farmlands where little or no tourism has been developed, they are perceived only as a nuisance and an unwanted cost. The metapopulation strategy therefore has many possible benefits, and we would like to see other stakeholders join us to make a Namibian wild dog metapopulation programme a reality.

Neither of the two packs reintroduced on the reserve have breached or attempted to breach the boundary fence. Pre-release, the adults

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DOGS HELP CCF GENETICISTS STUDY CHEETAHS Tayla Green/CCF

without invading their space

In training, a scat dog sniffs each box and will sit at the one that contains the right smell.

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By Dr Laurie Marker and Susan Yannetti

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ogs have helped humans in numerous different ways for thousands of years – from guarding our livestock against predators and providing companionship to rescuing people from danger and fighting crime – there is little that our canine friends cannot do. But did you know that they also help us to conserve endangered species? This relatively new role for dogs relies on their detection abilities. But instead of looking for bombs, suspects or drugs, we train them to look for carnivore poop – known to researchers as scat. You heard that right: dogs sniffing for scat can help carnivore conservation! Sounds strange? Let us explain.

Our scientists at the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) are engaged in the research and development of non-invasive census techniques, so that better conservation decisions can be made without handling any of our research animals. Non-invasive techniques can be used to gather important biomedical data that is otherwise only gained through live capture and anaesthesia, which is more expensive, requires the presence of a veterinarian, and is stressful for the animal.

Like most other carnivore researchers worldwide, CCF deploys camera traps to determine population demography and density in a non-invasive manner. Going beyond camera traps, CCF is pioneering the use of scat detection dogs to help study cheetahs; this approach to collecting data about elusive species is gaining popularity around the world. The scat found by these dogs can provide species and gender identification, insights on reproduction and health, and it can be used to determine a predator’s diet, which is vital information to evaluate human-wildlife conflict situations.

Why use Dogs?

Dogs can smell much better than we can, and they can smell things that humans cannot see.

Dogs have 200 million scent receptors in their noses – over 13 times more than in the human nose. Consequently, dogs only need one particle to identify a scent, whereas humans need 180,000 particles. Under realistic field conditions a trained dog can detect a scat sample from between 10 to 20 metres away, a distance at which human searchers would almost certainly fail. These scent-detecting abilities are common among all dogs, so a specific breed is unnecessary – the main prerequisite is being highly motivated and responsive to a handler.

A well-trained dog knows what scent we are after and tells the handler when it gets a whiff of the right smell on the air. Being able to smell particular scents from a distance gives the dogs several advantages over other ways of studying cheetahs.

A recent CCF study, published in the Namibian Journal of Environment by Tim Hofmann, Dr Laurie Marker and Dr Hermann Hondong, looked at the dogs’ efficacy and factors that affect successful detection, like wind, vegetation structure and size of the search area. The study found that dogs can find more samples in a shorter time and are more accurate in identifying species that deposited the scat than human researchers. Compared to using camera traps and human-only search teams, using dogs to detect scat can be more expensive, but the increased number of samples and the dogs’ accuracy can justify their cost.

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Working in Teams

CCF

Scat detection dogs at CCF live with their handler, Tim Hofmann, or with a family on the CCF campus to be part of a social group after hours. Currently our main dog is Enyakwa (Enya). The dogs are trained like narcotics or explosive-sniffing dogs, but they are taught to look for scat of a target species in exchange for a reward. Detection dogs usually work for a toy, like a ball, and will dedicate their energy to looking for scat if they know they will get to play with their toy when they find it.

Tim then takes a sample of the scat, leaving some of it behind to serve as the message the predator intended to leave. GPS coordinates are recorded along with notes including the date, estimated age of the scat and the suspected species. When the search has ended, Tim takes off the dog’s collar to indicate work is done and concludes with the word “finished”. The team then returns to the CCF Centre, and Tim logs the samples in the electronic database. The scat sample is then ready to be processed.

CCF

CCF Scat Detection Dog Enya

Tim and Enya typically start their day early to avoid midday heat.

Around 7 a.m., after a quick health check to make sure she is ready to work, Enya is loaded into CCF’s special dog vehicle and Tim drives to an area where he either knows or suspects cheetah presence. Tim first inspects the area, looking for signs of wildlife, potential threats and cheetah tracks. If the coast is clear, he will let Enya out of the vehicle and put a GPS collar on her. This collar has two purposes – to record her movement and to signal to her that it is time to work. Tim then gives the command “search”, and Enya takes off on her mission to find scat. If she is successful, Enya will sit by the scat and wait for Tim. Once he sees what she has found, Tim immediately rewards her by playing an enthusiastic game of fetch with Enya’s favourite ball.

Tim and Enya are colleagues and best friends

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Tim describing his work with Enya.

CCF

Scat is processed and analysed at CCF’s Life Technologies Conservation Genetics Laboratory, the only fully capable facility of its kind located at a conservation site in Africa.

The answers are in the DNA The key part of this process is extracting DNA from the scat. DNA material is used to confirm species, identify individuals and determine sex. CCF uses the cheetahs’ scat as a part of a census technique to determine the presence of cheetahs in the area and to learn more about these individuals, their relatedness and behaviour, and population structure.

Over the past decade, CCF’s Life Technologies Conservation Genetics Laboratory, under the direction of Dr Anne Schmidt-Kuentzel, has evolved into a state-of-the-art genetics laboratory, the only one of its kind located at a conservation site in Africa. CCF collaborates with scientists around the globe, producing analysis and results for research projects that focus on not only the cheetah, but many other species as well.

CCF’s genetic findings have contributed to the world’s general knowledge of cheetah ecology and behaviour. In 2008, Dr Marker’s PhD findings established that cheetahs in Namibia do not have a strong genetic structure but are well intermixed. CCF also uses DNA to identify the origin of cheetahs poached for illegal trade in the Horn of Africa. This work will ultimately help wildlife enforcement officers identify and intercept smuggler routes.

In 2015, Dr Marker and Dr Schmidt-Kuentzel were members of a team that mapped the cheetah genome, including the reference genome of

Chewbaaka, the well-known ambassador cheetah for CCF. The initial genome analyses unravelled a plethora of fascinating insights around the cheetah’s past and its remarkable specialisation for speed.

Our canine colleagues thus help us gain insights into the cheetah population without disturbing the big cats as they go about their daily lives. By combining the dog’s amazing detection abilities with the latest techniques in DNA analysis, we will continuously improve our understanding of the Namibian cheetah population.

Key Reference: Hofmann T, Marker L & Hondong H (2021) Detection success of cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) scat by dog-human and human-only teams in a semi-arid savanna. Namibian Journal of Environment 5 A: 1-11.

For more information, contact Cheetah Conservation Fund: +264 (0)67 306 225 or visit their website: www.cheetah.org

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John Mendelsohn

Phragmites marshes on the Cutato Nganguela River

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A RIVER IN

TROUBLE

By John Mendelsohn, Mike Murray-Hudson and Gail Thomson

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Graphic by J. Mendelsohn using LandSat images and SRTM terrain data

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s you float upon translucent water moving at the timeless pace of Africa, you can see Kalahari sand sliding beneath darting shoals of fish, and hear the grunt of hippos lurking in deeper pools of the river. Elephants congregate at the water’s edge, while red lechwe dance through the shallows and a host of antelope graze on the floodplains beyond the river channel’s hedge of papyrus. Fish eagles cry out above you, while African jacanas balance precariously on the lily pads floating around your traditional dugout canoe, known as a mokoro.

Those who have been there will instantly recognise this tranquil, verdant scene – the Okavango Delta.

The Delta is a tourist’s paradise and a conservationist’s dream: a UNESCO World Heritage site and a RAMSAR wetland that hosts critically important populations of mammals, special wetland birds and innumerable fish and amphibians. As one of the largest tracts of relatively intact wilderness areas in Africa, the importance of the Okavango Delta cannot be overstated.

Understanding the Okavango Delta

The Delta is so vast and natural that it is easy to become complacent about its protection. Yet as magical as it seems, this wetland does not just appear from nowhere. The water that spreads out like a manyfingered hand that eventually evaporates or sinks into the Kalahari sands in Botswana has travelled over 1,000 km from the highlands of central Angola and then along the border of Namibia. Consequently, what happens to the rivers in Angola and Namibia can threaten the health of the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

The two main river systems that feed the Delta are the Cubango (which is called the Kavango in Namibia, and Okavango in Botswana)

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and the Cuito. The Cubango River is primarily responsible for the seasonal or pulsing floods experienced in the Delta, while the Cuito provides a steadier flow year-round.

Water from rain falling in the Cubango’s upper catchment takes about a month to reach the Delta, normally arriving as distinct pulses and sometimes as floods when central Angola has good rain. Over the next four months, large areas of dry land beyond the Delta’s permanent swamps are inundated. Life in these seasonal floodplains then explodes. Plants germinate and grow, the eggs of all kinds of tiny aquatic animals hatch, frogs emerge from the ground beneath, fish swim in to feed and spawn, birds fly in to feed and nest, and all sorts

of mammals arrive to feast and fatten. Vegetation in the seasonal floodplains is a critical resource for the Delta’s life.

Indeed, it is during the rising and falling of these periodic floods that much of the Delta’s rich biodiversity is produced.

The Cubango/Okavango River is thus very much the lifeblood of the Okavango Delta. If the pulses of this river are reduced or polluted, the consequences for the rich biodiversity and related lucrative tourism industry in Botswana are dire. Yet the Cubango/Okavango River is virtually unprotected in Angola and Namibia, which leaves it open to exploitation and contamination before it reaches Botswana. And pressures on the Cubango/Okavango are much greater than on the Cuito, mainly because access to the Cubango/ Okavango is easiest and this is where most people live in those areas of Angola and Namibia.

Some of these impacts are so large that they are easily seen on satellite images – crop fields that are irrigated using centre pivot spraying systems can be counted and measured.

John Mendelsohn

The Cubango/Okavango and Cuito catchments and their major tributaries, the Okavango Delta, and existing and planned major water use schemes and projects in Angola and Namibia. Not shown are large recreational dams, cattle ranches and many small dams. ©J. Mendelsohn.

Cuebe River

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We have done this exercise several times and recorded an expansion of these irrigated lands from 1,100 hectares in 2003 to 6,420 hectares in 2020. It will be more now in 2021, as made clear by the examples of expansion by five large irrigation schemes shown in the images to the right. The total area under irrigation in these five schemes increased from about 300 hectares in 2011 to about 3,100 hectares in 2021, thus becoming 10 times larger in just 10 years.

Among the developments in Angola are plans to establish and irrigate an eye-watering 221,000 hectares of farmland in future. Water offtakes for irrigation would entirely drain the Cubango during the dry months of the year. A large dam may be built at Mucundi to store summer rainwater, which might then be released to allow some water into the Cubango/Okavango River during the dry season. Several other dams have been planned in Angola, mainly to generate hydroelectricity. Other plans include pumping Cubango/ Okavango water into the Cuvelai Basin by both Angola and Namibia, which often also considers piping water to Windhoek and other parts of central Namibia.

Rural people throughout the Cubango/Okavango River Basin are rapidly moving towards urban centres in search of cash incomes and better living standards. This movement is revealed by the estimated annual growth rates for the towns of Calai (11%), Cuvango (12%), Menongue (7%) and Rundu (4%) during the last 10-20 years. This is good, for two reasons: their livelihoods improve and pressures on natural resources in rural areas will decline, at least in certain areas. However, as people concentrate in towns along the rivers, bulk water offtakes for urban centres will increase rapidly.

Agrikuvango - 8 September 2017

Mumba - 17 September 2017

Nkurenkuru - 10 August 2016

Musese - 26 August 2016

Sikondo - 11 May 2011

5 km

Agrikuvango - 9 April 2021

10 km

Mumba - 9 April 2021

5 km

5 km

5 km

Nkurenkuru - 17 April 2021

Musese - 11 April 2021

Sikondo - 8 April 2021

Helge Denker

Helge Denker

Changes in irrigated areas for five large irrigation schemes on the Cubango/ Okavango upstream of Rundu. LandSat and Copernicus Sentinel images provided by https://landlook.usgs.gov. Image processing by Nice Munekamba (Ongava Research Centre).

A gentle bend in the Cubango River

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Cuanavale River

Helge Denker

Muculungongo Waterfalls on the Cubango

What we do and don’t know about threats to the Okavango

Information on the distribution of existing development projects and the expansion of irrigated agriculture is clear. Lots of water is being taken from the Cubango/Okavango, and the amounts will increase. Of that we can be sure, and the alarm bells should already be ringing. But there is more to worry about.

First, no one knows how much water is cumulatively being taken by all the irrigation schemes, towns and other offtakes, such as for schools, lodges, small horticultural enterprises and hospitals. More critically, what proportion of all the river water is removed? What impact does this have on downstream life: plants, animals, and people?

Second, what pesticides and fertilisers are washed out of the big agricultural projects into the rivers, and how do the chemicals affect life downstream? No data of any substance is available to answer those questions.

Third, what pollution is produced by towns, from effluent, industrial waste and the accumulation of garbage that clogs so many tributary valleys? What chemicals predominate and how do these and other pollutants affect people, animals and plants downstream? Again, little or no information appears to be available.

Fourth, what effect will large dams have on the pulses of Cubango/ Okavango water that maintain the production of biodiversity in the Delta?

Fifth, how do abstractions affect the rivers when rainfall is low? The most recent summer of 2020/2021 is a case in point. Rainfall over central Angola was unusually low, and the volumes of water measured at Rundu were extremely low, indeed about as low as ever recorded.

The simple answer is that the low levels were due to the absence of rain. But we also know that irrigated areas upstream of Rundu

expanded at least 10 times in the last 10 years. And we can expect that these fields were irrigated with more water over longer periods during the hot, dry weather that persisted during the summer. Perhaps double, triple or more water was taken from the Cubango/Okavango than 10 years ago? Who knows? Who cares!

Given that it is the lifeline that supports much of the life, production and economy of Kavango West, Kavango East and the Okavango Delta, why do we know so little about water flows, abstraction and contamination in the Cubango/Okavango River? This is where the alarms should start yelling.

The most obvious answer is that we don’t care. If we, our public representatives (aka politicians), and civil servants did care, information would be at hand, the cumulative impacts of developments could be assessed, and development might proceed in a more orderly and environmentally healthy fashion. While the environmental impacts of certain developments may be assessed and their individual effects may be modest, no effort is made to assess cumulative impacts. Which of these straws will break the camel’s back?

A more sinister cumulative effect is of grave concern: each development degrades the real and perceived value of the Cubango/ Okavango River, and creates yet more precedents for further developments. H.T. Odum, the great ecologist, called this the ‘tyranny of small decisions’. Concerns, alarms and protests progressively get muted. The more broken the river, the harder it is to find fault or to fix, and the easier it is to accept further breakages.

These days much attention is paid to the impacts of climate change, while recent exploration for oil and gas has generated howls of protest.

Such concerns are valid. But they target possible threats that are much more remote in time and space than the impacts that are now escalating and that are now visible.

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John Mendelsohn

For the future

Several things seem necessary. First, there is a need for more care and more public awareness. National Geographic’s pioneering Okavango Wilderness Project is a good example of what is needed to create much-needed publicity. Nonetheless, its focus has been on south-eastern Angola’s Cuito, Cuando/ Kwando and western Zambezi rivers where pressures are very much lower than on the Cubango/Okavango. The Cuito’s ecological contributions to the Delta are also quite different from those of the Cubango/Okavango.

Second, answers are needed to the questions, puzzles and concerns raised here. Monitoring the river is a necessity. These are the responsibilities of the governments of Angola, Namibia and Botswana, and of the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM) established 27 years ago in 1994. OKACOM’s role in making the monitoring data public and advertising any changes to the flows of water is critical since data kept in government offices may serve little purpose.

Third, government policies and procedures in Angola and Namibia need to be revised to move away from present practices where land and water is free for influential ‘developers’ in Angola, environmental assessments are lacking or meaningless, and the production of low value cereals is seen as the best use of high value Cubango/Okavango water.

Fourth, ways should be found for Angola to benefit in substantial ways from the downstream use of water released from its catchments.

There is a Hole in the Bucket is a wonderful children’s song. Of its 17 lines, the first is about the discovery of a leak in the bucket.

The remaining lines explore the steps needed to fix the leak. In the case of the Cubango/Okavango River, we are only starting to ponder the first line. One wonders how long it will take to complete the song, and what Okavango water will remain to fill the bucket!

More information: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Mendelsohn/ publication/341652220_South-eastern_Angola__A_synthesis_of_information_RAISON_2019/ links/5ecd44734585152945144c0e/South-eastern-Angola-Asynthesis-of-information-RAISON-2019.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232560418_ Okavango_Delta_Floods_of_Life https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/okavango/ https://www.okacom.org/

John Mendelsohn - Ongava Research Centre Mike Murray-Hudson - Okavango Research Institute University of Botswana

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Cuchi River

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Steve Carr

The Ururusis site after inundation in 2021

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A newly discovered plant species saved from the rising waters of Neckartal Dam

By Stephen Carr and Coleen Mannheimer

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W

hile the filling of Namibia’s newest and largest dam was met with jubilation after many years of drought, this event almost spelled extinction for a plant species that was unknown to science before the dam was built. The National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) rescued as many plants as possible before they were inundated by the rising waters, and is determined to ensure the survival of this species.

As humanity forges ahead with developments to accommodate our burgeoning global population, many species of plants and animals pay the ultimate price – extinction. Sadly, this seems to be an accelerating tragedy despite all the rhetoric about “green development” and saving the planet. Some species disappear before they are even described by scientists, and many newly discovered species vanish almost as soon as we find them. This cautionary tale of Neckartal Dam and a newly discovered plant species shows just how vulnerable our biodiversity can be to the impact of development.

A new dam and a new species

Neckartal Dam is located west of Keetmanshoop in the Fish River where it winds its way through a remote and arid part of southern Namibia. Although conceived in the 20th century, construction of the dam only started in 2013. It was completed in late 2019 and is, at present, by far the largest storage dam in the country. Like most of Namibia’s rivers, the Fish is ephemeral: it only flows when sufficient rain falls in the catchment area further north. During the recent years of drought, the river did not flow strongly and the newly completed dam stood empty, waiting for inflow.

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Coleen Mannheimer

Coleen Mannheimer

The newly completed Neckartal Dam impounding water

Gladiolus diluvialis

Without the required scoping and subsequent specialist studies as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the construction of the new dam, one particular plant species might have remained in obscurity, and disappeared without a trace. During the scoping study in 2010, Warren McClelland stumbled across the plant at Ururusis Fountain in the Fish River south of Snyfontein, and showed it to Coleen Mannheimer, who immediately recognised its novelty and sent photos to Dr John Manning of the Compton Herbarium in the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town, an expert in the family Iridaceae (Irises), who confirmed that it was very likely a new species in the iconic genus Gladiolus.

In a collaborative field trip in August 2010, John and Coleen, as well as two staff members from the NBRI, were delighted to find the species blooming between sedges in its super-saline habitat south of Snyfontein. Driving, and then walking, through the dry, dusty surroundings, with most of the vegetation desiccated, brown and often leafless, there were moments when it seemed ludicrous to expect to find a flowering lily. It was with relief that Coleen saw a few flowers in the distance (having lured John all the way from Cape Town to see this wonder), but she acted nonchalantly – as though there had never been any doubt that the expedition would be successful. In 2011 John Manning and Peter Goldblatt, another expert from the Missouri Botanical Garden, U.S.A., confirmed that it was a new species and named it Gladiolus diluvialis, meaning ‘flood, to wash away’, reflecting the imminent threat to the newly discovered species.

Gladiolus diluvialis is an unassuming geophyte with a small, bulbous underground tuber (known as a corm). It is unusual in that it flowers during the dry winter season and grows in hyper-saline soils where other Gladiolus species may struggle to survive.

The Snyfontein site, a spring area, is set further away from the Fish River on a tributary, which flows seasonally over somewhat flattish, rocky terrain. This second site, located with the help of a knowledgeable Snyfontein elder, Willem Cloete, is located at a higher elevation than the first and would therefore only be periodically inundated when the dam reaches close to maximum capacity which, according to the EIA report, was likely to be a rare event.

During this work, which included a Red Data Assessment, approximately 80 corms were collected and a seed collection for the National Plant Genetics Resource Centre (NPGRC) was done at the Ururusis site. The seeds at the Snyfontein site were still immature, so a while later a collection was undertaken at that site as well. The corms were given to the National Botanical Garden (NBGN) and the seeds to the NPGRC. Mr Cloete also took the team to a dry clay depression southeast of Snyfontein, situated away from the river but, although corms were found, it was not possible to say for sure that the plant occurred there.

John Manning

Despite extensive search efforts undertaken at twelve potential sites (identified from satellite imagery) within a 100 km radius of Ururusis, only two small locations harbouring the species were

found prior to the dam being built. The Ururusis site was a saline area around the base of a brackish water seep on the steep, canyon-like slopes above the riverbed and far upstream of the new dam wall. It would definitely be permanently inundated with water when the dam filled up.

NBRI

Coleen Mannheimer shows the Gladiolus in situ Gladiolus diluvialis corm

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NBRI NBRI

NBGN staff lifting corms at the Ururusis site.

NBRI

Lifting corms growing between the spikey sedge.

The higher lying Snyfontein site before inundation.

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A conservation strategy and rescue mission

In September 2019, the Environmental Officer at Neckartal approached the NBRI with concerns that the dam was reaching completion and as yet insufficient steps had been taken to address the plight of the new plant species. The NBRI hastily developed a long-term conservation strategy for the plant that was approved by the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry (now Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform). This enabled the NBGN, a section of the NBRI, to undertake a once-off collecting trip to the Neckartal Dam in November 2019, before the dam began filling up.

A team of six NBGN staff set out for the Fish River to dig out as many plants as possible from the Ururusis site, which was viewed as most vulnerable to inundation. This proved to be tough work. The ground had already dried out to hard clay in much of the habitat.

Picks and forks had to be used to break it up. Individual corms were picked out of the clay clods by hand and bagged. Progress was slow and hot in the sun. Despite working systematically and efficiently, the team ran out of time and much of it was untouched at the end of this expedition. Nonetheless, over 2000 plants were rescued and brought to the NBGN to be propagated as an insurance population for the species. Although the team visited the Snyfontein site, the terrain made it almost impossible to lift the plants without damaging them too much to be successfully replanted, so this population was left where it was found.

At the time the dam was built everyone expected it to take many years to fill to a level that would threaten the Snyfontein population, which sits much higher than the population that was rescued by the NBGN. It was hoped that there would be time for the bulk collection of seeds over a few years to save for further conservation steps. The situation changed dramatically in early 2021, however, as the new dam rapidly reached maximum capacity after heavy rains fell throughout central Namibia. Both sites are now well and truly inundated with water, and the population at Snyfontein is also unlikely to survive.

In line with the conservation strategy, some fifty plants were delivered to the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in South Africa, where they have been incorporated into their world-renowned geophyte collection. The rest are currently being kept in the plant nursery at the NBGN. They have been planted in trays containing three different growing mediums and watered regularly. While they have shown some seasonal growth, it has not been vigorous and none of the plants have flowered and seeded. This is a serious concern, as a failure to produce seeds may have a negative impact on the future of the species and might limit attempts to introduce the plant to potential new field sites.

In order to improve the long-term survival chances of the population currently housed in the plant nursery, a permanent bed will be built at the NBGN with funds from Botanical Gardens Conservation International. This permanent bed will hopefully encourage flowering and seed production, while providing visitors to the garden with a new point of interest.

Any person who knows of areas where this plant grows is encouraged to contact one of the authors at 061-2022012 or senioragri@gmail.com.

The Ururusis site where the plant was discovered before inundation.

NBRI

Short of outright extinction, the worst-case scenario is that this newly discovered species joins the long list of plants with the dubious distinction of being extinct in their original habitat, existing only in nurseries and gardens. Unlike some of the plants on this list, however, G. diluvialis is not showy enough for the horticultural trade, nor does it have any known useful applications for humans or their livestock. It therefore requires a conservation effort that does not rely on commercial uses or value of the plant. This may be achievable by promoting it as a public conservation initiative, making limited numbers of the plant available to interested members of the public under an agreement to share genetic material produced. This will decrease the risk to the species’ survival and increase the likelihood of seed production by some participating plant enthusiasts.

The conservation strategy makes provision for introducing some of the plants into habitats that are similar in setting, climate and geology to their original home. Several of the twelve sites originally investigated for the plant would offer potential relocation or re-seeding sites in future efforts to improve the outlook for this rather special species. Although it would involve challenges, if populations could be established at one or more new sites, it would be a tremendous conservation success. Even better, further exploration of the Fish River system might reveal currently unknown sites where the species is still found. For example, the clay depression identified by Mr Cloete, who was clearly familiar with the species, may harbour a small population.

This would be wonderful news for concerned conservationists.

Steve Carr

Next steps for long-term conservation

Some of the corms growing in a tray at NBGN, Windhoek

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Bring in the

bug squad

Gail Thomson

Controlling alien invasive plants in Namibia

By Gail Thomson

C

an a plant pose a major threat to biodiversity, ecosystem function and agriculture?

If it has been transported from its native environment to another continent with a similar climate, the answer is yes. Some exotic (or alien) plants invade the new land with such vigour and speed that they become impossible to control, and an out of control plant can create an ecological nightmare. But why does this happen? And when it does, can we ever get it back under control?

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Plants are part of a natural ecosystem, which involves many different species interacting with each other over time. Within this system, most plants have natural enemies that will feed on them, which in turn are eaten by their own enemies (i.e. predators) further up the food chain.

When a plant is taken out of this system and translocated far from its natural enemies, it is released from nature’s checks and balances.

Rob Thomson

When the aliens invade

Dr Iain Paterson applying biocontrol to a cactus stand.

It is therefore no surprise that some of Namibia’s worst alien invasive plant species are cacti. They love it here, but natural Namibian ecosystems are not prepared for cacti. We have many desert-adapted plant species, such as Euphorbia, but they are not from the cactus family. This means that while we have insects and other animals that eat many of our native plants, they cannot eat cacti and therefore leave them alone. The spiny nature of cacti exacerbates the problem – when they grow in dense stands they effectively prevent anyone or anything from using that land.

Gail Thomson

If the new environment is unsuitable for the plant (e.g. relocated from a cold, wet climate to a hot, dry one), it is unlikely to survive without someone tending to it in a garden. Consequently, not all exotic or alien plants will invade a new land. When the new conditions are similar to its native conditions, however, plants can take full advantage of growing and reproducing without their natural enemies. This is exactly what happens when cactus species from arid parts of the Americas are brought to similarly arid parts of Namibia and South Africa or Australia.

In short, they go crazy.

A dense stand of cactus in Windhoek.

Alien invasive plants thus pose a twin threat to biodiversity and human livelihoods, which is recognised by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) in its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. Several non-governmental organisations are similarly concerned with this threat. The Cactus Clean-Up initiative has created awareness about this problem and spearheaded the manual control of cacti in Windhoek and surrounds for many years. More recently, the Namibian Chamber of Environment (NCE) and the Botanical Society of Namibia (BotSoc) partnered with Rhodes University in South Africa to attack cacti with a different weapon – biological control (also known as biocontrol).

Rob Thomson

The implications of cactus invasion for agriculture are clear – dense stands of cacti effectively steal land from farmers, thus reducing the carrying capacity of their farms. Neither livestock nor wild herbivores can eat cacti, and animals (even as small as birds and reptiles) trying to move through these stands are injured in the process. In urban areas, domestic pets that encounter cacti often require veterinary treatment to remove cactus spines. Meanwhile, the indigenous plants that would usually grow in these places are smothered.

The cactus at this site is so dense that moving through this area is dangerous for animals of all sizes.

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Rob Thomson

Rob Thomson

Left: Dr Iain Paterson from Rhodes University came to Windhoek in 2009 with two cactus biocontrol agents.

Right: Many interested people attended the biocontrol release event in Windhoek.

How natural enemies become biocontrol agents

The concept of biological control hinges on the fact that plants in their native environments do not become invasive because they have natural enemies. If we can find those enemies and bring them into the new environment where a specific plant is invading, we can fight the invasion naturally and effectively. But the problem was created in the first place by taking one organism (i.e. the plant) from its natural environment and introducing it into another environment – should we really do the same thing again? Won’t the plant’s natural enemy follow the same pattern and become an invader, too? Not if we select the right biocontrol agent.

Identifying and introducing biocontrol agents has become a scientific discipline in its own right, precisely to prevent the introduction of yet more invasive species in the process of biological control.

Biocontrol scientists have found that insect species are particularly good candidates for plant biocontrol agents. Many insect species have become extremely specialised natural enemies of particular plant species or groups of plants. If they run out of host plants, they will die out rather than attack a different type of plant. These “host-specific” insect species are considered for use as biocontrol agents.

Finding a plant’s natural enemy is just the first in a long series of required steps to ensure that a biocontrol agent is truly safe. Scientists breed biocontrol candidates in hermetically sealed laboratories and greenhouses to put them through a series of rigorous tests that determine how host-specific they are and whether they can survive on any indigenous plants. If a candidate insect fails any of these tests (i.e. it is not host-specific enough), then it will not be introduced as a biocontrol agent and a different species must be sought. These tests typically take at least five years for each biocontrol agent. This system has proven extremely effective during the 100 years that biological control agents have been used around the world – out of the 400 agents released into dozens of countries during the past century, not a single one of them has become an invasive species.

When selecting a biocontrol agent to attack cactus species in Namibia, we benefited enormously from the hard work and expertise of biocontrol scientists in neighbouring South Africa and in Australia.

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The Centre of Biological Control (CBC) at Rhodes University is an African leader in identifying and introducing safe biocontrol agents for many different alien invasive plants. Cacti have a long history of invading the drier regions of South Africa; developing cactus biocontrol agents has thus been high on the South African scientists’ agenda for decades. All of the rigorous tests described above for cactus biocontrol agents had already been done, which meant that the CBC simply selected tried-andtested biocontrol agents and gave them to Namibia free of charge.

Another factor that works in Namibia’s favour is that we have no indigenous cactus species. Even biocontrol agents that could attack a range of cacti species (and therefore not be narrowly host-specific) would still not survive on any of our native plants.

The biocontrol agents that the CBC selected for release in Namibia were released in the 1970s and 80s in South Africa and have only attacked cactus species.

Nevertheless, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on these particular biocontrol agents was undertaken in accordance with Namibia’s Environmental Management Act prior to their release.

The EIA process ensures that all risks are thoroughly considered, technical and interested stakeholders are consulted and all appropriate precautions are taken. This EIA was completed in 2019 and an Environmental Clearance Certificate was issued to allow the biocontrol agents to be brought into the country and released on the invasive alien cacti. Consequently, when Dr Iain Paterson of the CBC arrived in Namibia in late 2019 with his cargo of insect-infected bits of cacti, we had total confidence that the agents he released in Windhoek would be safe and effective.

Controlling alien invasive plants takes a village

Although our newly introduced “bug squads” are establishing themselves and getting to work on dense cactus stands around Windhoek, there is still an important role for humans to play in the fight against aliens. We can help spread the biocontrol agents to new stands of cactus, continue to manually remove cactus species that are not targeted by biocontrol agents and create awareness among gardeners and nurseries about invasive cacti that should not be planted or propagated.

After the initial release, the biocontrol agents need time to grow their population and fully infest the first stands of cacti. They are not good at dispersing over long distances, however, so once they are established they could use a helping hand to reach other cactus stands. Dr Paterson released two biocontrol agents – a cochineal insect and a mealy bug – that are both difficult to see with the naked eye.

What we can see is the evidence that a plant is infected by looking for the tell-tale signs that the insects leave behind. By taking bits of infected cacti and attaching them to currently healthy cacti, we can spread the biocontrol agent without even seeing it.

The cochineal insect that was released to control dense stands of imbricated or devil’s rope cactus (Cylindropuntia imbricata) found in and around Windhoek is now established enough to be spread further.

If you know of dense stands of uninfected imbricated cactus, then all you need to do is cut or pull off pieces (i.e. cladodes) of infected cactus and wedge them into uninfected plants. Students from the Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST) are monitoring the spread of the biocontrol agents with assistance from BotSoc. If you would like to help spread the biocontrol agent, see contact details in the text box below.

needs financial support to employ and transport cactus removal teams to different parts of Windhoek that have severe cactus problems (see text box for details).

Finally, every keen gardener and nursery in Windhoek can play a role by finding out which cactus species are invasive and removing them or not planting them in the first place. Cacti arrived in Namibia because they were desirable as garden plants that do not need much water, but this is exactly why they rapidly got out of control. Namibia has many beautiful indigenous plants that grow happily with little or no attention, so gardeners and nurseries would do well to focus on propagating and growing these species. Together with the biocontrol agents, we can stop this alien invasion before it steals any more land and further damages our natural ecosystems.

To find out where the infected cactus stands are and how you can spread them, contact Coleen Mannheimer at manfam@iafrica.com.na.

To support the Cactus Clean-up Initiative, visit www.cactusclean-up.com or contact Gunhild Voigts at gunhild.voigts@gmail.com.

Besides spreading biocontrol agents on the two target cactus species – the other one is the midnight lady or snake cactus (Harrisia pomanensis) – we still need to manually control many other cactus species. The crew from the Cactus Clean-up Initiative does the hard work of cutting down cacti and removing them. This private initiative

Coleen Mannheimer

Gail Thomson

Coleen Mannheimer

For more information on indigenous plants in Namibia, visit www.botanicalsociety.biodiversity.org.na.

A healthy Imbricated cactus (top right) and an infected one (left and above).

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Le Roux van Schalkwyk

Namibia’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Climate Agreement:

Is it achievable?

By Willem Odendaal

N

amibia is particularly vulnerable to climate change, which exacerbates extreme environmental events such as persistent droughts and sporadic flooding. In response to this threat, the Namibian government has a National Climate Change Policy, among others, that addresses related issues. Policies are usually indicative of how governments plan to achieve certain goals. While policies are normally not enforceable, they can at an appropriate stage be developed into binding legislation.

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Although Namibia does not have any specific domestic legislation that deals with climate change, it has ratified several international environmental agreements. Under Article 144 of the Namibian Constitution, ratification effectively makes these agreements part of Namibian law. The Paris Climate Agreement that Namibia ratified in 2016 is one such example. Let me provide a quick guide to Namibia’s recently updated national commitments that fall in line with this agreement. In particular, I ask whether these commitments are feasible in our current economic context and considering development goals, and what the consequences might be if unrealistic targets are set.

What is the Paris Climate Agreement?

The Paris Climate Agreement was adopted in December 2015 and came into force in November 2016 after a sufficient number of nations had ratified it. With 191 nations on board, this Agreement represents a high level of international commitment to dealing with climate change.

The principal aims of the Agreement are to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, caused by the increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty. The signatories seek to achieve these aims by holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to limit the

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temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. One of the ultimate goals for signatories is to reach net zero GHG emissions by 2050 – i.e. that the total emissions produced by human industries are cancelled out by the earth’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

An important aspect of the Agreement for developing countries like Namibia is the financial support they could receive to lower GHG emissions and encourage climate change-resilient development such as switching to renewable energy. To comply with the Agreement, each country is required to set its own emission-reduction targets, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are reviewed every five years. While the Agreement calls on parties to be ambitious with their NDCs, they must still be achievable within each five-year period.

Namibia’s 2021 NDC

Namibia is already a net carbon sink, which means that our natural environment absorbs more carbon (in the form of carbon dioxide) than our industries emit in the form of GHG. Nonetheless, in its 2015 NDC Namibia committed to reducing GHG emissions by 89% by the year 2030 and updated this target to 92% in the 2021 NDC. Reaching this ambitious goal would include reducing emissions as much as possible and offsetting any remaining emissions through investing in carbon sinks (e.g. restoring natural environments). The NDC focuses on both mitigation and adaptation measures. Mitigation measures mainly deal with reducing climate change, whereas adaptation measures mainly deal with adapting to life in a changing climate. To achieve its 2030 target, the NDC proposes a number of mitigation measures in the energy, transport, forestry, land use, industrial and waste sectors. It also includes significant renewable energy investments, such as switching to hydrogen-fuelled or electric vehicles for the industry and transport sectors.

The estimated costs of these mitigation measures are USD 4.43 billion (or NAD 65.2 billion) by 2030. In addition, the NDC also provides a budget for adaptation costs which amounts to USD 3.22 billion (or NAD 47.1 billion) by 2030. It lists Namibia’s agricultural, tourism and fisheries sectors as critical for adaptation. In total, the NDC estimates that Namibia would need USD 7.65 billion (or NAD 112.3 billion) by 2030 to address the impact of climate change on its environment and economic activities. The NDC nonetheless states that only 10% of its commitment will be covered by Namibia’s public funds, while the remaining 90% will be conditional on international support.

Is the NDC realistic?

Although Namibia’s NDC is ambitious, as encouraged by the Paris Climate Agreement, one has to ask if it is realistic, given our current economic and development contexts. First, it is not clear how the NDC’s cost estimates were arrived at, especially those that are to be covered by public funding. Sourcing the necessary public funds would require some major policy reforms and commitments across various sectors of government that are already competing for the evershrinking national budget. Given that Namibia’s annual budget showed a deficit of 12.5% of its GDP during the 2020/21 financial year and considering the additional financial challenges it will face in recovering from the Covid pandemic, it seems unlikely that sufficient public funding will be available to meet the NDC targets.

Second, the NDC’s proposal to drastically cut Namibia’s GHG emissions by 2030 might have some adverse effects on the country’s existing National Development Plans, Vision2030, and the Harambee

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Prosperity Plan II. At present, key industries that drive Namibia’s economic development remain dependent on GHG emissions-related activities (e.g. transport and electricity). The NDC is silent on how the industrial sector is to rapidly and cost-effectively switch to cleaner forms of energy over the next five years. Given this ambiguity in the NDC, it appears that for Namibia to meet its reduced GHG targets, it would require a continuous, well-coordinated, inter-ministerial and inter-sectoral effort that involves wide-ranging consultation with all of Namibia’s stakeholders.

Third, as a net carbon sink, Namibia’s emissions are already relatively low, which means that reducing them further is more expensive for our country than it would be for a high-emitting country such as South Africa. For example, the NDC proposes a transition from fuel-driven vehicles to electric vehicles. How this transition will be managed without financially overburdening employers, consumers and aggravating Namibia’s already high level of poverty and inequality is unclear. Thus, without a clear transition plan that shows how Namibia is going to convert its fossil fuel-based economy to a renewable energy-driven economy in a cost-effective manner, the reduction of emissions to 92% by 2030 seems impractical.

Finally, one has to consider Namibia’s relationship with the international community, from which 90% of the funding for the NDC is expected. The Namibian government’s ongoing support of oil exploration activities in the Kavango regions flies in the face of its NDC and poses questions about its seriousness to tackle climate change. Such policy inconsistency sends mixed messages to other governments and private investors who are looking to invest in climate change reduction activities. These institutions will prioritise countries that have a clear, consistent and attractive policy framework. Thus, Namibia’s support for continued oil exploration not only undermines its NDC goals but also goes against the Paris Climate Agreement, which explicitly discourages investment in fossil fuels.

The legal implications of not observing the Paris Climate Agreement

There has been much discussion about whether the Paris Climate Agreement is legally binding on parties or not. Several articles in the

agreement include the word “shall”. For example, article 4.2 reads “Each Party shall prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions that it intends to achieve.” Using the word “shall” in legal text is generally understood as creating a legal binding obligation on parties.

To use a recent example, the French government was sued by four non-governmental organisations for not implementing sufficient measures to restrict GHG emissions. France has been missing its national targets under the Paris Climate Agreement. The court ruled that a link exists between the ecological damage caused by climate change and the government’s underperformance in this regard.

The court decided that awarding money was not an appropriate sentence and instead ordered the French government to come up with measures within two months showing how it is going to address the shortcomings in reaching its national targets.

Suing governments so that they comply with their obligations under the Agreement might not always be the most appropriate way to spur them into action. Arguably, the strength of the Agreement lies in the fact that each party has to submit a five-year plan in which they motivate the measures they will put in place to curb the impact of climate change. The threat of losing credibility among peers for not achieving one’s goals could also motivate parties to set realistic and reachable targets.

Conclusion

While it is encouraging to see that Namibia is ambitious about setting climate change commitments, there could be severe development trade-offs involved in meeting them. The potential consequences of failing to meet its targets mean that Namibia needs to set realistic goals. Namibia should thus reconsider its NDC target to focus on remaining a net zero emitter by 2030 rather than setting a specific and unrealistic GHG emissions target. It should also ensure policy coherence across all sectors of government, such as not supporting oil exploration. This will send a clear message about Namibia’s commitment to tackling climate change, which will be critical in attracting the investment needed to achieve its climate goals.

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NCE Supports For a comprehensive view of the Namibian Chamber of Environment’s (NCE) work, see pp. 4-5. Here, we highlight four of the projects supported by NCE recently.

CARNIVORE RED DATA BOOK The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) uses expert knowledge and published work on the status of plant and animal species around the world to inform its Red List of Threatened Species. Nonetheless, some species might be more or less threatened in one country or region than they are in the rest of their range. Furthermore, conservation actions are usually taken at a local or regional level. Species assessments at those levels are therefore particularly useful to guide conservation.

More information:

Consequently, the IUCN encourages countries and regions to establish Red Data Books to provide more detailed assessments and recommendations. Namibia has already produced a Red Data Book for birds of conservation concern, which is a key resource for national bird conservation.

Since carnivores are a relatively well-studied group of species, producing a carnivore Red Data Book was considered a natural next step. Applying IUCN guidelines, NCE supported the Large Carnivore Management Association of Namibia (LCMAN) and the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism to produce a Red Data Book for carnivores.

The book covers all 34 terrestrial carnivore species found in Namibia – from the diminutive dwarf mongoose to the lion – and combines the knowledge of 30 carnivore experts and 31 external reviewers.

Each section on a specific species contains our current knowledge of that species in terms of its distribution, population trends, ecology and conservation threats. Based on this information, conservation actions are recommended which are specific to the local situation. The effectiveness of our conservation efforts will be tracked through future revisions of this Data Book.

The cover of Namibia’s latest Red Data Book, covering all 34 terrestrial carnivore species found in the country.

RANGELAND MONITORING PROJECT Land management in Namibia, whether on farms, protected areas or conservancies, requires planning and adaptability. Given the highly variable nature of Namibia’s seasonal rainfall, managers have to respond swiftly to ensure that their rangelands do not degrade over time. Rainfall is easy to measure at the local level, but the condition of the vegetation also needs to be assessed as objectively as possible and managed accordingly. Objectively comparing the current state of the vegetation with the long-term average, or comparing the state of one farm or region with another one, can improve management decisions.

rangeland information tailored to their specific needs. Improving long-term rangeland management in Namibia will play an important role in adapting land use to climate change.

More information:

The Rangeland Monitoring Project implemented by Agri-Ecological Services provides valuable assistance through regular updates of rangeland conditions across Namibia during the wet season and its mobile application for land managers. Rangeland condition is assessed based on remote sensing data collected from satellites that highlight areas where plants are growing most vigorously in response to recent rainfall. The data can also be used to assess the overall vegetation condition during a particular time period and compare it with previous years.

By combining these data, managers of national parks, communal conservancies or private farms can plan for the coming season and assess the impact of current management practices on the vegetation condition in the long term. NCE provided a grant to the Rangeland Monitoring team to continue their services to farmers across Namibia, and expand their work to include protected areas, providing them with

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A map produced by the Rangeland Monitoring team showing the state of Namibia’s vegetation at the end of May 2021 compared with the long-term average condition. Darker blues indicate better than average, darker browns indicate worse than average.

SUPPORTING YOUNG NAMIBIAN GRADUATES Supporting young Namibians in their environmental studies and professional development is one of NCE’s strategic programme areas.

The Conservation Namibia blog platform complements this support by encouraging recent graduates to showcase their work to the public.

The process of turning their scientific findings into a freely accessible blog introduces them into the field of scientific communication and boosts their confidence as young scientists.

Writing for the public is a skill that many scientists around the world lack, which leads to public distrust and a general lack of understanding of the scientific process. By developing this skill in young Namibian scientists, NCE is investing in the future of Namibian science and improving the public understanding and awareness of scientific research in the country. For the graduates, creating a public blog post gives them the opportunity to explain their work to their family and friends, while possibly attracting the attention of future employers.

After a positive foray into science communication, they are more likely to share their scientific findings with a public audience in future.

Blogs by Namibian graduates published on Conservation Namibia include: The Namib Desert’s Hairy-footed Ecological Engineers by Halle Shaanika; Is the Plastic Bag Levy Reducing Single-use Plastic Waste in Namibia? by Ndapandula Shihepo; Can we take the Angolan giraffe back to Angola? by Jackson Hamutenya; and Snakes in the City – the Windhoek Experience by Francois Theart. These blogs have proved extremely popular, reaching Namibian and international audiences.

Links to the blogs mentioned:

Ecological Engineers

Gobabeb Plastics

Angolan Giraffe

Snakes in City

Halle Shaanika is a young Namibian graduate who wrote a popular blog on his work on hairy-footed gerbils in the Namib Desert.

DROUGHT RELIEF IN THE KUNENE REGION The northern highlands in the Kunene Region has extremely high tourism potential due to healthy elephant and other wildlife populations, attractive landscapes and cultural allure. Until now, however, most of the communal conservancies in this region have had very little income from tourism. This region was most severely affected by the recent drought. It lasted several years and has acutely strained local livelihoods, which traditionally depend on livestock. Developing alternative streams of income by capitalising on the wildlife and natural beauty of this region is therefore a priority.

A Himba girl herding a cow in September 2015. Nearly all of the cattle in the northern Kunene have died since then.

The area’s tourism potential was recognised by Integrated Rural Development and Conservation (IRDNC), which identified and mapped potential tourist sites using local knowledge within the conservancies.

The next step to attract tourism investment is to improve access and develop rudimentary infrastructure (e.g. basic campsites) to enable exploration by potential investors and adventurous tourists. To do this, however, more funding was required to clear roads, create hiking trails and establish camp and picnic sites.

NCE and IRDNC recognised the desperate need for cash incomes in this area due to the drought and therefore approached communities living in these conservancies to designate people who could do this improvement work. This development project enhanced the long-term tourism potential of the area while simultaneously providing a much-needed cash injection into the local economy. As tourism recovers post COVID-19, these conservancies will be able to attract investment for further tourism infrastructure, establish new tourist routes and create employment opportunities that will alleviate poverty caused by the recent drought.

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Promoting and supporting conservation of the natural environment.

A membership-based organisation established as a voluntary association to support and promote the interests of environmental NGOs and their work to protect Namibia’s environment, biodiversity and landscapes. The NCE currently has 65 members and associate members, comprising environmental NGOs and individuals running nationally significant environmental projects and programmes.

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