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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/namibia/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>Namibia environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/namibia/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>From small cats to pangolins: Detection dogs help track elusive species</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/from-small-cats-to-pangolins-detection-dogs-help-track-elusive-species/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/from-small-cats-to-pangolins-detection-dogs-help-track-elusive-species/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Aug 2026 08:30:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[María de los Ángeles Orfila]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/06191544/MichelleSchroederWithLyka_BenfonteinNatureReserveSouthAfricaAug2021_VeerBills-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325496</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animal Intelligence, Animals, Biodiversity, Cats, Conservation, Environment, Habitat, Mammals, Small Cats, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the grassy dwarf shrublands of South Africa&#8217;s Karoo, Michelle Marie Schroeder is looking for a very specific kind of poo. Black-footed cats spend most of the day hidden in burrows and emerge mainly under the cover of darkness, making them notoriously difficult to study. That&#8217;s why the conservation biologist relies unconventional assistants: Lyka and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the grassy dwarf shrublands of South Africa&#8217;s Karoo, Michelle Marie Schroeder is looking for a very specific kind of poo. Black-footed cats spend most of the day hidden in burrows and emerge mainly under the cover of darkness, making them notoriously difficult to study. That&#8217;s why the conservation biologist relies unconventional assistants: Lyka and Sebala, two German Shorthaired Pointers trained to detect the cats&#8217; scat by scent. When the dogs find a sample, they lie down and remain still to alert Schroeder, who works with the non-profit Canines for African Nature. Working on her own, Schroeder found just four scats in more than a year. Ten-year-old Lyka, by contrast, has located hundreds of samples in just a few months, providing the basis for non-invasive genetic monitoring of Felis nigripes. “I probably wouldn’t have found more than 90% of the scats without help,” she tells Mongabay. “And it’s also very difficult to distinguish them from those of other small carnivores. The dogs are much more accurate.” Lyka has located hundreds of black-footed cat scat samples, making non-invasive monitoring of the elusive species possible. Image courtesy of Veer Bills. On the trail of the black-footed cat Hal Brindley, a researcher at the Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa at the University of Cape Town, also studies these small, cryptic predators. “Studying the black-footed cat is incredibly difficult without resorting to invasive methods like trapping and collaring,” he says. “More common non-invasive approaches, such as camera trapping, are often ineffective. Fecal&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/from-small-cats-to-pangolins-detection-dogs-help-track-elusive-species/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/from-small-cats-to-pangolins-detection-dogs-help-track-elusive-species/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325496</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How Namibia&#8217;s bird conservation projects build community resilience (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-namibias-bird-conservation-projects-build-community-resilience-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-namibias-bird-conservation-projects-build-community-resilience-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Mar 2026 16:13:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Martha Karas]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/23152715/143_Lilac-breasted_roller_in_Etosha_National_Park_Photo_by_Giles_Laurent-e1774279787746-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316139</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birding, Birds, Commentary, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, and Gender]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In Namibia’s Karas Region, birds are more than symbols of freedom or beauty — they are teachers of resilience. Their survival in arid landscapes mirrors the endurance of the communities who live alongside them. Grassroots bird conservation projects here have revealed something profound: protecting birds can also strengthen families, nurture hope, and build social cohesion. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In Namibia’s Karas Region, birds are more than symbols of freedom or beauty — they are teachers of resilience. Their survival in arid landscapes mirrors the endurance of the communities who live alongside them. Grassroots bird conservation projects here have revealed something profound: protecting birds can also strengthen families, nurture hope, and build social cohesion. Across villages in Karas, parents and children tend habitats together, restoring nesting sites and planting native vegetation. These acts of care are not only ecological interventions; they are lessons in patience and problem solving. When a child sees a weaverbird return to a reed bed that the community has protected, it is a moment of triumph that teaches perseverance in the face of environmental challenges. Women and youth are at the forefront of these initiatives. In one community, a group of young women organized bird walks for schoolchildren, teaching them to identify species like the sociable weaver and the pale chanting goshawk. Their leadership has inspired confidence among peers and shown that conservation is not the domain of scientists alone — it is a practice of everyday resilience. Sociable weavers nesting in acacia trees, Karas Region, Namibia. Image courtesy of Martha Karas. These projects also counter the isolation that environmental stress can bring. Droughts and land degradation often erode social bonds, but bird conservation has become a rallying point. Families gather to monitor nesting sites, share stories, and celebrate small victories. In doing so, they weave resilience into the social fabric. Conservation here is not&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-namibias-bird-conservation-projects-build-community-resilience-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-namibias-bird-conservation-projects-build-community-resilience-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316139</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rodent burrows offer unusual sanctuary to Africa’s smallest wildcat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/rodent-burrows-offer-unusual-sanctuary-to-africas-smallest-wildcat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/rodent-burrows-offer-unusual-sanctuary-to-africas-smallest-wildcat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Feb 2026 11:09:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[María de los Ángeles Orfila]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/09110116/black-footed-cat--768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313961</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animal Intelligence, Animals, Biodiversity, Cats, Conservation, Environment, Habitat, Mammals, Research, Small Cats, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Under cover of night, a black-footed cat moves almost invisibly through the grasses of southern Namibia, hunting small rodents, birds and insects. Barely a third the size of a domestic cat, its tawny coat speckled with dark spots helps it disappear into the darkened landscape. By day, the cat disappears underground, folding its small body [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Under cover of night, a black-footed cat moves almost invisibly through the grasses of southern Namibia, hunting small rodents, birds and insects. Barely a third the size of a domestic cat, its tawny coat speckled with dark spots helps it disappear into the darkened landscape. By day, the cat disappears underground, folding its small body into abandoned burrows and tunnels — a rare behavior among felines. Female Felis nigripes patrol territories covering anywhere from 10 to more than 80 square kilometers (4-31 square miles), depending on prey availability, while males roam areas between 15 and 90 km² (6 and 35 mi2). Their energy and activity, despite their small size, continue to surprise researchers. Alexander Sliwa, project leader for the Black-footed Cat Working Group, an international network monitoring wild populations, notes, “It’s really small, but very active and unique in its nocturnal behavior.” Newly published research, focused on the cats’ daytime activity, has uncovered their heavy reliance on burrows dug by springhares (Pedetes capensis), a large rodent, to raise their young. Female black-footed cats rotate among multiple dens, and once the kittens start moving, the mothers change shelters almost daily, likely to reduce predation risk and avoid leaving traces that predators could follow. Survival in this harsh, semiarid landscape depends not just on stealth and hunting skill, but also on these hidden interdependencies. Black-footed cats range extends across semi-arid landscapes in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. Image courtesy of Hal Brindley. Surviving in borrowed burrows Famously more efficient hunters than lions&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/rodent-burrows-offer-unusual-sanctuary-to-africas-smallest-wildcat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/rodent-burrows-offer-unusual-sanctuary-to-africas-smallest-wildcat/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313961</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Photos: Kew Gardens&#8217; top 10 newly named plants and fungi for 2025</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jan 2026 23:24:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/12223115/02.-Telipogon-cruentilabrum-CREDIT-L.Baquero-03-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312879</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Botswana, Brazil, Ecuador, England, Namibia, Peru, and South Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forest Destruction, Forests, Fungi, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, New Discovery, Plants, Rainforests, Species Discovery, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns Brazilian spiders into “zombies,” a critically endangered orchid with blood-red markings from Ecuador&#8217;s cloud forests, and a shrub named after the fire demon from the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns Brazilian spiders into “zombies,” a critically endangered orchid with blood-red markings from Ecuador&#8217;s cloud forests, and a shrub named after the fire demon from the 2004 Hayao Miyazaki film Howl&#8217;s Moving Castle. Each year, Kew releases a list of its “top 10” new plant and fungal species to showcase nature&#8217;s vast diversity, as well as its fragility, as many newly described species are already in danger. According to Kew’s “State of the World&#8217;s Plants and Fungi 2023” report, three out of four undescribed plants are threatened with extinction. One species described in 2025, Cryptacanthus ebo, a bromeliad from the Ebo Forest in Cameroon, may have already gone extinct. Each year, researchers worldwide officially name about 2,500 new plants and even more fungi. An estimated 100,000 plant species and between 2 million and 3 million fungal species remain to be described and named by science. Many of these unnamed fungi are endophytes that live entirely within plant tissues, making up the plants’ microbiomes. &#8220;Describing new plant and fungal species is essential at a time when the impacts of biodiversity loss and climate change accelerate before our eyes,&#8221; Martin Cheek, a senior research leader in Kew&#8217;s Africa team, said in a press release. &#8220;It is difficult to protect what we do not know, understand and have a scientific name for.&#8221; Although a species may be&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312879</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How Southern African farmers &#038; elephants can both adapt to coexist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Dec 2025 06:41:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/19064047/EC_11-BANNER-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311650</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Research, Tracking, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Elephants are considered a sacred totem by many in northwestern Zimbabwe, but they also frequently raid villagers’ crops near harvest time, says Agripa Ngorima, who has studied attitudes toward conservation in Simangani. During his fieldwork, he presented residents with two scenarios: one in which elephants provided benefits — such as meat, skins for ornaments or [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Elephants are considered a sacred totem by many in northwestern Zimbabwe, but they also frequently raid villagers’ crops near harvest time, says Agripa Ngorima, who has studied attitudes toward conservation in Simangani. During his fieldwork, he presented residents with two scenarios: one in which elephants provided benefits — such as meat, skins for ornaments or safari-industry jobs — and another in which people only incurred costs, including crop losses, fence damage or injury. Their responses diverged sharply: 88% said they would support elephant culls or translocations if they received no benefits, compared with just 20% if elephants supported their livelihoods, and 92% were unwilling to engage in conservation due to lack of financial gain from elephants. “Any cultural willingness to coexist with elephants is conditional and will be withdrawn if livelihoods are threatened,” Ngorima says. Elephants roam freely from Hwange National Park into bordering communal farming lands. IFAW’s EarthRanger project has tracked the movement of collared elephants, with some ranging more than 200 kms from the protected area and traversing communal land along the way. Image courtesy of Tyson Mayr / IFAW. Learning to live with elephants Since his fieldwork in Simangani in 2018, the government and NGOs have introduced outreach programs, teaching villagers about elephant behavior and promoting the cultivation of red-hot chile peppers — plants the animals can’t abide. Yet the most effective deterrent, physical fencing around fields, remains out of reach for most, leaving the majority of households unprotected. “This implementation gap means the current costs of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311650</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Corridors, not culls, offer solution to Southern Africa’s growing elephant population</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corridors-not-culls-offer-solution-to-southern-africas-growing-elephant-population/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corridors-not-culls-offer-solution-to-southern-africas-growing-elephant-population/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Dec 2025 11:01:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/10150424/ElephantsCrossing_ZambeziRiverZambia_JasperDoestWWF-SIZE-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311061</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Research, Tracking, Wildlife, Wildlife Corridors, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Since being collared in Zambia two years ago, a young bull elephant known to researchers as Z16 has walked nearly 12,000 kilometers, or 7,500 miles — three times the distance between New York and Los Angeles. In that time, Z16 has traversed four countries and visited six national parks. In Southern Africa overall, populations of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Since being collared in Zambia two years ago, a young bull elephant known to researchers as Z16 has walked nearly 12,000 kilometers, or 7,500 miles — three times the distance between New York and Los Angeles. In that time, Z16 has traversed four countries and visited six national parks. In Southern Africa overall, populations of elephants are stable, or even growing, but space for them is not. This pressure has increased human-elephant conflict and fueled calls from some for elephant culls. Z16’s epic trek underscores a quieter, more hopeful solution to the region’s so-called “elephant problem”: keeping the routes that connect fragmented ranges open through the creation and protection of wildlife corridors. Situated in the northwestern corner of the Sobbe Wildlife Conservancy, in Namibia’s long, narrow Zambezi region, the Sobbe Corridor provides a link for elephants moving between Botswana, Zambia and Angola. When environmental anthropologist Emilie Köhler began her fieldwork in Sobbe in January 2023, she saw the crooked boughs of trees inside the corridor shaped by countless generations of African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) rubbing their backs as they passed through. “They come into [Namibia’s] Mudumu National Park, then they use the Sobbe Corridor to move into the Zambezi State Forest [also inside Namibia] and then go into Zambia and Angola,” she says. “It connects different protected areas, but also links movements between different countries, which makes it extremely important.” Elephants embark on a daily journey to the Zambezi River from safe havens away from human settlements. Image ©&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corridors-not-culls-offer-solution-to-southern-africas-growing-elephant-population/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/corridors-not-culls-offer-solution-to-southern-africas-growing-elephant-population/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311061</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Climate change tests the resilience of people and desert-adapted wildlife in Namibia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/climate-change-tests-the-resilience-of-people-and-desert-adapted-wildlife-in-namibia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/climate-change-tests-the-resilience-of-people-and-desert-adapted-wildlife-in-namibia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Aug 2025 15:39:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Petro Kotzé]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/20152817/elephant-in-namibia-Emsie-Verwey-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=304647</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation, Adaptation To Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change Denial, Climate Justice, Conservation, Desertification, Deserts, Drought, Environment, Extreme Weather, Impact Of Climate Change, Planetary Boundaries, Planetary Health, Public Health, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[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 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[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&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/climate-change-tests-the-resilience-of-people-and-desert-adapted-wildlife-in-namibia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/climate-change-tests-the-resilience-of-people-and-desert-adapted-wildlife-in-namibia/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-304647</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Cape vulture conservation offers hope, but challenges remain</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/cape-vulture-conservation-offers-hope-but-challenges-remain/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/cape-vulture-conservation-offers-hope-but-challenges-remain/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 May 2025 07:26:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/13102051/CapeVulture.Gyps_.coprotheres_JanRoseFlickrBYNCSA2.0-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298994</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, Southern Africa, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Birds, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Poaching, Poisoning, Predators, Raptors, Scavengers, Vultures, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this year, the vulture conservation organization Vulpro hailed the return of Cape vultures to a farm in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, near Mountain Zebra National Park. That marked the first time this species has been seen in the area for 30 years, according to the organization. “There&#8217;s more and more movement and foraging [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this year, the vulture conservation organization Vulpro hailed the return of Cape vultures to a farm in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, near Mountain Zebra National Park. That marked the first time this species has been seen in the area for 30 years, according to the organization. “There&#8217;s more and more movement and foraging of the birds, and they are now finding these historical areas that they used to occur in and that it&#8217;s now safe again, which I think is incredibly exciting,” says Kerri Wolter, CEO of Vulpro. The Cape vulture (Gyps coprotheres) is Southern Africa’s largest and only endemic vulture species. Beginning in the 1970s, Cape vulture colonies across the region shrank and many disappeared. It’s estimated that between 1992 and 2007, the species’ population in South Africa dropped by as much as 70%. But in 2021, the Cape vulture’s conservation status improved from endangered to vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. An assessment that finds a vulture species is at decreased risk of extinction is “borderline unheard of,” says John Davies, senior field officer in the birds of prey program at the Endangered Wildlife Trust, a South African conservation NGO. Seven of the nine vulture species found across Southern Africa, included the Cape vulture, fall into one of the threatened categories in the IUCN; three of them — the white-backed (Gyps africanus), white-headed (Trigonoceps occipitalis) and hooded (Necrosyrtes monachus) vultures — are considered critically endangered by the IUCN. Against this general decline, the story of the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/cape-vulture-conservation-offers-hope-but-challenges-remain/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/cape-vulture-conservation-offers-hope-but-challenges-remain/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298994</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Australia’s little-known rainforests, tradition and science collaborate for good</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/in-australias-little-known-rainforests-tradition-and-science-collaborate-for-good/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/in-australias-little-known-rainforests-tradition-and-science-collaborate-for-good/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Feb 2025 21:37:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Nick Rodway]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/28210327/Black_Flying_Fox_eating_figs_-_AndrewMercer_-_DSC11029-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=295147</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Regenerative landscapes]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Australia, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, and Oceania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Culture, Dry Forests, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Mammals, Marsupials, Rainforests, Savannas, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Kimberley, the northernmost region of Australia’s largest jurisdiction, Western Australia, is remote and difficult to access due to its rugged terrain. With a permanent population of just 40,000 in an area roughly the size as California, it has become internationally renowned for its dramatic landscapes: researchers say the Kimberley houses the largest, most intact [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Kimberley, the northernmost region of Australia’s largest jurisdiction, Western Australia, is remote and difficult to access due to its rugged terrain. With a permanent population of just 40,000 in an area roughly the size as California, it has become internationally renowned for its dramatic landscapes: researchers say the Kimberley houses the largest, most intact savanna on Earth, and is bounded by some of the most pristine oceans in the world. However, the Kimberley is also home to a habitat that’s far less known: seasonally dry tropical rainforest.  Located in patches embedded in a mosaic pattern within eucalypt savanna, these species-rich ecosystems are collectively known as Kimberley Monsoon Rainforests (KMR). They’re intrinsically linked to the culture and livelihoods of local First Nations communities who have harvested from and cared for the patches for millennia.  A Kimberley Monsoon Rainforest (wulo) in Wunambal Gaambera Country. Image courtesy of the Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation. Evolving in isolation upon nutrient-rich substrates and in areas largely protected from incursions by the threat of wildfire, the KMR hold significant biodiversity. Despite this, less than one-tenth of KMR patches have been comprehensively scientifically researched.  There’s now a push to expand global awareness of how important these sites are from both biological and cultural standpoints.  In 2023, Kevin Kenneally, a botanist and biogeographer at the University of Western Australia, published a general interest book about KMR in which he sought to expand knowledge of their existence into the common sphere. Islands in a Sea of Savanna, released by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/in-australias-little-known-rainforests-tradition-and-science-collaborate-for-good/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/in-australias-little-known-rainforests-tradition-and-science-collaborate-for-good/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-295147</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study looks for success factors in African projects that heal land and help people</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/study-looks-for-success-factors-in-african-projects-that-heal-land-and-help-people/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/study-looks-for-success-factors-in-african-projects-that-heal-land-and-help-people/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Dec 2024 22:09:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/13220001/Cheetahs_tracking_scents-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=291546</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Forest Restoration Solutions]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Burkina Faso, Central Africa, Namibia, Niger, Southern Africa, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agroforestry, Critically Endangered Species, Desertification, Dry Forests, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Rainforests, Reforestation, Restoration, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Argan oil cooperatives in Morocco. Regreening Niger. Revitalizing a national park in Madagascar. Wildlife conservancies in Namibia. Cashew plantations in Burkina Faso. Beach management in Kenya. Agroforestry in Ghana. These are but a smattering of the many initiatives that have tried to reverse land degradation in Africa while improving people’s lives. Some succeeded, others failed, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Argan oil cooperatives in Morocco. Regreening Niger. Revitalizing a national park in Madagascar. Wildlife conservancies in Namibia. Cashew plantations in Burkina Faso. Beach management in Kenya. Agroforestry in Ghana. These are but a smattering of the many initiatives that have tried to reverse land degradation in Africa while improving people’s lives. Some succeeded, others failed, and as a recent study finds, the outcomes are devilishly difficult to predict. Nearly half of Africa is affected by desertification, and two-thirds of productive land is degraded, according to a 2021 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); yet, 60% of people in Africa depend on their land and forests. The Torra Conservancy, northwest Namibia. Much of the arid landscape is unsuitable for farming, and income from tourism, including a partnership with Wilderness Safaris, provides substantial benefits for conservancy members. Image by Sonse via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). “I do a lot of projects where I go to the communities, and I work with people to change things, and to imagine how we could improve things,” says Camille Jahel, a researcher at the French Agricultural Centre for International Development (CIRAD). “At one point we wanted to know, but is it possible? Is it even possible to have a sustainable change?” To be clear, this is not an entirely new question. But Jahel says that while there’s a trove of theoretical work, few studies have looked at on-the-ground projects in Africa and holistically considered the complex combination of local dynamics,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/study-looks-for-success-factors-in-african-projects-that-heal-land-and-help-people/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/study-looks-for-success-factors-in-african-projects-that-heal-land-and-help-people/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-291546</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Namibian conservancies fight to block mining threat to rhinos</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/namibia-legal-actions-seek-halt-to-mining-in-rhino-conservancies/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/namibia-legal-actions-seek-halt-to-mining-in-rhino-conservancies/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Dec 2024 10:50:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Victoria Schneider]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/02103607/SRT-Rhino5-Marcus-Westberg-Photography-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=291007</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Black Rhino, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Governance, Mining, Protected Areas, Reintroductions, Rhinos, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When a copper mine started operating in Namibia’s //Huab Conservancy in 2021, blasting of rock and heavy machinery disturbed the area’s critically endangered southern black rhinos, and they moved out of the area. When mining activity was temporarily stopped in early 2022 due to investment problems, the rhinos returned. Two other conservancies referred to this [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When a copper mine started operating in Namibia’s //Huab Conservancy in 2021, blasting of rock and heavy machinery disturbed the area’s critically endangered southern black rhinos, and they moved out of the area. When mining activity was temporarily stopped in early 2022 due to investment problems, the rhinos returned. Two other conservancies referred to this as they filed an urgent interdict to try to block a new open-pit tin mine in the northwestern Kunene region. The Uibasen Twyfelfontein Conservancy and the Doro !Nawas Conservancy, alongside tourism operator Ultimate Safaris, say they’re concerned that if the mine goes ahead, what happened in //Huab — confirmed in a mapping report commissioned by the Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism from Save the Rhino Trust Namibia — will happen again in their jointly managed conservation area. The mining-related displacement of black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) in //Huab resulted in Ultimate Safaris shutting down its camp and the conservancy losing its sole source of income. The first signs of disturbance by the proposed new mine have already become apparent, said Uibasen conservancy manager Laurensia //Naobes. “There used to be a quiet riverbed where the mining is happening, with different wildlife like antelopes, ostriches, springboks. They moved out because of the human disturbance,” she told Mongabay by phone. She said they’re seeing the black rhinos becoming stressed and starting to move away. “The rhino population in the western Kunene region is not huge, but is considered a key-1 population by IUCN, which means it’s over&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/namibia-legal-actions-seek-halt-to-mining-in-rhino-conservancies/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/12/namibia-legal-actions-seek-halt-to-mining-in-rhino-conservancies/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-291007</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Inbreeding adds to growing threats to Africa’s smallest wildcat, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/inbreeding-threats-africa-wildcat-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/inbreeding-threats-africa-wildcat-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Oct 2024 15:39:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/10/28085749/Hamba-IMG_5562-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=289240</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cats, Conservation, Small Cats, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Populations of the black-footed cat, a little-known feline in Southern Africa, have been declining for the last half a million years and exhibit very high degrees of inbreeding. This could increase their risk of a disease called amyloidosis, according to a new genetic study. “Frequently genomic studies focus on large charismatic cats so that small [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Populations of the black-footed cat, a little-known feline in Southern Africa, have been declining for the last half a million years and exhibit very high degrees of inbreeding. This could increase their risk of a disease called amyloidosis, according to a new genetic study. “Frequently genomic studies focus on large charismatic cats so that small species, especially the very small black-footed cat, are neglected,” says study author Andrew Kitchener, principal curator of vertebrates at National Museums Scotland. “However, all species have interesting stories to tell and the black-footed cat is no exception.” Weighing about as much as a large pineapple, the black-footed cat (Felis nigripes) is one of Africa’s smallest, rarest and, arguably, most endearing cats. They’re only found in arid steppe and grassland savannas in Southern Africa, including Namibia, South Africa and Botswana. The IUCN Red List categorizes them as vulnerable to extinction. Like many other threatened species, the black-footed cat is under pressure from habitat loss and degradation, as well as climate change. But there’s another worry too: about 70% of captive black-footed cats die of amyloidosis, a fatal disease associated with deleterious genetic mutations and believed to be inherited. Wild populations are also susceptible, though the mortality rate is nearly impossible to determine. Over the past few decades, researchers have learned a lot about the cat’s conservation needs, thanks to long-term field studies in South Africa and Namibia. Black-footed cats — handsome tawny predators with black spots and stripes that almost pass in looks for domestic cats&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/inbreeding-threats-africa-wildcat-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/inbreeding-threats-africa-wildcat-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-289240</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>26 elephants from Namibia moved to Angola’s only private conservation area</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Oct 2024 09:10:08 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/10/07075148/Image3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=288267</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Elephants, Endangered Species, Extinction, Mammals, Over-hunting, Poaching, Protected Areas, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Cuatir Conservation Area, ANGOLA — On Sept. 2, a team from Namibia’s Okonjati Game Reserve completed the last of four arduous translocations, taking a total of 26 elephants across the border to Cuatir Conservation Area in Angola. The 200-square-kilometer (77-square-mile) Cuatir Conservation Area, set up by Namibian-born conservationist Stefan van Wyk, is possibly the only [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Cuatir Conservation Area, ANGOLA — On Sept. 2, a team from Namibia’s Okonjati Game Reserve completed the last of four arduous translocations, taking a total of 26 elephants across the border to Cuatir Conservation Area in Angola. The 200-square-kilometer (77-square-mile) Cuatir Conservation Area, set up by Namibian-born conservationist Stefan van Wyk, is possibly the only private conservation area currently in Angola. “I think Stefan is creating something new in Angola,” says Miguel Xavier, director of Angola’s National Institute for Biodiversity and Protected Areas (INBAC). “We don’t have this kind of structure in Angola, personally, I think it’s a good opportunity.” The conservation and ecotourism potential of southeastern Angola has been an increasingly hot topic in recent years among conservationists looking to create space for wildlife, and among Angolan leaders peering across the border at the tourism dollars pouring into Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Elephants at Okanjati Game Reserve in Namibia. Image by Jim Tan for Mongabay. An elephant takes its first steps onto Cuatir Conservation Area. Image by Jim Tan for Mongabay. Wildlife populations in the vast Cuando Cubango province in southeastern Angola were decimated during the nation’s 27-year civil war. Since the war, which ended in 2002, the province has remained sparsely populated, in large part due to poor access; the 360-kilometer (220-mile) journey from Mavinga to the provincial capital of Menongue often takes well over 12 hours in a six-wheel truck. Southeastern Angola offers a rare opportunity of available space for wildlife in an increasingly crowded world. Private conservation&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-288267</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Jumbo collaring effort reveals key elephant movement corridors</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/jumbo-collaring-effort-reveals-key-elephant-movement-corridors/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/jumbo-collaring-effort-reveals-key-elephant-movement-corridors/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Sep 2024 12:23:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/09/25121712/elephant-herd-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=287840</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Elephants, Environment, GPS, Research, Technology, Tracking, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The first time Robin Naidoo mapped GPS data points to track elephant movement in Southern Africa, he was in for a surprise. Across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), one of the largest conservation areas in the world, he observed movement patterns and trends never seen before. “It was like a parallel universe that had [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The first time Robin Naidoo mapped GPS data points to track elephant movement in Southern Africa, he was in for a surprise. Across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), one of the largest conservation areas in the world, he observed movement patterns and trends never seen before. “It was like a parallel universe that had opened up,” Naidoo, lead scientist of wildlife conservation at the World Wildlife Fund, told Mongabay in a video interview. Unlocking that universe took a mammoth collaboration that involved collaring 300 African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in an area that spans five countries and is home to the largest population of African elephants in the world. The final result is possibly one of the largest databases of GPS-collared elephants. It contains close to 4 million data points that depict elephant movements and identify key connectivity areas and corridors for conservation purposes. A study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology documented how teams from WWF along with nonprofit organizations such as Ecoexist and Elephant Connection, among others, collaborated on the project, which used data collected over the past 15 years to examine connectivity for elephants. Based on the elephants’ movements, the team assessed landscape connectivity at three scales: a zoomed-in micro perspective, between protected areas as well as across the wider landscape. According to the study, each of these scales represented “a movement process whose maintenance is critical to effectively conserve elephants across the entire landscape.” African elephants, the largest land animals on Earth, are an endangered&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/jumbo-collaring-effort-reveals-key-elephant-movement-corridors/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/09/jumbo-collaring-effort-reveals-key-elephant-movement-corridors/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-287840</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As southern African freshwater fish &#038; fisheries struggle, collaboration is key (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-southern-african-freshwater-fish-fisheries-struggle-collaboration-is-key-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-southern-african-freshwater-fish-fisheries-struggle-collaboration-is-key-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Aug 2024 18:59:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gail Thomson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/08/22171826/Photo-3_Marcus-Westberg-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=286450</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Food, food security, Freshwater, Freshwater Fish, Governance, Overfishing, Solutions, Traditional Knowledge, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Scientists, communities and government officials from five African countries agree that the freshwater fish stocks in the Kavango and Zambezi River systems are in severe trouble. Delegates representing all three of these stakeholder groups came together in Windhoek, Namibia in July 2024 to share their knowledge and find ways to address this urgent situation. The [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Scientists, communities and government officials from five African countries agree that the freshwater fish stocks in the Kavango and Zambezi River systems are in severe trouble. Delegates representing all three of these stakeholder groups came together in Windhoek, Namibia in July 2024 to share their knowledge and find ways to address this urgent situation. The Kavango-Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) derives its name from two mighty rivers that flow through the five countries that are part of KAZA: Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. While this massive conservation area – spanning over half a million square kilometers – is best known for its huge elephant population and other charismatic wildlife on land, the rivers are its lifeblood. The Kavango River starts in the upper highlands of Angola (where it is known as the Cubango) and flows into the world-famous Okavango Delta in Botswana. Along the way, it forms part of the Namibia-Angola border and crosses Namibia at one of its narrowest points. The Zambezi River starts in Zambia, flows through Angola before re-entering Zambia, touches Namibia’s eastern tip and plunges over Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya), forming the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe until it enters Mozambique. The Okavango River. Photo courtesy of Marcus Westberg. The Okavango Delta and Victoria Falls are two of the top tourist attractions in the region, and “Rivers of Life” is the aptly chosen brand for tourism in KAZA. Nonetheless, tourism wasn’t the main reason why community representatives, scientists and government officials from the KAZA countries&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-southern-african-freshwater-fish-fisheries-struggle-collaboration-is-key-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/08/as-southern-african-freshwater-fish-fisheries-struggle-collaboration-is-key-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-286450</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Analysis of largest elephant surveys ever shows stable population, but disturbing trends</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/analysis-of-largest-elephant-surveys-ever-shows-stable-population-but-disturbing-trends/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/analysis-of-largest-elephant-surveys-ever-shows-stable-population-but-disturbing-trends/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Apr 2024 10:26:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/08192723/2Elephants_MoremiNPBotswana_serena_tangFlickrBYNCND2.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=280753</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Charismatic Animals, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Migration, Research, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe and in the evening cross over into Zambia or Namibia,” Chase, founder of the conservation NGO Elephants Without Borders, tells Mongabay. “It appears that that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe and in the evening cross over into Zambia or Namibia,” Chase, founder of the conservation NGO Elephants Without Borders, tells Mongabay. “It appears that that vision of an interconnected landscape is now being compromised.” The 520,000-square-kilometer (201,000-square-mile) area known as the KAZA stretches across Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It was established in 2006 with a vision of the region’s megafauna roaming free, unencumbered by the constraints of political borders. More than half the world’s savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) live in this transfrontier area. Chase’s EWB, based in Botswana, has just published an analysis comparing the two largest-ever aerial elephant surveys ever completed: the Great Elephant Census, a pan-African survey led by Chase spanning 18 countries and conducted in 2014 and 2015; and the 2022 KAZA Elephant Survey commissioned by the KAZA Secretariat, covering the five countries of the transfrontier conservation area with additional data from a 2018 EWB survey in Botswana. Elephants in the Okavango Delta. Image by Michael Levine-Clark via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Aerial shot of a river in the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. Image by Mark W Atkinson/WCS via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0) “It is critical to have up-to-date information on the size and status of elephant populations to understand the status of the species,” says George Wittemyer, a professor at Colorado State University&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/analysis-of-largest-elephant-surveys-ever-shows-stable-population-but-disturbing-trends/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/analysis-of-largest-elephant-surveys-ever-shows-stable-population-but-disturbing-trends/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-280753</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Count, connect, conserve: Southern Africa elephant survey points the way (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Jan 2024 20:32:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lisa SteelMichael KnightRobin NaidooRussell TaylorSteven A. Osofsky]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/03181512/Image_1_KAZA-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277336</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Southern Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Charismatic Animals, Commentary, Conservation, Elephants, Environment, Fences, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Migration, Research, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest transboundary terrestrial conservation area – much has been accomplished. Much also remains to be done. The 2022 KAZA Elephant Survey was a remarkable achievement. It [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest transboundary terrestrial conservation area – much has been accomplished. Much also remains to be done. The 2022 KAZA Elephant Survey was a remarkable achievement. It was the first time that Africa’s largest savanna elephant population was surveyed in a fully coordinated and synchronized manner, setting a new benchmark for aerial surveys for which the KAZA Secretariat and partner states deserve much praise; this was truly a major milestone in collaborative management of a globally unique wildlife resource. A typical double veterinary cordon fence in the region. Photo courtesy of M. Atkinson / Animal and Human Health for the Environment and Development (AHEAD) program at Cornell University. KAZA’s elephant population was estimated to be 227,900 (±95% CL 16,743), representing the majority of what’s left of Africa’s elephants. The survey also noted relatively high carcass ratios suggestive of elevated mortality, warranting further investigation as a potential warning sign for the health and stability of this globally important elephant population. Quantifying a wildlife population like this (and understanding its distribution in both space and time) is necessary to inform its management. But counting does not automatically lead to positive conservation outcomes. Many refer to KAZA’s elephants as a metapopulation, as one contiguous group of animals. But that characterization is increasingly misleading, as visible habitat fragmentation continues to take its toll. The habitat corridors&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2024/01/count-connect-conserve-southern-africa-elephant-survey-points-the-way-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277336</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Report: Rush for ‘clean energy’ minerals in Africa risks repeating harmful extractivist model</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/report-rush-for-clean-energy-minerals-in-africa-risks-repeating-harmful-extractivist-model/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/report-rush-for-clean-energy-minerals-in-africa-risks-repeating-harmful-extractivist-model/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Dec 2023 03:19:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawahare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/12/29125131/uis-mine-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=277186</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Land rights and extractives]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Namibia, Southern Africa, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Alternative Energy, Business, Clean Energy, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Human Rights, Industry, Land Rights, Lithium, Mining, Pollution, Protests, Renewable Energy, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A recent report from U.K.- and U.S.-based nonprofit Global Witness captures the details of how a new mining rush driven by demand for “clean energy” minerals can go wrong, reproducing the same model of extractivism that has impoverished African countries for centuries. “Sheer mineral wealth hasn&#8217;t always translated into development, particularly for the communities who [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A recent report from U.K.- and U.S.-based nonprofit Global Witness captures the details of how a new mining rush driven by demand for “clean energy” minerals can go wrong, reproducing the same model of extractivism that has impoverished African countries for centuries. “Sheer mineral wealth hasn&#8217;t always translated into development, particularly for the communities who live next to mines,” said report author Colin Robertson, a senior investigator at Global Witness. The team investigated mining projects for lithium, an essential mineral in the production of batteries for electric vehicles and power storage, in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Namibia. They highlighted the risk that future mining will “embed corruption, fail to develop local economies, and harm citizens and the environment.” In January this year, residents living near Uis in western Namibia started noticing a daily convoy of trucks leaving an area they believed to simply be an artisanal mining site. The large vehicles were passing through the community on their way to the port of Walvis Bay on the country’s western shore, according to Jimmy Areseb, a community activist. In reality, the trucks were exporting minerals from an extensive operation residents knew little about. In March, people took to the streets to protest the activities of Chinese miner Xinfeng Investments, the owner of the trucks and entity extracting resources, alleging the company was carrying out large-scale industrial mining without the proper permits or social license. A demonstration against lithium mining by Xinfeng in Uis in March this year. Image&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/report-rush-for-clean-energy-minerals-in-africa-risks-repeating-harmful-extractivist-model/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/12/report-rush-for-clean-energy-minerals-in-africa-risks-repeating-harmful-extractivist-model/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-277186</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Even community stewardship can&#8217;t save rangeland beset by legacy of misrule</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/even-community-stewardship-cant-save-rangeland-beset-by-legacy-of-misrule/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/even-community-stewardship-cant-save-rangeland-beset-by-legacy-of-misrule/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jul 2023 07:55:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawahare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/20152120/cattle-namibia-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=271189</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Community Development, Degraded Lands, Environment, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Livestock, Pasture, Ranching, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Rangelands cover more than 40% of the African continent and about half of Namibia. Large portions of Namibia’s rangelands are communal, serving as shared pastures for livestock and wildlife. These open, uninterrupted lands are threatened by degradation, changing vegetation, and diminishing soil quality. The Northern Communal Areas (NCAs) make up a fifth of Namibia’s landmass [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Rangelands cover more than 40% of the African continent and about half of Namibia. Large portions of Namibia’s rangelands are communal, serving as shared pastures for livestock and wildlife. These open, uninterrupted lands are threatened by degradation, changing vegetation, and diminishing soil quality. The Northern Communal Areas (NCAs) make up a fifth of Namibia’s landmass but are home to about half of the country’s population and cattle, in part a legacy of colonial relocation. The 1.2 million people living here are predominantly pastoralists and agropastoralists, herding livestock using traditional methods. Between 1970 and 2020, Namibia&#8217;s population tripled in size. This and the reduced mobility of herds are adding to the stress on these unfenced lands, according to anthropologist Michael Bollig. Apart from direct human pressures, climatic disruptions are also leading to greater aridity and promoting woody encroachment. In the south of the country, individuals own stretches of rangeland as private property, with each landowner making their own decisions about herd size and grazing, and managing their land with more or less success. But in the NCAs, communities displaced from richer, more hospitable land in the south to make way for settlers have had to adapt their traditional herding practices and economies to a new landscape. Cattle from the Northern Communal Areas (NCAs). In the NCAs, communities displaced from richer, more hospitable land in the south to make way for settlers have had to adapt their traditional herding practices and economies to a new landscape. Image by Alex Derr via Flickr&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/even-community-stewardship-cant-save-rangeland-beset-by-legacy-of-misrule/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/even-community-stewardship-cant-save-rangeland-beset-by-legacy-of-misrule/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-271189</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Anthill tiger’: Putting one of Africa’s rarest wildcats on the radar</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/anthill-tiger-putting-one-of-africas-rarest-wildcats-on-the-radar/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/anthill-tiger-putting-one-of-africas-rarest-wildcats-on-the-radar/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2023 14:41:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Petro Kotzé]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/18132715/24-black-footed-cat-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=268745</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Almost Famous Animals and Conservation Potential]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cats, Charismatic Animals, Conservation, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Predators, Research, Small Cats, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Every night, somewhere unseen across the vast, semidesert and dry savanna habitat of Southern Africa, the continent’s deadliest cat emerges to hunt. Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) are ideally suited for nocturnal stalking: They are evolutionarily older than jungle cats and domestic cats, boast exceptional night vision and hearing, and are believed to kill more prey [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Every night, somewhere unseen across the vast, semidesert and dry savanna habitat of Southern Africa, the continent’s deadliest cat emerges to hunt. Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) are ideally suited for nocturnal stalking: They are evolutionarily older than jungle cats and domestic cats, boast exceptional night vision and hearing, and are believed to kill more prey than iconic big cats like lions, leopards and tigers. However, their most notable characteristic may have contributed to their decline. They are tiny, so receive little notice from conservationists. Full grown, they tip the scale at just 1-2 kilograms (2.2-4.4 pounds). As Africa’s smallest feline, they’re too tiny to even trigger a conventional camera trap. While the species was first described by science in 1824 (but only from skins, not a live specimen), it went largely unstudied for more than 150 years. “Black-footed cats fly below the radar,” says zoologist Beryl Wilson, project manager for the Black-footed Cat Working Group, an NGO. Shy, secretive and very hard to find, F. nigripes remained one of the continent’s least-studied nocturnal mammals until the 1990s. And without detailed data, determining a species’ conservation status and, more importantly, understanding how best to protect them, is near impossible. And that’s the fate that befell the black-footed cat until a sole researcher came to its rescue. It took a die-hard researcher to study a species this small, enigmatic and mistakenly thought to be insignificant, Wilson says. You need someone, she adds, who can stick to it with “German tenacity.” For F.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/anthill-tiger-putting-one-of-africas-rarest-wildcats-on-the-radar/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/anthill-tiger-putting-one-of-africas-rarest-wildcats-on-the-radar/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-268745</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Namibia’s first peoples struggle to access their traditional lands (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/namibias-first-peoples-struggle-to-access-their-communal-lands-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/namibias-first-peoples-struggle-to-access-their-communal-lands-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Apr 2023 17:46:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Izzy Sasada]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/19142305/Devils-Claw-harvest-Nyae-Nyae-Conservancy-Namibia-e1681926001826-768x490.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=267598</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Conflict, Human Rights, Hunting, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Resource Conflict, and Trophy Hunting]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Namibia’s internationally acclaimed Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Program, whereby the government ostensibly allows rural and Indigenous communities the opportunity to manage and profit from their own natural resources, has received significant Western backing. However, research indicates that within the two CBNRMs which are designated to Indigenous San communities (the Nyae-Nyae Conservancy to the Ju/hoansi [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Namibia’s internationally acclaimed Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Program, whereby the government ostensibly allows rural and Indigenous communities the opportunity to manage and profit from their own natural resources, has received significant Western backing. However, research indicates that within the two CBNRMs which are designated to Indigenous San communities (the Nyae-Nyae Conservancy to the Ju/hoansi San and the N#a Jaqna Conservancy to the !Kung San), the benefits from natural resources are felt more so by unscrupulous traders, cattle herders and trophy hunting safari operators. The San’s traditional subsistence way of life is being threatened, and without means of finding employment elsewhere, many Indigenous communities in the Kalahari face impoverishment, starvation, exploitation, and marginalization. This may see the annihilation of one of the world’s oldest cultures as we know it, and it reflects a growing pattern whereby the communities who have the most knowledge of the natural world are today being obstructed from utilizing these natural resources. The loss of access to land is particularly devastating to Indigenous communities who rely on natural resources for their self-sufficiency. Map of Namibia showing the two conservancies. Land grabs in N#a Jaqna Conservancy  The Indigenous !Kung San people who occupy the N#a Jaqna Conservancy (b) are witnessing their historical lands be overrun by cattle herders from Namibia’s ruling ethnic groups, which is tacitly sanctioned by central and local government authorities. Authorities on conservancy land are thought to be accepting illegal bribes by non-San settlers in return for grazing rights on San traditional land within&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/namibias-first-peoples-struggle-to-access-their-communal-lands-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/04/namibias-first-peoples-struggle-to-access-their-communal-lands-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-267598</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Namibian community protects its rhinos from poaching but could lose them to mining</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/namibian-community-protects-its-rhinos-from-poaching-but-could-lose-them-to-mining/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/namibian-community-protects-its-rhinos-from-poaching-but-could-lose-them-to-mining/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Mar 2023 21:09:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Victoria Schneider]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/03/13185113/BlackRhino_HuabConservancy_UltimateSafaris-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=266409</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Black Rhino, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Protected Areas, Reintroductions, Rhinos, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A community conservancy in Namibia says it plans to sue the country’s environment minister if he fails to act against a copper mine operating in an area exclusively reserved for tourism. In an open letter released in February, the //Huab Conservancy’s Management Committee criticized Minister Pohamba Shifeta for granting an environmental clearance certificate (ECC) to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A community conservancy in Namibia says it plans to sue the country’s environment minister if he fails to act against a copper mine operating in an area exclusively reserved for tourism. In an open letter released in February, the //Huab Conservancy’s Management Committee criticized Minister Pohamba Shifeta for granting an environmental clearance certificate (ECC) to the miner, a Namibian individual, stating that &#8220;rhinos, local jobs, and our conservancy have been imperiled by this groundless, uninformed, and reckless decision.&#8221; According to Emma Gomes, chairperson of the conservancy, the mine has prompted the local population of black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) to migrate, hurting the community’s income as well as the conservation program it runs. Located in the Kunene region in the country’s northwest, the //Huab Conservancy is one of 13 community conservancies in the area registered under Namibia’s Community-Based Natural Resources Management program. The CBNRM initiative was initiated by the government in the late 1990s to give local communities legal rights over the management of their land and its natural resources. The //Huab Conservancy is one of 13 community conservation areas in the Kunene region. Image by Jeffrey Hanadaob and John Ellis Aibeb &#8220;The rhino population in the western Kunene region is not huge, but is considered a key-1 population by IUCN, which means it’s over 100 individuals,&#8221; said Andrew Malherbe, chief operating officer of Save the Rhino Trust (SRT), an organization that monitors and collects data on black rhinos in support of conservancies in the country’s northwest. The //Huab Conservancy’s letter&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/namibian-community-protects-its-rhinos-from-poaching-but-could-lose-them-to-mining/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/namibian-community-protects-its-rhinos-from-poaching-but-could-lose-them-to-mining/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-266409</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Impact assessments need a shake-up’: Q&#038;A with Georgine Kengne &#038; Morgan Hauptfleisch</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/impact-assessments-need-a-shake-up-qa-with-georgine-kengne-morgan-hauptfleisch/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/impact-assessments-need-a-shake-up-qa-with-georgine-kengne-morgan-hauptfleisch/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Mar 2023 14:46:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Victoria Schneider]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/11/12093522/Aerial-view-of-Tendele-mine-south-africa-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=266418</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Business, Coal, Community-based Conservation, Conflict, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Economics, Ecosystems, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Human Rights, Industry, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Law Enforcement, Mining, Oil, Politics, Pollution, Protected Areas, Protests, Resource Conflict, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) have become an important tool for decision-makers around the world to explore and understand the impacts of proposed development projects on the wider ecosystem. They’re supposed to measure — and ensure that mechanisms are put in place to manage — the possible negative impacts on ecosystems and affected communities. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) have become an important tool for decision-makers around the world to explore and understand the impacts of proposed development projects on the wider ecosystem. They’re supposed to measure — and ensure that mechanisms are put in place to manage — the possible negative impacts on ecosystems and affected communities. For local communities and Indigenous peoples, ESIAs should be a keystone of free, prior and informed consent. Through these assessments, local communities, scientists, environmentalists and other interested and affected parties should be able to learn what a project entails, and be given a platform to voice their concerns about risks, changes or losses it might bring. The studies and consultation surrounding an ESIA also allow companies or investors to respond to criticism and explore alternatives, while being pushed to develop adequate mitigation measures and fair compensation schemes. For governments, ESIAs are meant to be the entry point into a development, providing authorities with the information necessary to understand the potential costs and benefits of a project not only in terms of strategic and economic goals, but also in terms of how it will affect the lives and livelihoods of citizens and the health of the land and water it will be sited on. Without environmental and social assessments, governments can’t make truly informed decisions. But are ESIAs fit for purpose? Georgine Kengne, coordinator for Consent &amp; the Right to Say No at the WoMin African Alliance, tells Mongabay that in her experience communities are frequently&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/impact-assessments-need-a-shake-up-qa-with-georgine-kengne-morgan-hauptfleisch/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2023/03/impact-assessments-need-a-shake-up-qa-with-georgine-kengne-morgan-hauptfleisch/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-266418</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rehabilitation research returns orphaned cheetahs to the wild</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/rehabilitation-research-returns-orphaned-cheetahs-to-the-wild/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/rehabilitation-research-returns-orphaned-cheetahs-to-the-wild/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jun 2022 20:35:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/06/01172400/Image_2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=256665</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Cats, Charismatic Animals, Cheetahs, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Endangered Species, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Human-wildlife Conflict, Predators, Research, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal, but it’s running out of space. Its range has been reduced dramatically over the past decades, and populations continue to decline. Identifying solutions to conserve and protect the species in the wild is thus vital. A new study published in the journal Oryx by the Cheetah Conservation [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The cheetah is the world’s fastest land animal, but it’s running out of space. Its range has been reduced dramatically over the past decades, and populations continue to decline. Identifying solutions to conserve and protect the species in the wild is thus vital. A new study published in the journal Oryx by the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) charts the results of a cheetah orphan release project that operated between 2002 and 2018 in Namibia. Rescued orphans were put through a rigorous rehabilitation program. “Our findings demonstrate the ability of wild-born, captive-raised cheetah to transition back into the wild with strategic pre- and post-release management directed towards optimizing survival,” the study notes. The results of the project are framed as a methodological framework on cheetah rehabilitation and post-release management for others to use and adapt as part of a strategy to reverse the decline of the species, Acinonyx jubatus. Fewer than 7,100 cheetahs remain: in Africa, they inhabit around 10% of their former range; large swaths of that territory lie outside of protected areas. Threats include human-wildlife conflict, lack of suitable prey, and poaching for the wildlife trade, resulting in the species being as listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. Two subspecies, the Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) and the Northwest African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki), are both listed as critically endangered by the IUCN. Image courtesy of the Cheetah Conservation Fund. From 2001 to 2012, the project took in 86 young cheetahs orphaned due to human-wildlife conflict. Careful selection of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/rehabilitation-research-returns-orphaned-cheetahs-to-the-wild/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/rehabilitation-research-returns-orphaned-cheetahs-to-the-wild/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
					<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/06/01193059/Video2.mp4" length="3428727" type="video/mp4" />
<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/06/01195051/Video1.mp4" length="4055487" type="video/mp4" />
					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-256665</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Reframing trophy hunting’s socio-economic benefits in Namibia (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/reframing-trophy-huntings-socio-economic-benefits-in-namibia-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/reframing-trophy-huntings-socio-economic-benefits-in-namibia-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Apr 2022 23:36:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Frowin Becker]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/04/28195323/1280px-Professional_hunter_with_a_hunting_guest_Kalahari_Namibia_01-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=255298</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Commentary, Community Development, Conservation, Environment, Mammals, Poverty, Poverty Alleviation, Racism, Social Justice, Sustainable Development, Tourism, Trophy Hunting, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With the relatively recent proposal in the British parliament to ban the import of wildlife trophies, the issue has once again taken center stage among factions of the global conservation community. Despite the potential ban’s limited impact on its own trophy hunting industry, Namibia is often raised as a case study to make a strong [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With the relatively recent proposal in the British parliament to ban the import of wildlife trophies, the issue has once again taken center stage among factions of the global conservation community. Despite the potential ban’s limited impact on its own trophy hunting industry, Namibia is often raised as a case study to make a strong argument for a morally contentious practice that has been adapted into a conservation strategy. Most of Namibia’s hunting clients are either EU or US citizens, making a ban in the UK no immediate threat. Data from 2016 suggest that only 4% of Namibia’s hunting clients are even likely to be British. However, as other African conservation sectors stand to lose valuable clientele, fears over a hugely impactful precedent have put Namibia’s conservation and hunting fraternities on high alert as well. Fears arise from revenue generated through trophy hunting being diminished by a blanket ban; revenue often earmarked for conservation and in Namibia’s case, rural poverty alleviation. While not untrue, this framing neglects some socio-political history, which is still playing itself out today. Gemsbok (Oryx gazella) are the largest of the Oryx species and are a common target of trophy hunters visiting Namibia. Image by Joachim Huber via Wikimedia Commons. The country’s conservancy-based conservation model has distinguished itself by conferring rights to wildlife resource use to communally-run conservancies. This was enacted through a legislative amendment back in 1996, after Namibia gained independence from South Africa in 1990. Before that, rights to wildlife resources were reserved for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/reframing-trophy-huntings-socio-economic-benefits-in-namibia-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/reframing-trophy-huntings-socio-economic-benefits-in-namibia-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-255298</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Export of elephants to UAE drags Namibia wildlife policy into the spotlight</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/export-of-elephants-to-uae-drags-namibia-wildlife-policy-into-the-spotlight/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/export-of-elephants-to-uae-drags-namibia-wildlife-policy-into-the-spotlight/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2022 17:51:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/04/07171607/DesertElephants_DamaralandNamibia_RhettButlerMongabay-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=254636</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Controversial, Elephants, Environment, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The export of 22 wild-caught elephants from Namibia to the United Arab Emirates in March has raised concerns over their welfare and stoked criticism of how Namibia manages its wildlife. Fifty-seven elephants were sold at auction in 2021 to private buyers, and 37 have already been captured. Fifteen of those were moved to a private [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The export of 22 wild-caught elephants from Namibia to the United Arab Emirates in March has raised concerns over their welfare and stoked criticism of how Namibia manages its wildlife. Fifty-seven elephants were sold at auction in 2021 to private buyers, and 37 have already been captured. Fifteen of those were moved to a private reserve in Namibia and will remain there. In early March, 22 were flown to two safari parks in the UAE. Another 20 elephants are still to be captured. Their ultimate destination is not yet publicly known. The Pro Elephant Network (PREN), a forum of individuals and organizations campaigning to stop the capture and exploitation of elephants, says those sent to the UAE were taken from a small, fragile population of Namibia’s desert-adapted elephants. “We were informed that the 22 elephants did not make up the entire herd, a few elephants were left behind [in Namibia]. This has very serious implications for the welfare and well-being of both the captured elephants and the elephants left behind,” PREN coordinator Stefania Falcon told Mongabay. “The Namibian government never provided the non-detriment finding, to prove that this capture has not had negative, non-reversible effects on this small population.” Gate and tank damaged by elephants seeking water. Image courtesy Namibia Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Tourism Defending the elephant capture Namibia&#8217;s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) says animal welfare groups opposed to the auction of the elephants do not have to live with the damage inflicted by some&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/export-of-elephants-to-uae-drags-namibia-wildlife-policy-into-the-spotlight/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/export-of-elephants-to-uae-drags-namibia-wildlife-policy-into-the-spotlight/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-254636</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>ReconAfrica pushes ahead with Namibia oil exploration amid claims of violations</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/reconafrica-pushes-ahead-with-namibia-oil-exploration-amid-claims-of-violations/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/reconafrica-pushes-ahead-with-namibia-oil-exploration-amid-claims-of-violations/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Feb 2022 13:13:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Victoria Schneider]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/02/17131039/Namibia_Okavango_3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=252825</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Land rights and extractives]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Deforestation, Degraded Lands, Environment, Environmental Law, Human Rights, Industry, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Law, Law Enforcement, Natural Gas, Oil, Oil Drilling, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At the end of January, Canadian oil and gas company Reconnaissance Africa (ReconAfrica) discreetly announced it expected approvals shortly for a second seismic survey and the drilling of three to six additional test wells in northeastern Namibia&#8217;s Kavango Basin. Residents and environmental campaigners say the company is breaking the law. ReconAfrica is prospecting for oil [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At the end of January, Canadian oil and gas company Reconnaissance Africa (ReconAfrica) discreetly announced it expected approvals shortly for a second seismic survey and the drilling of three to six additional test wells in northeastern Namibia&#8217;s Kavango Basin. Residents and environmental campaigners say the company is breaking the law. ReconAfrica is prospecting for oil and gas in a license area spanning nearly 3.5 million hectares (8.5 million acres) across northeast Namibia and northwest Botswana. Its critics say there has been no public notice of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the latest work. “There were no public announcements, they just quietly wrote to the Ministry of Environment, and asked for their environmental clearance certificate to be extended,” Christopher Brown, an environmental scientist and founder of the Namibian Chamber of the Environment (NCE), told Mongabay in an interview. Namibia&#8217;s government cleared ReconAfrica to drill two test wells in 2021, followed by a 2D seismic survey. In its January statement, the company said it had submitted an “update to the seismic Environmental Impact Assessment” to the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism and expected approval by the end of February for more drilling and an additional 500 kilometers (310 miles) of seismic surveys. Under Namibia’s Environmental Management Act, any change or extension of ReconAfrica&#8217;s environmental clearance would require public notice and consultation. In a letter to the chair of the Namibian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Natural Resources, several NGOs demanded clarification. “We have objected very strongly to the environmental commissioner, saying&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/reconafrica-pushes-ahead-with-namibia-oil-exploration-amid-claims-of-violations/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/reconafrica-pushes-ahead-with-namibia-oil-exploration-amid-claims-of-violations/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-252825</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>UK trophy hunting import ban not supported by rural Africans (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/uk-trophy-hunting-import-ban-not-supported-by-rural-africans-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/uk-trophy-hunting-import-ban-not-supported-by-rural-africans-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Feb 2022 17:16:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Dr Malan LindequeGail ThomsonHilma AngulaKenneth /UisebRosalia Iileka]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/01/07184258/namibia_1098_21_header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=252605</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, Southern Africa, and United Kingdom]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Commentary, Community Development, Development, Elephants, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Poverty, Sustainable Development, Trade, Trophy Hunting, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Proposed legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies (e.g. horns, antlers, tusks) apparently enjoys popular support within the UK, yet the effects of these policies are likely to be felt by rural people in countries beyond its borders. The opinions of rural Africans, in particular, are rarely or never heard in such policy debates [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Proposed legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies (e.g. horns, antlers, tusks) apparently enjoys popular support within the UK, yet the effects of these policies are likely to be felt by rural people in countries beyond its borders. The opinions of rural Africans, in particular, are rarely or never heard in such policy debates even though they stand to be directly affected by these decisions. In the interest of highlighting their opinions, we share some responses to a recent series of interviews regarding elephant management in Namibia. When evaluating the results of opinion polls or questionnaire surveys, it is good practice to reflect on where the data come from and how the responses were gathered. In this case, the Namibian government commissioned conservation professionals including three of the authors of this article (with Mr. Kenneth /Uiseb providing oversight), to hold a series of public meetings in rural areas known to host elephants. These stakeholder meetings included 38 communal conservancies – community-based institutions that have been granted conditional ownership rights over wildlife that occur within their jurisdiction. Between these meetings, people were interviewed about elephants. The respondents we highlight here were part of the daily management (staff members, including field staff) or oversight (committee members) of their communal conservancies. As residents and managers in conservancies, these interviewees have both first-hand experiences of living with wildlife and a detailed understanding about how hunting works in their conservancies. They were interviewed in small groups, informed regarding how their responses would be used,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/uk-trophy-hunting-import-ban-not-supported-by-rural-africans-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-252605</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘A leap of faith’: Q&#038;A with Robin Radcliffe on airlifting rhinos upside down</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/a-leap-of-faith-qa-with-robin-radcliffe-on-airlifting-rhinos-upside-down/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/a-leap-of-faith-qa-with-robin-radcliffe-on-airlifting-rhinos-upside-down/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Nov 2021 13:28:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawahare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/11/10125042/Rhino-Hanging-upsidedown-africa-Namibia-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=249286</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Black Rhino, Charismatic Animals, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Interviews, Mammals, Rhinos, Transportation, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Rhinos aren’t built for flight. Robin Radcliffe, a veterinarian at Cornell University with several decades of experience taking care of rhinos, is well aware of this. So when Namibia, one of the places where he works, decided to move critically endangered black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) hanging upside down from helicopters, he had one question: Is [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Rhinos aren’t built for flight. Robin Radcliffe, a veterinarian at Cornell University with several decades of experience taking care of rhinos, is well aware of this. So when Namibia, one of the places where he works, decided to move critically endangered black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) hanging upside down from helicopters, he had one question: Is that OK? Images of the brawny beasts, precariously poised at the precipice of extinction, swinging off helicopters grabbed eyeballs and boggled minds. The research also swept the Ig Nobel&#8217;s selection committee off its feet. Radcliffe&#8217;s team won this year in the “transportation” category. The satirical take on the prestigious Nobel prizes celebrates science at its quirky best. Or, as the organizers say, &#8220;achievements that make people laugh, then think.&#8221; Turns out there’s a lot to think about. A desert-adapted subspecies of the black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis bicornis) being translocated in the Kunene Region of Namibia. Image courtesy of Namibian Ministry of the Environment, Forestry, and Tourism. Using helicopters to transport animals isn’t novel, but hanging them by their feet is. For decades, conservation organizations, especially in Africa, have resorted to translocation to repopulate “empty” parks with iconic species like rhinos, elephants and lions. But the practice has a checkered record as a conservation tool. One paper describes it as a &#8220;high-cost endeavor with a history of failures.&#8221; The success of translocations in safeguarding the species and benefiting the ecosystems where animals are resettled depends on many factors, including animal behavior, proper monitoring, and community support.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/a-leap-of-faith-qa-with-robin-radcliffe-on-airlifting-rhinos-upside-down/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-249286</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Growing concern over Okavango oil exploration as community alleges shutout</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/growing-concern-over-okavango-oil-exploration-as-community-alleges-shutout/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/growing-concern-over-okavango-oil-exploration-as-community-alleges-shutout/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Mar 2021 15:48:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/03/22154018/OkavangoRiver2_RunduNambia_PatrikMLoeffFlickr.jpg-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=240794</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Fracking, Oil, Water, Water Pollution, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica), a Canadian oil and gas company, has begun public consultations for the second phase of its controversial exploration activities in northeastern Namibia. Critics have raised concerns about the process, with questions over the limited size of the consultations, overly complicated presentations, and a lack of opportunity for stakeholder engagement. “The company [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica), a Canadian oil and gas company, has begun public consultations for the second phase of its controversial exploration activities in northeastern Namibia. Critics have raised concerns about the process, with questions over the limited size of the consultations, overly complicated presentations, and a lack of opportunity for stakeholder engagement. “The company doing the exploration, ReconAfrica, is not an honest and reliable entity in our view,” said Chris Brown, CEO of the Namibian Chamber of Environment and former head of the Namibian Directorate of Environmental Affairs. “They have done all they can to avoid public meetings with technical people in Namibia and they needed to be bullied into holding meetings in Windhoek.” ReconAfrica holds a license to explore a 25,000-square-kilometer (9,650-square-mile) area of northeastern Namibia. Stakeholder engagement sessions for the initial exploration phase, drilling of two test wells to the south of Rundu, took place in March and May 2019 and November 2020. These public consultations were similarly criticized, in particular because they were advertised primarily in English-language newspapers that few in the affected communities could read. According to a National Geographic report, ReconAfrica’s September 2020 press release stating the drilling would go ahead was the first time many in the area had heard about it. The company began drilling the first of two test wells on Jan. 11, 2021, to establish the area&#8217;s potential for oil production. Drilling is now paused due to a broken drill bit at a depth of 300 meters (980 feet). The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/03/growing-concern-over-okavango-oil-exploration-as-community-alleges-shutout/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-240794</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Namibia to sell off wild elephants in controversial auction</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/namibia-to-sell-off-wild-elephants-in-controversial-auction/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/namibia-to-sell-off-wild-elephants-in-controversial-auction/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jan 2021 03:27:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Michael Schwartz]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/01/29030116/Namibian_Elephants_in_Etosha-Stephan_Scholvin-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=239068</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Controversial, Elephants, Environment, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Despite a petition of over 100,000 signatures condemning the sale, Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism (MEFT) plans to finalize a controversial auction of 170 of its wild elephants on Friday, January 29. The auction has been met with sharp criticism by some conservationists who have questioned the population data and claims of human-elephant [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Despite a petition of over 100,000 signatures condemning the sale, Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism (MEFT) plans to finalize a controversial auction of 170 of its wild elephants on Friday, January 29. The auction has been met with sharp criticism by some conservationists who have questioned the population data and claims of human-elephant conflict that are being used to justify the sale. MEFT has argued that the auction is necessitated by a tripling in the country’s elephant population from about 7,500 in 1995 to about 24,000 individuals today, which the ministry asserts is damaging ecosystems, increasing the incidence of conflict between pachyderms and farmers, and heightening the risk of poaching. Elephant in Namibia. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler Some conservationists however dispute that data, arguing those estimates show that of the total population, between 17,265 and 20,000 of Namibia’s elephants are considered transboundary, meaning they engage in migration to and from Namibia, Angola, Botswana, and Zambia. If accurate, between 73 and 84 percent of the elephants are internationally migratory, leaving a resident Namibian population estimate of only around 5,688. Of that resident population, the 170 elephants set to be auctioned off constitute around three percent. Furthermore, opponents of the auction note that Namibia’s total elephant population is dwarfed by neighboring Botswana’s roughly 130,000. Namibia’s land area is 40% larger than Botswana, meaning its elephant density is at best about one-eighth that of its neighbor. Mark Hiley, operations director of National Park Rescue, a Zimbabwe-based conservation group, has been&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/01/namibia-to-sell-off-wild-elephants-in-controversial-auction/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-239068</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Alarm as exploratory drilling for oil begins in northern Namibia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/alarm-as-exploratory-drilling-for-oil-begins-in-northern-namibia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/alarm-as-exploratory-drilling-for-oil-begins-in-northern-namibia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Dec 2020 09:47:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jim Tan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/12/28091815/MaintainingFishTrap_MashareNambia_Mp3iefFlickrBYNCSA2.0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=238332</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Botswana, Namibia, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Fracking, Oil, Water, Water Pollution, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On December 21, Reconnaissance Energy Africa (Recon Africa) announced that it had begun exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the Namibian portion of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA). The move has alarmed environmental campaigners and community groups who are concerned about the impact this could have on the region’s watercourses, people and wildlife. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On December 21, Reconnaissance Energy Africa (Recon Africa) announced that it had begun exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the Namibian portion of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA). The move has alarmed environmental campaigners and community groups who are concerned about the impact this could have on the region’s watercourses, people and wildlife. Recon Africa is the holder of a licence to explore a 2.5 million hectare area (6.3-million-acres) of northeastern Namibia, granted to a predecessor company in January 2015. The majority of the area covered by Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 73 sits in the KAZA, a conservation initiative covering 520,000 square kilometres (201,000 square miles) of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The company also has a licence to prospect for oil in another section of KAZA, 1 million hectare area (2.5 million acres) of northwestern Botswana, where it hopes to begin drilling in 2021. Map courtesy Recon Africa Concerns The KAZA conservation area is home to the largest remaining population of African elephants and is one of the last remaining strongholds of the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus). Recon Africa&#8217;s exploration areas in both Botswana and Namibia fall largely within the Okavango River Basin which flows into the richly-biodiverse Okavango Delta — a UNESCO World Heritage site. Conservationists are particularly concerned by the potential impact drilling for oil and gas here could have on the interconnected watercourses of the river basin. “There is a serious lack of knowledge on groundwater resources in the target oil and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/12/alarm-as-exploratory-drilling-for-oil-begins-in-northern-namibia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-238332</doi>				</item>
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