Hertta-Maria Amutenja
The minister of environment, forestry, and tourism, Pohamba Shifeta, has called on the leaders of conservancies and community forests to avoid dividing communities along tribal, political, or ethnic lines.
Speaking at the joint handover of grants and equipment in the Zambezi region this week, Shifeta emphasised that conservancies should benefit all members, regardless of their backgrounds.
“A conservancy or community forest should never be used as a tool to divide the community members along tribal, political, racial, or ethnic lines. It is a tool that we use to safeguard our common interests,” said Shifeta.
Shifeta further urged community leaders to remain committed to nation-building and avoid fostering conflicts based on tribal affiliations.
“All members of a specific conservancy or community forest should benefit, irrespective of the traditional authority they belong to,” Shifeta reiterated.
Shifeta emphasized that the communities themselves developed and proposed the projects, aiming to address the human-wildlife conflict and improve livelihoods.
“The grants and equipment we are handing over today are community-planned, community-led, and community-implemented to ensure that communities are empowered to address human-wildlife conflict and livelihoods in the Zambezi Region,” he said.
The handover ceremony involved grants and equipment for two projects, the “Poverty-Orientated Support to Community Conservation in Namibia Project” and the “Community Livelihood Development and Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Project.”
The Namibian Government and the Federal Republic of Germany co-financed both projects through the KfW Development Bank.
These initiatives have received a total allocation of N$16.2 million.
