- Since Namibia’s independence in 1990, the country has become a model of wildlife recovery, and is now famed for its free-roaming herds of megafauna and enigmatic national parks.
- A key to this recovery is the model of community-based natural resource management, which places much of the responsibility and benefits of wildlife conservation in the hands of rural communities, enabling people to earn income from small-scale hunting and tourism and thus motivating them to conserve wildlife.
- A recent 11-year dry spell has tested the resilience of the model and the people and natural systems that depend on it — but it also serves as an opportunity to build a more climate-resilient future for desert-adapted megafauna in habitats projected to become hotter and drier.
- Namibian conservation experts maintain that the key to wildlife survival is to cement their economic value in policies: if the people in the areas they roam can benefit from wildlife, they will stand a better chance in a more inhospitable future.
SESFONTEIN, Namibia — “I want my children to see a rhino with their own eyes — not only in Etosha [National Park],” says Sofia /Nuas, a member of the Sesfontein Conservancy Committee, located in Namibia’s arid northwest. She’s sitting in the shade of a large sausage tree, yet even on this winter morning temperatures have quickly soared to more than 30° Celsius (86° Fahrenheit). Life in this hot and dry region is already tough, but climate change will intensify it.
With a population of less than 3,000, Sesfontein is a small settlement located in the Northwestern Escarpment and Inselbergs of the Nama Karoo Biome. Cattle and goats meander across dusty roads, but tourists are also drawn to the desert-like outpost for its enigmatic landscapes and a chance to glimpse some of the world’s last free-roaming, critically endangered black rhinos (Diceros bicornis), as well as Namibia’s famed desert-adapted lions (Panthera leo) and African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana).
Their presence here is no accident. Once near-depleted, the wildlife is protected not only by fences and the government, but by the communities who share the land with free-roaming predators and herds of springboks (Antidorcas marsupialis), giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) and gemsboks (Oryx gazella).
The Sesfontein Conservancy is one of more than 80 communal conservancies in Namibia. For decades, these conservancies have helped bring wildlife back from the brink, in a model of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) that has resulted in swaths of land conserving Namibia’s wildlife beyond government-run national parks. The model’s continued success is also what experts say will help buffer the biodiversity against the onslaught of climate change.
“It is our duty to conserve the animals,” committee member Paul Kasupi says. “Our ancestors left us the conservancy … and we must protect it for future generations.”
However, this will become more challenging as the region is projected to become drier and hotter due to climate change. Already, the resilience of Namibia’s community-based conservation model and the iconic wildlife it protects have been tested during a brutal 11-year dry spell that finally broke last year.
The outcomes, especially in the northwest, hint at the potential impact of long-term climate change on desert-adapted megafauna. They also show how to potentially pave the way for species survival.
Namibia’s desert-adapted wildlife
Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa. Annual rainfall plunges from approximately 600 millimeters (24 inches) annually in the northeast to less than 50 mm (2 in) in the south and along the windswept Skeleton Coast National Park, a narrow stretch of protected land along the Atlantic Ocean. Only those species adapted to the desert-like conditions survive.
The most iconic are perhaps the lions that roam the foggy coast and have learned to hunt seals and seabirds. The desert-dwelling elephants dig wells up to a meter (3 feet) deep with their feet and trunks in the dry sand of the riverbeds. These “elephant wells” are then used by numerous other species like springboks, black-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas) and chacma baboons (Papio ursinus).
However, the most important adaptation strategy of all, says Chris Brown, CEO of the Namibian Chamber of Environment (NCE), is the ability to roam over large areas to find areas of suitable food and water.
For example, male lions cover an immense range of between 1,500 and 2,000 square kilometers (580 to 770 square miles) per year, says John Heydinger, research director and co-founder of the Lion Rangers Program in Namibia. Similarly, the home range of a male brown hyena (Parahyaena brunnea) in the northwest is approximately 2,200 km2 (850 mi2), according to researcher Emsie Verwey.
“They roam incredibly far in search of carrion for themselves and to bring back to their dens and feed their young,” she says.
These adaptations evolved over millennia. But colonial-era hunting, guns, farming and fencing nearly wiped out Namibia’s wildlife in the 20th century. Brown, an ecologist and environmental scientist, estimates that, historically, 8 million to 10 million animals roamed Namibia. By the 1960s, those numbers had plummeted to around 500,000.
Democracy, and a new dawn for Namibian wildlife
Namibia’s independence from apartheid South Africa in 1990 marked a turning point. It became the first country in Africa to incorporate environmental protection into its Constitution. Not only did the new Constitution call for the “maintenance” of biodiversity, but also the sustainable use of natural resources.
Rural communities on state land were given the right to manage and benefit from wildlife, provided they organized into conservancies. Each conservancy adheres to hunting quotas, based on annual wildlife surveys, says Kenneth /Uiseb, deputy director of wildlife research and monitoring at the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
The result was the CBNRM program — and it triggered a quiet revolution.
“Before, there was no control,” says /Nuas from the Sesfontein Conservancy. “If someone wanted to kill a giraffe, they just did. Now, if a legal hunter comes, the fee goes to the community.” She points out the electricity wires lining the village’s neat streets. “Our living standards improved,” she says, “and our children are going to school.”
Today, Namibia has 86 registered communal conservancies, covering about one-fifth of the country and more than 300,000 community members. Along with national parks and private conservation areas, more than 45% of Namibia’s land — about 37 million hectares (91 million acres), or an area the size of Japan — is under some form of conservation management.
And uniquely, Brown points out, Namibia’s entire coastline is protected, from the Orange River in the south, which forms the border with South Africa, to the Kunene River in the north, bordering Angola. Altogether, this protected landscape of more than 25 million hectares (62 million acres) forms the third-largest continuous area of formally managed and protected wildlife land in the world.
Wildlife rebounded. Lions and springboks returned to areas where they hadn’t been seen for decades, and gemsboks, greater kudus (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) and Hartmann’s mountain zebras (Equus zebra hartmannae), among others, bounced back, /Uiseb says. The elephant population in Namibia, he adds, swelled from an estimated 7,000 in the 1990s to 26,000 by 2025.
Between 2005 and 2010, conservancies released more than 40 black rhinos, expanding the species’ range by roughly 20%. The free-roaming black rhino population in the northwest went up significantly, says Simson !Uri-≠Khob, CEO of Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) Namibia.
“It became the biggest wildlife recovery story ever told,” /Uiseb says.
Tourism boomed. Lodges sprang up, and communities received direct income, meat, jobs and training.
But then the next dry cycle began — an 11-year period of low rainfall that tested the conservation model, people and wildlife to their limits.
A decadal dry spell tests the resilience of the northwest
“We’ve always had dry cycles every 10 or 11 years,” Brown says. “But this one was longer — and much worse.” Extreme weather events like this in Namibia are consistent with climate change predictions, he says, adding that in parts of the northwest, it hardly rained at all.
With vegetation dwindling, wildlife numbers in the conservancies dropped dramatically. This was not only due to animals dying from lack of food, Brown says, but also because some animals migrated out of the conservancies, where there was less competition for food by livestock.
But this meant that wildlife survey numbers plummeted in the northwest and Skeleton Coast National Park. Gemsbok numbers plunged from 2,314 in 2011 to just 131 in 2023. Over the same period, springboks decreased from 12,889 to 3,286, and Hartmann’s zebras from 3,361 to 358.
!Uri-≠Khob says the black rhino population in the northwest dropped to about half of its size before the drought. “The adults survived. But the cows couldn’t produce enough milk for the calves.”
A 2022 survey found 57-60 adult desert lions and 14 cubs, down from a total of 150.
With wildlife counts hitting all-time lows, legal hunting permits for conservancies were suspended to protect vulnerable populations, /Uiseb says.
Although hit hard, wildlife still fared better than livestock during the long drought, Brown says. Because the land is open — more than 8 million hectares (20 million acres) — wildlife could move to find food and water, he says: “Their resilience is higher.”
“We lost all our cattle,” says Kasupi. “Most people did.”
As wildlife numbers fell, predators like lions and cheetahs turned to the remaining livestock. Elephants aimed for vegetable gardens and water reservoirs. Conflict between people and wildlife increased.
Still, in the conservancies, people didn’t resort to illegal hunting as a means of retaliation against the encroaching predators. “We won’t kill the lion,” Kasupi says, even when they come for their livestock. “The lion is protected. If it eats our goats, we report it to the ministry and we are compensated.”
Income from tourism also created a critical buffer. “We survived from the lodges,” /Nuas says. “They gave the conservancies food and income when everything else failed.”
Still, for the first time, some people began questioning the benefits of the CBNRM program, as the conservancies were unable to offset the livestock losses, /Uiseb says. However, multiple examples proved the model’s resilience.
The heat is rising
In 2024, as the dry spell stretched into its 11th year, President Nangolo Mbumba declared a national drought emergency.
In September 2024, in line with the country’s constitutional mandate to use its natural resources for the benefit of Namibian citizens, the government approved a mass hunt to feed needy communities and reduce pressure on certain ecosystems. Namibia’s 723-animal quota (a cull also took place in Zimbabwe) included 83 elephants, 300 zebras, 100 elands, 100 blue wildebeest, 60 buffalos, 50 impalas and 30 hippos, along with other animals in five national parks.
/Uiseb points out that while there was criticism from antihunting groups, especially internationally, Namibia’s Constitution is pro-sustainable hunting. The activity is seen as integral to cement the economic and social benefits of wildlife, and thus people’s willingness to conserve them.
“The culling, as it was called, was part of active management to protect the species and the rangeland on which the species depend,” /Uiseb says.
But this may not be the last cull of its kind. Namibia’s climate outlook is sobering. By 2050, the country is projected to warm by 2-3°C (3.6-5.4°F), and by 2080, up to 6°C (10.8°F). Rainfall is expected to decline by 10-30% across different regions. Evaporation, drought, floods and fire risk will all increase. Soil moisture will drop, plant cover will shrink. These effects will combine, compounding each other and accelerating land degradation and declining productivity.
Climate models suggest that wildlife may fare better than agriculture, but still face major losses. By 2050, carrying capacity for wildlife in Namibia’s protected areas may fall by 12%, and by 25% by 2080. Similar declines are projected for communal conservancies and private land. That portends a massive drop in Namibia’s signature wildlife.
Survival through action
Brown is blunt about future choices.
“If wildlife doesn’t have economic value, it will be lost,” he says. “Through the correct policy development, we must ensure that wildlife is competitive as a land use. If we cannot, we will struggle. It’s that simple.”
The Namibian Chamber of Environment and others say that survival will depend on swift and decisive actions, informed by shifting climatic conditions and ecosystem feedback. Among the steps they recommend are collaborative efforts to expand, connect and manage conservation landscapes, linking national parks, communal areas and private land.
Wildlife management, Brown says, must be adaptive and data-driven. Annual game counts and vegetation assessments, tied to rainfall data and monitoring, should inform decisions. These decisions must come early after the rains, informing swift action before vegetation is damaged and overutilized.
Furthermore, there should be no rigid guidelines for offtakes — reducing wildlife populations through hunting, culling or translocations.
Management should “navigate through highly variable climatic conditions with the vegetation in the best possible condition, with wildlife populations at sustainable levels and in good condition,” Brown says. In good years, he adds, offtakes may be unnecessary. But in extremely poor years, it may be necessary to remove half the animals in a given area, especially after a period of drought.
“If the next rainy season is good, the animals can breed up quickly, but if not, the population can be reduced to ensure a food reserve for them.” Brown says it won’t be easy, requiring strong and decisive management without restrictions.
But he also says Namibia’s wildlife economy will benefit from diversification. Species such as disease-free African savanna buffalos (Syncerus caffer) could be brought into production, adding as much as 20% to the sector’s value. A legal international trade in rhino horn and elephant ivory, he says, could significantly boost returns per hectare, while supporting rewilding efforts across Africa. But legalizing the trade of either commodity remains controversial.
The NCE also recommends a formal wildlife meat trade with Europe and elsewhere. Finally, it recommends an aggressive deregulation of Namibia’s wildlife sector, reducing the intrusion of the state in wildlife management outside of national parks.
The government, according to /Uiseb, is already employing a range of management interventions that could be considered in a hotter and drier climate: supplementary feeding, water provision, translocations, reintroductions and, when necessary, culling in line with available resources.
Already, boreholes are being drilled in some fenced parks, and reintroductions are helping to restore wildlife populations. Offtakes, including transportation or management hunts, are conducted when conditions demand it.
A pilot project is also underway to test landscape-level conservation, involving stakeholders on the borders of protected areas in conservation initiatives to expand the space available for wildlife.
In the long term, /Uiseb says he wants to see farmers and conservation agencies pull down their fences to allow much more unrestricted movement of wildlife, in response to changing climatic and rainfall conditions.
The hardest part to manage, /Uiseb says, is people. Demands for land, livestock and water are growing. “If farmers can live within what the land can provide, the system will survive,” he says. “But if they push it beyond its limits, we’ll lose everything.
“The ecosystem is inherently resilient,” he adds, “but only if it’s allowed to recover.”
Other voices in the conservation landscape agree. Heydinger from the Lion Rangers Program sees lessons in Namibia’s desert-adapted wildlife — species that have managed to survive in arid landscapes for millennia.
“They are pioneers in terms of potential climatic futures,” he says. And, he adds, they may offer a model for the future of other large-bodied, wide-ranging species.
!Uri-≠Khob from Save the Rhino Trust is cautiously optimistic. In principle, he says, black rhinos can be moved to more suitable grazing grounds if needed. But the risk is high as they’re so finely adapted to their habitats. The best option, he says, is to continue to build trust with and give the responsibility to the communities that live with rhinos.
“Trust them,” he says.
That belief still holds strong in places like Sesfontein, even after the drought.
“Even when it gets difficult, we will stay here,” /Nuas says, adding that they want the wildlife to stay with them.
Banner image: Elephants are one of the species that have bounced back after Namibia’s independence in 1990. Image by Emsie Verwey.
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Citations:
Stander, P. E. (2019). Lions (Panthera leo) specialising on a marine diet in the Skeleton Coast National Park, Namibia. Namibian Journal of Environment, 3, A:1-10. Retrieved from https://nje.org.na/index.php/nje/article/view/volume3-stander
Ramey, E. M., Ramey, R. R., Brown, L. M., & Kelley, S. T. (2013). Desert-dwelling African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Namibia dig wells to purify drinking water. Pachyderm, 53, 66-72. doi:10.69649/pachyderm.v53i.325
Turner, W. C., Périquet, S., Goelst, C. E., Vera, K. B., Cameron, E. Z., Alexander, K. A., … Werner Kilian, J. (2022). Africa’s drylands in a changing world: Challenges for wildlife conservation under climate and land-use changes in the Greater Etosha Landscape. Global Ecology and Conservation, 38, e02221. doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2022.e02221
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