During the past week all 49 Lion Rangers and the Leadership Team came together for our annual training. Building on the success of last year’s Law Enforcement and SMART training, this year we focused on Lion Ranger life outcomes as well as skills development.
In partnership with staff from the Cornerstone Wellness Center (Windhoek), we were happy to provide drug and alcohol awareness training to all Lion Rangers. In rural areas of northwest Namibia, drug and alcohol abuse can be a serious and widespread challenge. This has only been exacerbated following new livelihood challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The training not only focused on personal enrichment and lifestyle strategies, but gave Rangers the tools to assist other community members struggling with drug and alcohol issues. This is part of the program’s broader approach to not only building personal capacity, but helping Rangers become assets for their entire communities, beyond their work monitoring lions. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) relies on strong, resilient communities managing their natural resources. This can only be achieved when communities are functioning well and livelihoods are supported.
Further training on the SMART program was provided by Lion Ranger Program Administrator Mathilde Brassine, who oversees implementation of SMART for the Lion Rangers. As the responsibilities of the Lion Rangers continue to grow, the demands being placed on their data collection are growing apace. As part of a wide-range of field conservationists implementing use of SMART, the Lion Rangers are benefitting greatly from its continued development. New modules include collecting greater detail on human-wildlife conflict data and better tracking of Ranger interactions with farmers. The data being collected, and their use in adaptive management, are leading the way in mobile recording of wildlife data in Namibia. The Lion Rangers program is excited by its partnership with Namibia’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism to continue to upscale the use of SMART across the country. We are particularly grateful to Oliver Adolph, who is serving on the SMART Board for his deep engagement with the Lion Rangers program and commitment to helping us adapt and use SMART as a central pillar of the program. We were so glad to be joined by Oliver at training!
This year training took place at the Uibasen-Twyfelfontein Conservancy office. We were happy to support the conservancy and receive their assistance in this important training. The Rangers and Leadership Team left training reinvigorated for the work ahead and ready to continue tackling the challenges of human-lion conflict in northwest Namibia.
We also celebrated two birthdays during training. Happy Birthday to Edward “Pem” Rhyn from Torra Conservancy and Zelda Dandu of Doro !Nawas Conservancy.
