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Stakeholder Institutions
This section is restricted to the stakeholders in the hippo
population in the Caprivi. In due course, the hippo
populations in North Central Namibia may play a rôle in
the economies of the conservancies on the upper Okavango River
and on the Cunene but at this stage it would be premature
to enlarge the discussion.
Analysis 7: Financial value of hippo
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Stakeholders
The various stakeholders of hippo inNamibia can be divided
into two groups: the first group includes all safari operators
engaged in hunting hippo and the second group includes the
land occupiers of State protected areas, established conservancies
and communal land in the Caprivi. The group of safari operators
seeks to buy the 'product' which the first group offer.
Management of hippo is sufficiently lucrative that it could
justify the establishment of a facility located centrally
in the Caprivi to process hippo carcases efficiently so that
the maximum value is obtained from the products on behalf
of all the stakeholders in the 'Project'. Not only are the
products from hippo valuable but the proportion of the net
income which can be secured by the stakeholders is far higher
than for most other species.The maximum value for most species
lies in sport hunting where it is inevitable that safari operators
will take the lion's share of the income. The autonomy of
individual stakeholders would not be threatened by such a
project and the enhanced returns might increase the incentives
to conserve hippo and reduce illegal hunting.
If it were also decided to embark on a comprehensive management
programme for elephant in the Caprivi, such a facility could
also service the requirements of processing elephant carcases.
It would provide employment and increase the economic benefits
of the wildlife industry. The requirements for such a facility
are listed in Analysis
7.
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Stakeholder Institutions - Present and
Future
Although hippo are capable of moving great distances when
dispersing, for the most part they are relatively sedentary
and lend themselves ideally to local management. Thus the
need to develop umbrella management institutions for large
areas - as is the case for elephant and most of the other
species included in this Transboundary Mammal Project - is
less imperative. There is a strong case for co-ordination
rather than co-management amongst the Caprivi stakeholders.
If a 'Project' such has been outlined in this study is implemented
there will also be a need for raising awareness of the underlying
principles of hippo management, the experimental nature of
any management and the importance of monitoring.
A benefit of local management is that it preserves the 'principle
of differential benefits' (Murphree 1994). Those conservancies
and other communities who are successful in increasing or
maintaining their hippo populations should deservedly gain
higher benefits than others. This principle becomes increasingly
important if any hippo harvesting scheme is introduced: hippo
should not be seen as 'common pool' resource.
The present institutions for conservancies in communal land
would be adequate for the purposes of hippo management were
it not for the substantial portion of the hippo population
in the communal land outside conservancies. The Caprivi is
the focus for conflict between wildlife management and people,
domestic livestock and cultivation. Conservancy development
in the Caprivi is less extensive than in the north-western
areas of Namibia and the institutions are more fragile because
of a larger choice of land use options than in the arid areas.
Whilst developments in conservancies appear promising, tolerance
of wildlife is finely balanced and it would require little
in the way of disincentives for the entire edifice to collapse.
The present hippo quota allocations to conservancies in the
Caprivi are substantially higher than those for elephants18
and the benefits may be sufficient to provide tolerance for
hippo. However, those people who are not in established conservancies
in the Caprivi receive little in the way of benefits and they
suffer substantial losses. Farmers are not free to defend
their livelihoods from hippo depredations and the current
arrangements for control of problem hippo are cumbersome.
O'Connell (1995) found a hostile attitude towards wildlife
amongst the Caprivi peoples and the inception of conservancy
projects did little to ameliorate this attitude.
Hippo are not rare or endangered. There is scope for increasing
the benefits from hippos for all stakeholders by introducing
a harvesting programme and, at the same time, reducing the
quota of trophy hippo. There is a good case for devolution
of hippo management to a stakeholder body within the Caprivi
rather than continuing to retain it as a 'Head Office' function.
This body would have to include representatives from all areas
where there are resident hippo including those outside conservancies.
Provided such a caucus was advised by a competent scientist
and a sound monitoring programme was in place, there are good
reasons for such a step. Each of the previous studies in this
series has emphasized the desirability of greater devolution
of authority as a prerequisite for the scaling up of institutions
in the Caprivi - using the rationale of Murphree (2000) and
Ruitenbeek & Cartier (2001). A substantial number of rare
or valuable species in the Caprivi has now been identified
which would benefit from such policy changes.
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