State Protected Areas in the Caprivi

At present each protected area is managed as an independent, self-contained entity and the required annual budget for all areas is about US$1.9 million. Considerable savings result from managing the entire block of State protected areas as one large area (Analysis 3).

The required manpower and budgets set a critical threshold - if less than the stated amounts, the objective to contain illegal hunting is unlikely to be achieved (Martin 2002).

Reducing the total area to about 8,000 km2, to take into account the fact that parts of the Forest Reserve and the Caprivi Game Park are already encroached upon and would not form part of the buffalo range, the required budget is US$900,000.

The required manpower and budgets set a critical threshold - if less than the stated amounts, the objective to contain illegal hunting is unlikely to be achieved (Martin 2002).

Staff Housing and Office Facilities

There is a capital component associated with this budget which provides for staff housing, office facilities etc. The required capital for developing a park of 8,000km2 is about US$6 million. Assuming that about 50% of the required infrastructure is already in place some US$3,000,000 would be needed to complete infrastructural development.

• The objectives of the Species Management Plan will not be realised if the Caprivi Parks are underfunded.
• The returns from managing the buffalo population at carrying capacity are capable of funding all government wildlife activities in the Caprivi.
• Either a contribution to to Parks operating and capital costs in the Caprivi is specified in the buffalo management budget or alternatively the State uses the revenues earned from the buffalo project to meet running costs and capital costs of the State protected areas in the Caprivi.
  

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Conservancies

A small provision is made to assist Conservancies with training in combatting illegal hunting and development of monitoring systems for illegal activity.