See this great video, created by Lion Ranger partner TOSCO, focusing on the work of Dr. Philip Stander of Desert Lion Conservation and including Puros Lion Ranger Berthus Tjipombo in a star turn. Felix Vallat, TOSCO Founder and Lion Ranger Program Coordinator, has been integral to supporting the conservation of Northwest Namibia’s desert-adapted lions for years. Dr. Stander is a co-founder of the Lion Ranger program and has been performing in-depth field research on the desert-adapted lions since 1997.
Grateful food recipients and community conservationists.
The Covid-19 pandemic has touched all parts the globe, including limiting incomes to northwest Namibia conservancy residents. Beginning in March, staff at tourist accommodations and working for touring companies were sent home, with little certainty about when they will return to work. This dramatic and unexpected hit to local incomes immediately began affecting livelihoods and eroding people’s savings. Many parents rely on schools to provide their children with meals during the school year – the closure of schools is exacerbating food insecurity.
Conservation of wildlife cannot take place when people cannot meet their basic needs. Alongside IRDNC staff, and with support from TOSCO, and Oliver Adolph and Family, the Lion Rangers have been helping to distribute food relief in the southern Kunene Region. This past week Lead Field Assistant Jendery Tsaneb helped spearhead relief to affect farmers and community members. Packages of mealie paap, pasta, soup packets, oil, sugar, and tea were loaded on to trucks and delivered to meet the greatest needs.
For more than twenty-five years, Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) has been leading the charge for community-based natural resource management in Namibia. Simply put, without the efforts of IRDNC founders and staff, Namibia’s communal conservancies may never have come into being. There are now more than 86 communal conservancies, encompassing more than 20% of Namibia’s land, with 227,000 people participating. IRDNC staff are central to the work of limiting human-lion conflict in northwest Namibia. The Lion Rangers’ work would be impossible without IRDNC’s ongoing support. Watch this great video to learn more.
In February a female lioness, XPL-121, was shot near a farm in the Anabeb Conservancy. She had been struggling to feed her three cubs, due to low numbers of prey in the area, and was increasingly encroaching on farmers’ livestock. In the following days the IRDNC Rapid Response Teams, Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism staff, and Lion Rangers, worked tirelessly to try to capture the newly orphaned cubs. They were unsuccessful. This was considered an urgent matter as the cubs were unable to feed themselves. Thankfully, the Anabeb Conservancy stepped in. In the ensuing months conservancy management and members donated donkeys to feed the orphaned cubs and ensure their survival until they could be safely captured and translocated away from danger.
Yesterday a large and diverse group paid tribute to IRDNC founder, committed conservationist, and hero to many Garth Owen-Smith at Wereldsend. Said TOSCO founder and Lion Ranger program coordinator Felix Vallat, “It was sincere, moving, inspiring…a perfect between Himba traditional funerals and a western one. Garth left a big space for us to grow and bloom, which we will!” The ceremony brought together people from across Namibia and the thoughts and prayers of a world of partners who could not return due to travel restrictions. There were private planes and traditional Himba marches, headmen from the north and local friends, hunters and wildlife advocates, a truly cross-cultural crowd of partners, all of whom were inspired by Garth’s message and commitment to making the world a better place.
Another Early-Warning System tower, this one at Otjitoveni.
Over the weekend the Lion Rangers of Anabeb Conservancy, led by IRDNC’s Rapid Response Team, and partnering with Conservancy Game Guards and local villagers, erected another Early-Warning System tower at Otjitoveni. This farm is home to Lion Ranger Ronald Karutjaiva as well as IRDNC Rapid Response Team Leader Linus Mbomoboro. For more than two years Karutjaiva and Mbomboro have been working to limit human-lion conflict across the northwest, including setting-up Early Warning towers at numerous farms. During that period their attention has been taken from their own livestock and they have lost numerous goats and sheep to lions. Despite consistent efforts by local herders to play their part, a group of lions has made themselves too comfortable near Otjitoveni and it was decided the time was right to erect another Early Warning tower. Thanks to the Anabeb Conservancy for their help and for assisting Karutjaiva and Mbomboro so they can continue their work across the region.
On 11 April, 2020, Garth Owen-Smith, co-founder of Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC), and the widely-regarded ‘father’ of Namibia conservation passed-away peacefully. Garth dedicated his life to advocating for Namibia’s wildlife and wild places. His commitment to community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), was on-display throughout a career spanning six decades, which he primarily spent in northwest Namibia. His loss is felt keenly by all who work to maintain wildlife conservation in Namibia.
Livestock at an artificial waterhole on communal land in northwest Namibia.
The work of the Lion Rangers and IRDNC Human-Wildlife Conflict Rapid Response Teams continues. Over the past week, Lead Field Assistant Jendery Tsaneb has been directing a small team in the Torra Conservancy, to help prevent human-lion conflict.
One of the tigers at the Bronx Zoo. Credit: National Geographic
Over the weekend, a four-year-old Malayan tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York Citytested positive for Covid-19. The tiger, along with six other big cats, including three other tigers and three lions, had been displaying symptoms similar to those displayed by humans infected with Covid-19, including a dry cough. A positive test for Covid-19 was confirmed by the USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory.
Lionesses and cubs, near the Hoanib. Photo: P. Stander.
During this time of global uncertainty, the work of the IRDNC Rapid Response Teams, the Lion Rangers, and so many of the on-the-ground conservationists in northwest Namibia continues. Poaching and human-wildlife conflict care very little for Covid-19 and it remains imperative that wildlife conservation presses-on. Thanks to the tireless efforts of IRDNC’s directors and board and their partners, Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism is examining how to keep anti-poaching and human-wildlife conflict personnel, such as the Lion Rangers and Rapid Response Teams in the field.
