Investment in protected areas
The National Planning Commission (NPC) together with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) and KfW Development Bank (KfW), on behalf of German Development Cooperation, signed a grant agreement of €3 million (about N$60 million) to establish a Sustainable Financing Mechanism to support Namibia’s national parks.The financial contribution complements the MEFT’s budget allocation via the Game Products Trust Fund (GPTF) towards its state-protected area network. The funds are earmarked for the sustainable management of Namibia's 20 national parks to contribute towards the conservation of Namibian biodiversity and functional ecosystems while at the same time improving rural livelihoods and local incomes.
Communities adjacent to protected areas and those living in the managed resource use zones of specific protected areas will, through their community-based natural resources management structures, benefit from improved protected area management of the national parks through the implementation of tourism concessions, improved human-wildlife conflict management and other targeted conservation management interventions.
Furthermore, new income opportunities from nature-based tourism, sustainable value chains and biodiversity-related job creation will result from enhanced park management guaranteed via means of sustainable finance interventions.
With an innovative approach referred to as “Integrated Park Management”, the MEFT seeks to achieve biodiversity conservation on the one hand and poverty reduction through job creation via tourism on the other. Communal conservancies and local communities are involved in the planning, development and management of the national parks and protected areas and are thus given incentives to manage Namibia’s natural resources sustainably.
As a result of Covid, the sustainable management of Namibia’s national parks has become increasingly challenging. KfW together with the MEFT has financed substantial infrastructure investments in several national parks through the Namibia National Parks Programme (NamParks). The sustainability of these investments and the long-term operation of Namibia’s national parks and the wider state-protected area network need to be ensured via sustainable financial support.