At present no factor is preventing an increase in numbers of elephants.

Several measures might enable Elephant populations to increase faster, e.g.

• the addition of more waterpoints (for example, in the multiple use zone of Babwata);
• the removal of veterinary fences, e.g. removal of the international boundary fence along the southern boundary of Babwata and along the eastern boundary of Khaudum and Nyae Nyae would greatly facilitate east-west linkages in the regional elephant range;
• less competition from cattle (Schlettwein et al 1991);

But, even with these constraints in place, elephant are increasing at a rate close to the maximum possible.

A potential threat to elephants is the inception of a wave of illegal hunting by dissatisfied people.

The benefits which communities are receiving from elephants on their land are small.The number of elephants hunted as trophies and problem animals is low and does not come close to compensating communities or individuals for their losses. 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 (1995) found an extremely hostile attitude towards wildlife amongst the Caprivi peoples and the inception of conservancy projects did little to ameliorate this attitude. With all conservancies being in a fledgling stage, there is a 'wait-and-see' attitude amongst their members. The recent rapid increase in the numbers of elephant in the Caprivi may be due to a temporary tolerance of elephants while conservancies are in their formative stage. The situation is finely balanced and it would require little in the way of disincentives for the entire edifice to collapse.

Namibia's short-term problem is to accommodate the current increase in elephants.

In the long term elephants have a propensity to eat themselves (and other species) out of house and home no matter how great the range available to them – a process which culminates in population crashes. Some would argue that this is 'natural' and that no management is necessary. Such arguments tend to put elephant conservation in a vacuum and ignore the alternative options for accommodating elephants within larger sustainable development systems.

In the long term population reductions may be necessary. In the north-west, the management requirement may simply be to increase the range available to elephants: in north-central and north-east Namibia not only does the range need to be increased but, in some areas, the population may need to be reduced (Figure 26).

Technically, there are no good reasons why more land in Namibia should not be available to elephants. Brown (2004) and Martin (2004b) have pointed out that, given land capability in the arid situation of Namibia, the highest valued land uses over most of the country are those based on management of natural resources (Figure 19). Moreover, the full potential is far from being realised at present due to national and international policy constraints which place wildlife at a competitive disadvantage with land use based on exotic species. Were subsidies to be removed from the domestic livestock industry and were it possible for elephant to play their full economic rôle in land use systems, it could reasonably be expected that large additional areas of land would be converted to wildlife management – for example, most of the northern Kavango and Owambo provinces and the Eastern Caprivi. This would remove the short-term limiting factor of providing additional range for elephant.

There is a corollary to this optimistic vision for the future. Failure to implement the necessary devolutionary measures will not simply result in the status quo being maintained. Since the 1970s, elephant populations have collapsed in an apparently inexorable process across Africa. Amongst the more spectacular population crashes have been those in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia (Martin 1986; AfrESG 1998). The monotonous, repetitive nature of the phenomenon has caused depression amongst conservationists – but resulted in few cold-blooded analyses of the underlying causes. Invariably it has happened in countries where the State asserts that it owns all wildlife and attempts to regulate

• the State's "authoritative reach exceeds its implementational grasp";
• extended bureaucracies are incapable of linking inputs and outputs; and
• the incentives for individuals lie largely in the enhancement of their own powers.