News
NNF-Go Green Environmental Awards winners announced
The NNF held its annual corporate and donor function on the 27 November 2006. At this occasion the NNF presented the seventh Environmental Award for 2006. The NNF / Go Green Award supported by Nedbank Namibia was also presented to the best environmental journalist in Namibia for the third time.
NNF-Go Green Environmental Journalism Award for 2006: Absalom Shigwedha
Good, clear and regular reporting in the press on topical and significant environmental issues, as well as in specialised magazines, has helped make the concept of sustainable development accessible to all literate Namibian.
This year's winner of the 2006 NNF - Go Green Environmental Award has covered a wide range of topics over the past few years, including:
- Poverty, rangeland management and desertification
- Forests, rural development and poverty reduction
- Wetlands and their importance in arid environments
- And in today's Namibian - Conservation farming, to mention just a few.
These articles are described as "informative", with eye-catching titles. His work goes beyond "informative" to "educational" and sharing of good-practices, for example his article on "Devil's Claw: dos and don'ts".
A third component of his work goes beyond "mainstream" articles to explorative, hands on journalist, such as his article entitled "On the trail of the Black Mongoose" - which, incidentally, was a project funded by the Go Green Fund of Nedbank Namibia.
His articles have been described as:
- highly relevant to target groups and local interests
- accessible and easy to understand
- factual and personal
- raising awareness from local to national level
- educational
I can personally attest to his commitment and hard work - no matter how distant an event, or how late a meeting, he is always there to cover a good environmental story.
For his contribution to informing and educating the nation in the environment and sustainable development sector, it is now our pleasure to call on Absalom Shigwedha of the Namibian to come forward.
NNF-Go Green Environmental Award for 2006: Beavan Munali
This year's winner has dedicated 15 years of his life to community conservation and rural development in the Caprivi. He started work as a community game guard, and is now a regional field coordinator.
I would like to lift out a few key points from his career:
- He was a local champion for conservation in the early 1990s, when conservation was seen as an imposition and an extension of apartheid. Villages frequently threatened him and what he stood for.
- He helped nurture a local vision for conservation, in which people would take ownership of wildlife and other natural resources, derive benefits from these resources and take responsibility for there wise management.
- Through his hard work and assistance to people, including long nights helping to keep elephants out of crop fields, people slowly began to change their views.
- His vision has always been to link conservation, the wise management and use of resources, with rural development and poverty reduction.
- He runs a weekly 30 minute radio slot on the NBC Lozi Station called "Zanahni" meaning "Out of Nature" which covers both environmental information as well as events and activities taking place in conservancies. This has become so popular that he is often invited by NBC to chair panel discussions on conservation issues in the Caprivi.
- He has engaged closely with all the Traditional Authorities in the Caprivi and is highly respected by these influential leaders. His work with these leaders has added enormously to the legitimacy and profile of conservancies in the Caprivi. Through this work, and the common ground created around conservation and rural development, he has also contributed significantly to fostering better understanding and harmony between the four Traditional Authorities in the region, in the face of deep-rooted historic conflict.
- Today, wildlife and conservation have a legitimate and respected place in the Caprivi. There are 9 registered conservancies and many more emerging. Almost 75% of the Caprivi is now under some sort of conservation management, in which the people of the area take their proud and rightful place.
For his remarkable contributions to Conservation and Rural Development in the Caprivi, I would like to call on Beavan Munali to come forward.
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Awards and certificates for the NNF-Go Green Environmental Awards 2006 |
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Absalom Shigwedha receiving his award |
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Some of the invited audience |
View speech by Dr Chris Brown.
[27 Nov 2006]