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Stakeholder Institutions
Stakeholders
It is convenient to consider four categories of stakeholders
in relation to the demand for consumptive or non-consumptive
use of wild resources: government (G), landholders (L) which
include people living in communal lands and those owning private
property, national stakeholders (S) who are not resident in
the area under consideration and external stakeholders (E)
who live outside the country (Martin 1999a). In most cases,
the demand from external stakeholders can be translated into
a local demand emanating from landholders or stakeholders
to take advantage of an outside market. Occasionally, the
demand from external stakeholders is in direct competition
with local demands as is the case with the troublous issue
of elephants.
Some might choose not to view the State as being part of
the demand for resources, preferring to view the government
as some sort of impartial mediator and regulator of a wildlife
industry carried out by landholders and other stakeholders.
However, in the financial analysis in this report it is apparent
that the government is as much part of the group of users
as are the others and, indeed, may often be in competition
with landholders and national stakeholders. The justification
for the State to have an automatic mandate to exercise the
controls needed in the wildlife industry can be queried, since
it is attempting to be both a 'player' in the market and the
regulator of the market.
 For
most wild resources the process of control can be depicted
as taking place on a three-cornered field with each of the
'players' (government - G, landholders - L, national stakeholders
- S) positioned at a corner of the field (see diagram).  The
pillar on the field represents control, with the height of
the pillar being proportional to the degree of control required.
The position of the pillar on the field is indicative of the
influence which each of the three 'parties' has, or should
have, in exercising control over the industry. If the pillar
is in the government's corner, this shows that government
exerts all the control in the industry concerned. If the pillar
is in the centre of the field, government, landholders and
stakeholders all participate in regulating the industry. In
the case of elephants it becomes necessary to include external
stakeholders in the control process (see next page) since
they are able to influence national controls through the CITES
treaty and international pressures.
The following stakeholders all place a demand on elephants:
- Government seeks revenue from tourism, sale of live animals,
ivory, skins and sport hunting to maintain its protected
areas;
- Landholders (communal land and private properties with
elephant) may seek income from trophy hunting, ivory, skin
and meat from elephants on their lands or may be the victims
of elephant depredations which affect their livelihoods;
- National stakeholders include safari operators who seek
elephants for trophy hunting on all categories of land,
tourism companies and the broad body of the national public
concerned over elephant conservation;
- External stakeholders include NGOs who use the elephant
as a flagship for fund-raising and a large international
public demanding non-consumptive uses for elephant.
The most important control needed for elephants is protection
against illegal hunting and this can only be achieved at the
national level. The 'protection' afforded by banning commercial
trade in elephant products at the global level is illusory.
In the diagram below it is suggested that nations need to
recapture the control of their elephants from external stakeholders.
Within the nation, control of elephants needs to be achieved
primarily by government and landholders with other stakeholders
having some input.
External Stakeholders have largely captured the resource
value. Control needs to be firmly positioned inside the National
arena with State and landholders jointly deciding major issues.
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Stakeholder Institutions - Present and
Future
Namibia continues to make huge progress in the development
of conservancies in communal land. There are now more than
40 registered and emerging conservancies with 150,000 members
managing wildlife over an area of 100,000 square kilometres
in the areas where elephant populations are expanding in Namibia
(Martin 2004b). The wildlife range on commercial farmland
in the north of the country is increasing - particularly
in areas where it is hoped that the elephant range can be
expanded. These very positive developments are recognised
in the vision statement of UNDP (2005) and are seen as a way
to link protected areas across the country and to provide
a continuous range for elephants across the north of Namibia.
This has come about through enlightened policies and legislation
which empower landholders to manage wildlife both on commercial
farms and in communal lands. However,
it is important that the momentum continues: further devolution
of policy is needed to allow new co-management institutions
for larger areas to emerge. The present mosaic of parks,
conservancies and commercial farms provide a sound and essential
foundation for the scaling up of institutions (Murphree 2000)
and, as they stand, partnerships can be entered into amongst
neighbours. But there is a difference between partnerships
and full co-management institutions. The needs of elephant
provide the vehicle for co-management. No tract of land in
Namibia is large enough to be a self-contained management
unit for elephant. This is illustrated by the dilemma currently
faced in setting quotas for sport hunting of elephants in
the conservancies in the north-west of the country where a
low density elephant population occurs over a range spanning
many conservancies. The authorities would like to be able
to allocate a minimum of one trophy bull elephant to each
conservancy but this exceeds the sustainable offtake of about
5 animals per year. Various options present themselves: for
example, conservancies might be allocated a trophy bull every
second year or two conservancies might share the income from
a single trophy. This type of approach is limited in its breadth
of concept.
Two steps are needed. The first is the development of an
umbrella institution in the northwest for managing elephants
at the appropriate scale. Ruitenbeek & Cartier (2001) would
have it that such a co-management institution cannot simply
'be imposed on a group of innocent bystanders. It is something
that should emerge naturally from a complex bio-economic system.'
Given this constraint, the second step creates the conditions
for emergence - the State must hand the quota setting over
to the stakeholders. This should result in the rapid formation
of the appropriate institution within the ranks of the relevant
conservancies. Here, too, there is scope for applying another
principle - no institution should be larger than the problem
it is trying to solve (Martin 1999b). The new institution
should include only those stakeholders on whose land elephants
occur.
The State could validly argue that the range of the north-western
elephant population extends into Etosha and Skeleton Coast
national parks and that, therefore, it cannot simply hand
the setting of quotas over to a local institution. This is
correct. The State must be part of the institution formed
to manage elephants in the north-west. But its new rôle is
very different from the 'Command-and-control' function it
has hitherto displayed. The position of the 'control pillar'
should be where it is shown on the playing field depicted
on the previous page. To use another metaphor, the operating
point on the management continuum defined by Ruitenbeek &
Cartier (2001) should be close to the laissez faire end of
the spectrum.
The elephant problem in the north-east of Namibia is different
but the same principles apply. The Caprivi is the focus for
conflict between wildlife management and people, domestic
livestock and cultivation. Conservancy development in the
Caprivi is less advanced than in many of the north-western
areas and the institutions are more fragile because of a larger
choice of land use options than in the extreme arid areas.
It has
already been emphasized that, whilst developments in conservancies
appear promising, tolerance of elephants is finely balanced
and it would require little in the way of disincentives for
the entire edifice to collapse.
.Members of conservancies and those who are not in established
conservancies in the Caprivi receive little in the way of
benefits from elephants. They do, however, suffer substantial
losses (see page 38). Farmers are not free to defend their
livelihoods from elephant depredations and the current arrangements
for control of problem elephants are too tardy to be effective.
O'Connell (1995a) found an extremely hostile attitude towards
wildlife amongst the Caprivi peoples and the inception of
conservancy projects did little to ameliorate this attitude.
The national parks in the Caprivi are small (Mahango, Mamili
and Mudumu) and very much at the mercy of the land use surrounding
them. Co-operation between the state and communal conservancies
is thus of utmost importance. Martin
(2004a) stresses that successful conservation of the wetland
grazers is unlikely to be achieved without co-management institutions
for the full extent of the floodplain habitats in the Caprivi.
The same institutions could serve the management requirements
for elephants. Unlike the other species in the Caprivi for
which management plans have been prepared, elephant are not
rare or endangered and, indeed, they are a threat to those
species which are.
Co-management presents a new challenge and, given the impressive
record of development of the wildlife industry and the positive
spirit of co-operation amongst the State, NGOs and private
sector towards larger goals, there is no reason why Namibia
should not lead the way in southern Africa in developing these
new forms of institutions.
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