© John E. NEWBY / WWF-Canon Portrait of a WWF Community Game Guard. Kunene Province, Namibia

Namibia's rich wildlife, beautiful scenery and abundant natural resources are the foundation of a sustainable future for the people of Namibia. But the legacy of colonialism left behind vast economic disparities and overexploited resources. Prior to Namibia's independence in 1990 Namibians were suffering from high unemployment. Wildlife populations in communal areas had plummeted because of a prolonged military occupation, extensive poaching and a severe drought.

In the mid 1980s this situation began to reverse as a Namibian organization - Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) - introduced an innovative program to inspire community stewardship of wildlife. In 1996 more progress was made when the government passed a law that promotes publicly managed conservancies run by local communities. This legislation created a more favorable environment by recognizing rights of communities in conservancies to natural resources, including rights of ownership over huntable game and rights to revenue from the sale of game, game products and tourism. This policy change, combined with long-term support from WWF through the LIFE Project, has assisted IRDNC and other Namibian partners' efforts to grow into Namibia's national communal conservancy program.

© Martin HARVEY / WWF-Canon Through the LIFE Project, local communities benefit from ecotourism.

The WWF-supported Living in a Finite Environment (LIFE) Project, in partnership with Namibian civil organizations and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, has helped to make conservation a national priority - benefitting both Namibian communities and their wildlife. Since 1998, the conservancy movement has engaged more than 220,000 community members with the creation of 50 communal conservancies - covering more than 29 million acres of prime wildlife habitat. These conservancies generate more than $5 million in annual income for the communities through joint ecotourism and cultural tourism ventures, handicraft industries, hunting concessions and the sale of live animals for restocking other conservancies.

Namibian communities now see wildlife as a valued livelihood asset, and are setting aside large areas of land as wildlife management areas. As a result, poaching is no longer socially acceptable and there are now restored populations of lions, cheetahs, black rhinos, zebras and other native species. The LIFE project shows us how support for community resource rights can generate major successes for people and wildlife. WWF is building on this experience to achieve similar results around the world.