Namibia’s Kunene region represents one of the last true wildernesses in Africa — and a rare opportunity to conserve a vast desert ecosystem and enhance its people’s quality of life.  

The frigid waters of the southern Atlantic collide with the world’s oldest desert, the Namib, along the infamous Skeleton Coast, named for countless shipwrecked sailors who perished among its baking dunes. The harsh Skeleton Coast gives life to many uniquely adapted animals and plants, many of which survive by siphoning precious moisture from sea fog.

Further inland lies Etosha National Park, one of the world’s largest wildlife refuges. The Etosha Pan, a dry lakebed left behind when the Kunene River changed course long ago, offers a fleeting oasis during the rainy season for myriad wildlife, including enormous flocks of flamingoes. But for most of the year, the park’s resident animals survive on waterholes fringing the pan.

Between Skeleton Coast and Etosha parks, the Kunene’s rocky desert, arid grasslands and dry riverbeds provide a sparsely populated corridor for iconic wildlife:

• The desert-dwelling black rhinoceros finds its last free-ranging stronghold in the Kunene. A surprisingly agile mountaineer, the rhino often climbs onto ledges in search of succulent plants and cool Atlantic breezes.
   
• Here also lives the massive desert elephant, led by herd matriarchs with intimate knowledge of the dunes’ scarce food and water sources. By digging waterholes during dry periods, these elephants may even help other animals survive.

Unlike other rhinos and elephants that drink daily, these desert-adapted animals may go three to four days without water.

Back from the Brink of Extinction

Rampant poaching once took a heavy toll on the Kunene’s desert wildlife. Black rhino, in particular, and the desert elephant were pushed to the brink of extinction as the illegal trade of horns and tusks soared from the late 1970s to early 1980s.

At that time, a group of people concerned about the plight of these animals formed Save the Rhino Trust (SRT) and set out to stop the slaughter. Today, SRT provides security for wildlife and income for local people by employing community members as wildlife guards.

While poaching remains a concern, two decades of collaboration between SRT, the Namibian government and local communities have dramatically curtailed the threat.

Wildlife populations have rebounded to historic highs. Besides the rhino and elephant, the Kunene boasts a full range of large carnivores — desert lion, cheetah, leopard and hyena — as well as healthy populations of hoofed animals, including mountain zebra, giraffe, springbok, oryx and kudu. 

Ongoing threats to the Kunene now primarily involve habitat loss, conversion and fragmentation.    

Creating a People’s Park

The Nature Conservancy is partnering with Save the Rhino Trust and Round River Conservation Studies to help the Namibian government in its efforts to design a new national park linking Skeleton Coast and Etosha.

Round River has worked with SRT since 1999, assisting with black rhino population censuses, habitat modeling, tourism impact analysis, community interviews and strategic land-use planning. Namibia became an independent republic in 1990 and soon became the first country in the world to express a commitment to conservation in its constitution.

Recognizing that previous attempts to designate a Kunene regional park withered due to a lack of local community support, the Namibian government has also requested assistance from the partnership in managing the conservation area as a “People’s Park.”

“We're using our science-based approach and working through strong on-the-ground partners to provide the park's technical committee with socio-ecological information, which will help inform future People's Park management decisions,” says David Banks, who directs the Conservancy’s Africa Program.

“The idea is to work out management guidelines that allow for continued use by local communities,” says Banks, who adds that the Conservancy’s experience with community-based conservation meshes well with the concept of a People’s Park.

The Conservancy will lend its expertise in community outreach, but also will help secure new sources of major funding. Grants from development organizations such as the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), for instance, would help local communities establish sustainable economic opportunities from ecotourism.

Conserving wildlife and generating income for local people—it’s a model the Kunene partnership hopes the MCC will see the value of funding, starting in Namibia and then spreading to many other special places in Africa.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): © Gwynn Crichton/TNC (Lion and two cubs); © Sanjayan/TNC (Deserts of Namibia); © Sanjayan/TNC (Namib Desert from Sanjayan's Expedition Namib trip).