Environmental (In)Justice in Namibia : Costs and benefits of community-based water and wildlife management

Abstract

This thesis draws from 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork amongst pastoral communities living in ǂKhoadi ǁHôas conservancy, in the arid north-western Namibia. The thesis explores the socioeconomic consequences of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) on the communities. Two forms of CBNRM are explored namely: community-based water management (CBWM) and community-based wildlife management. This is because they not only concern the management of resources (water and wildlife) that are salient to the livelihoods the communities, but also that their management intersect with significant theoretical and policy implications. CBNRM policies and practices intervene on an environment which does not only shape the lifeworld of the communities but is also a space where actors of different worldviews participate to influence outcomes of community –based water and wildlife management. Environmental Justice is used as an analytical framework. Community-based wildlife management has generally contributed to the recovery of species diversity and wildlife populations, in particular elephants and predator wild animals. Accompanying these ecological gains are socioeconomic benefits and costs whose distribution generates mixed analyses. On the one hand, the conservancy programme has opened communal wildlife resources in ǂKhoadi ǁHôas for capital accumulation by largely foreign private tour companies through tourism and trophy hunting industry. The industry earns revenues within this formerly marginalised communal area of Namibia. Nevertheless, from total revenues, only a small fraction of about 20% is distributed locally, largely through employment and training benefits. The distribution of these benefits is skewed, as mostly younger people who have received at least secondary education get employed and consequently trained. In addition, their wages remain low and are not shared easily or widely with the community. The bulk of incomes from tourism and trophy hunting remains with tourism and associated companies in form of profits; and the state in form of taxes and levies. Whilst benefits from wildlife-based international tourism to communities remain low and are perceived unfairly distributed by the local communities, increased population of elephants and predator animals produce costs shared by pastoralists, such as water consumption and loss of livestock respectively. On the contrary, private tourism industry and the conservation community, which profit the most from conservation, pay less than their fair share. Hardly is fair compensation of the damages and loss to pastoralists made. The success of conservation and tourism industry in ǂKhoadi ǁHôas comes at the expense of livestock economy which communities attach immense value to. Hence the contribution of CBNRM to reducing inequalities and alleviating poverty is marginal in ǂKhoadi ǁHôas and furtherance put to a critical test. Local communities perceive the inequalities to be unjust and resist them through passive forms. These include: withdrawal from participation, withdrawal from ownership, passive aggressive imagery and occasional verbal aggression. The trend contradicts the very notion that CBNRM emancipates local communities through participation and creating a sense of ownership. If members of the communities continue to withdraw from participating in conservancy activities because of existing injustices, it can be predicted that the CBNRM programme in the area will either collapse or be redesigned to ensure a more fair distribution of costs and benefits. The central argument in this thesis is that the ensuing struggle over justice in ǂKhoadi ǁHôas is linked to: the expectation of economic empowerment inculcated since the inception and during the development of CBNRM in Namibia; the fact that wildlife conservation is a priority in contrast to compensation of the loss incurred by pastoralists due to elephant damages and depredation; and the inequalities produced by the way water costs are distributed. Thus, benefits to some people appeal to public script to be of a greater good, for example: conservation of biodiversity; youth employment; and the contribution of tourism to national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Nevertheless, provided the expectation of others about what they deserve is not met, the distribution is considered to be unfair. Similarly, even if people get some benefits, in form of a greater good, as long as they bear the burden of costs, which they deem to be others’ responsibility, the situation is considered unjust. Hence, it is important to understand how the distribution occurs between and amongst groups and how it affects and is affected by participation of different actors and recognition of their varied interests in a mutually intertwining manner.