The Internationalist Archive
Tanya Singh: Could you tell me about human-wildlife conflict in Namibia and how it's influenced by the changing climate?
Selma Lendelvo: My research specifically focuses on the communities that are located along the western part of Namibia, an interface between the Namib and the Kalahari Desert. The people who form a community in this region are susceptible to many climactic vulnerabilities, especially drought because they are within the belt that receives less than 300 millimetres of rainfall per annum.
So, drought is commonplace in this community and its effect contributes heavily to the human-wildlife conflict because the biggest limiting factor in Namibian society today is water availability. These communities depend on boreholes, which draw water from under the ground. Although rivers run seasonally, they only run during rainfall and the areas where these rivers are running have good vegetation.
In the past, human settlements lived further away from rivers as the areas surrounding the water body were designated for wildlife. However, with droughts becoming a common occurrence, the distinction between the space where you will find wildlife and where you will find communities living is reduced, leading to regular interactions between the wildlife and the community. Therefore, the harder this region is hit by drought, the more frequently the communities here clash with the wildlife.
Most of the time, people clash with elephants, which are one of the biggest animals highly dependent on water, meaning that they will always be around water. When it is drought and there is no water or food available in their habitat, they have no choice but to enter people’s homes in search of it. So what happens then is that elephants end up destroying the human-made infrastructure, including houses. So that is the human and wildlife conflict, in a nutshell, that Namibia has been trying to mitigate.
Then in 2020, COVID-19 hit the world. Owing to many restrictions that were placed during this time, including travel, there was a disconnection between how communities were able to manage wildlife, which led to an increase in human and wildlife conflicts. In my opinion, during this time, women, especially the elderly women, were hit the hardest. You see, men could migrate and go look for jobs somewhere else. But women tend to live and work within the community, especially the elderly for whom it's very difficult to hire animal headers. So, in the tussle between human and wildlife, they lose their livestock.
After COVID-19, a lot of local community organizations have reorganized themselves to say that we need to find ways how to best manage our resources. However such reorganization does not necessarily influence the impact at the household level.
TS: Why do you say that?
SL: In Namibia, when you lose your livestock, you are not compensated. I say this because compensation means you give me the value of that specific thing. What we have in Namibia is a scheme that says that we will meet you halfway in the form of a subsidy that the wildlife conservancies get from the government. In this an outlined fee is payable. For instance, should you lose a person or your house gets destroyed, how can you compensate for that through monetary support? You can’t. And this is where the government scheme comes in.
However, the procedure to benefit from this scheme has been skewed in terms of gender. For instance, you say that you lost your goat a thousand kilometres from your house. The official in charge of your case who will determine whether or not you get the scheme will ask you to show you where it went missing. And an elderly woman will not be able to do that. Neither will a young woman who's already struggling to feed her kids while rearing poultry. So, there were many years ago, or a few years, especially after COVID-19 when people could not get this support because they could not provide sufficient information or they reported the case very late.
TS: So what does this compensation structure look like today?
SL: Recently, within the conservancies program, they have organized themselves in a way that people can report to a community official, who is often already a member of the community. They call them game guards who can follow up on the case. They listen to the case and follow up, making sure that all the relevant details are in order. And also, I think within the communities, this structure is also another aspect where communities are made useful. For example, if the game guard is someone from your neighbourhood who understands the grievances, you can report your case better.
But also, there has been a lot of funding, during COVID and after, that has been geared towards coming up with various structures and support to communities, to reduce the losses of livestock. When the community is resilient, it experiences fewer losses from wildlife, reducing the need for constant claims. I am very confident that there have been a lot of mechanisms and even a lot of discussions where communities are involved in how to better improve and also take into consideration the most vulnerable people in the community to assist them.
For instance, Namibia's Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) program under which conservancies fall, is a very well-organized program. It's a program that is run by local communities, and supported by the government. This program has a very vibrant NGO network that works closely with the government to provide extension services. This means that conservancies in a certain geographical area have offices of NGOs that can understand their problems. And these NGOs can quickly give a phone call to the government official either to meet or to see how to solve this problem.
Importantly, before COVID there were serious bureaucratic delays, with people waiting for over three years to get their claims. Prior to COVID, there were a lot of extension services going on locally, and even though those claims may have reached the regional government office and at the district level.
There has also been a lot of capacity building running all the different levels to ensure that even in local communities there are people that can support the other fellow local communities. However, Namibia is a very organized country so every claim must be evidence-based. If that evidence is not provided, unfortunately, that claim cannot go through, even if the claim form is filled out well.
TS: In such a scenario, how gendered is the process of filing such claims, especially for women?
SL: The issue is deeply gendered, but it’s not just about gender alone. Women often struggle to provide sufficient evidence when filing claims, which makes the process especially difficult for them. During my interviews, I was moved by the stories of elderly women and single mothers — groups that are disproportionately vulnerable when it comes to filing claims. However, vulnerability is intersectional; there are also elderly men and other marginalized men who face similar challenges.
As a researcher, I’m trained to remain objective and rely on empirical evidence. But what pains me most is the stark contrast in access to resources. For instance, if I hear that a lion has killed one of my goats, I can quickly drive to the scene and document the evidence. Meanwhile, an elderly woman in my village might wait for days, unsure whether her missing goat was lost or killed. Only when someone tells her, ‘Ouma, I saw your goat’s carcass’ — recognizable by its ear tag — can she even consider filing a claim. And even then, her claim risks rejection if it doesn’t meet strict policy deadlines.
If my study had focused on natural resource gathering (like forest products), the dynamics might differ. But in cases involving wildlife or livestock herding, women are at a severe disadvantage. How can they travel deep into the bush when they have small children at home? Even if a woman wants to own goats, herding isn’t traditionally her role, leaving her with little knowledge or support. This systemic exclusion is what makes them so vulnerable.
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