Extending the Namibian Protected Area Network to Safeguard Hotspots of Endemism and Diversity

Biodiversity and Conservation 7, 531±547 (1998)

Extending the Namibian protected area network to safeguard hotspots of endemism and diversity

PHOEBE BARNARD*, CHRISTOPHER J. BROWN, ALICE M. JARVIS and ANTONY ROBERTSON Namibian National Biodiversity Programme, Directorate of Environmental Aairs, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Private Bag 13306, Windhoek, Namibia

LEON VAN ROOYEN Directorate of Resource Management, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Private Bag 13306, Windhoek, Namibia

Namibia's state protected area network (PAN) covers 13.8% of the country's land area, but is seriously inadequate as a basis for eective biodiversity conservation. The early parks system was not designed with biological diversity in mind, and re¯ects instead a history of ideological, economic and veterinary considerations. Currently, parks in the Namib Desert biome make up 69% of the PAN, while savanna and woodland biomes are somewhat underrepresented (7.5 and 8.4% of their re- spective land areas), and the Karoo biome is badly underrepresented (1.6%). Four of 14 desert vegetation types are comprehensively protected, with 67 to 94% representation in the PAN, yet six savanna types have 0 to 2% representation by area. Mountain Savanna, a vegetation type unique to Namibia, is wholly unprotected. The status of two marine reserves, which in theory protect only 0.01% of Namibia's marine environment, needs clari®cation and augmentation with new reserves. Nearly 85% of Namibia's land is zoned for agriculture, so eective biodiversity protection means working outside the PAN to improve the sustainability and diversity of farming practices. Wildlife conservancies on commercial and communal farmlands show excellent potential to mitigate the ecological skew in the state PAN, with the ecological management of large areas being decentralized to rural communities in habitats otherwise neglected for conservation. Two important endemism zones, the Kaoko escarpment and coastal plain and the Sperrgebiet succulent steppe, plus the species-rich Caprivi area, oer three valuable opportunities for regional consolidation of protected areas into transboundary `peace parks' or biosphere reserves.

Keywords: protected area network; conservation history; endemism; conservancy; biosphere reserve.

Introduction This paper has four aims. First, we sketch a brief history of the protected area network in Namibia, showing how it was shaped by sociopolitical factors which were unrelated to the conservation of biological diversity in a broad sense. Second, we compare the current state PAN to two broad levels of ecological classi®cation (biomes and vegetation types) to give a simple quantitative index of its adequacy in protecting Namibian biodiversity. Third, we look qualitatively at the emerging alternatives to formal protected areas (jointly managed conservancies on commercial and communal agricultural lands, private nature reserves and game farms) to assess the extent to which they can potentially balance the ecological skew in the state PAN. Finally, we identify priority areas and types of Namibian

*To whom correspondence should be addressed.

0960-3115 Ó 1998 Chapman & Hall 532 Barnard et al. vegetation which need additional conservation attention to safeguard biodiversity. We see this paper as a platform on which to build an area-selection analysis in the future.

Namibia's protected area network and its history At ®rst glance, Namibia has an impressively high percentage of its land area under state conservation protection, one of the highest of any country in Africa (World Resources Institute, 1996). Twenty-one parks and other protected areas under state control (Ap- pendix 1) account for 114 080 km2, or 13.8% of the land surface, with an increasing amount additionally protected by private reserves and jointly-managed wildlife conservancies. Within Africa, only Botswana and Tanzania, also semi-arid to arid countries, have proportionately more land committed to conservation as judged by IUCN categories I-V (World Resources Institute, 1996). Marine habitats in Namibia are unprotected in practice, although in theory about 49 km (about 3%) of the subtidal near-shore marine environment and 0.01% of the overall marine environment is covered by two presently unenforced marine reserves. Three coastal and one inland wetland totalling 6296 km2 (<0.8% of Namibia's land area) are Ramsar sites of international importance. However, most other wetlands, including river systems, are unprotected or ineectively protected from degradation (Curtis et al., this issue). Unfortunately, the high percentage of land in the protected area network probably re¯ects less the values attached to conservation than the unsuitability of the land for agriculture, particularly in the ®rst half of this century. Historical processes shaping the PAN included veterinary control and, more profoundly, South Africa's experiments in apartheid social engineering (Schoeman, 1996). The history of conservation in Namibia prior to independence in 1990 re¯ects the bitter land con¯icts of the colonial era, which increasingly alienated rural people from their traditional land and biological resources. Both the German and South African colonial governments parcelled out the disease-free, fertile savannas to white livestock farmers, and marginal lands to black farmers and less in¯uential whites (Adams and Werner, 1990). Arid lands too marginal even for pasto- ralism were set aside for conservation or left as undesignated state land. Namibia's PAN was not designed with the primary aim of protecting biological diversity, other than large game mammals, or of safeguarding ecological functions (Brown, 1992, 1996). Conservation initiatives in Namibia have a surprisingly long history, however, given the country's traditional emphasis on resource-exploitation industries. Like many colonial frontier territories, Namibia (earlier Deutsch-SuÈdwestafrika and South West Africa) had a boom-and-bust history. Its mineral, marine, and terrestrial game resources were all subject to severe local depletion, especially in the 19th century. Hunting regulations were intro- duced under German colonial rule in 1892 to curb excessive hunting of game mammals. Reserves were ®rst discussed in 1902 as a means to stop trac of livestock and humans, especially hunters (Kutzner, 1995), and in 1907 the ®rst parks, then known as Game Reserves 1, 2 and 3, were proclaimed through expropriation of tribal lands (Schoeman, 1996). As well as protecting large mammals from overhunting, these reserves formed buer zones between the then-exclusively white commercial farmers in the central and southern regions and black subsistence farmers to the north (Schoeman, 1996). This helped to protect commercial farms from rinderpest and other diseases which had dev- astated livestock in the late 1890s (Schneider, 1994). The Namibian protected area network 533 The vast Game Reserve No. 2, now Etosha National Park, originally covered roughly 80 000 km2 (mapped by Berry, in press) and was the largest nature reserve in the world (Lovegrove, 1993). It included the endemics-rich escarpment and rugged coastal plain of Kaokoland, from the northern Kunene River border southwards more than 200 km to the Hoarusib River. This enormous park allowed the westward seasonal migration of ele- phants, lions and other mammals as far as the Atlantic Ocean. However, until World War II the Etosha section was administered largely for security and veterinary reasons by the military and police, and mammal populations were not well protected. In 1947 the Kaoko section of Game Reserve No. 2 was excised `for the sole use and occupation by natives', and over 3400 km2 were removed from the Etosha section for development as farms (de la Bat, 1982). This was partly reversed in a strategic move in 1958, when valuable arable land to the east of Etosha (Game Reserve No. 1) was exchanged for a large game-rich corridor to the southwest, linking Etosha again to the Atlantic (de la Bat, 1982). However, in the early sixties the Etosha National Park was dramatically diminished by the master plan of South African `grand apartheid,' the Odendaal Commission of Enquiry into South West Africa Aairs (Republic of South Africa, 1964). This extraordinary document laid out a detailed blueprint for development of South West Africa, promoting the ideology of `separate development' in ethnically partitioned `homelands' through a massive social engineering scheme. Despite strong protest and detailed negotiations, the Etosha National Park was reduced by 72% through recommendations of the Odendaal Commission to its present size of 22 912 km2 (Berry, in press) by the re-allocation of land to the communal homelands of Owambo, Kaokoland and Damaraland (de la Bat, 1982; Schoeman, 1996). In the political climate of the times, land lost to Etosha and allocated to tribal homelands was regarded as land eectively lost to conservation. The South African colonial era (1915 to early 1990) did, however, see the overall expansion and diversi®cation of the protected area network. A larger system of parks, game reserves and `recreation resorts' was established. There was little consistency in the use of these terms. Most areas were initiated primarily as recreation areas, and they displaced and excluded local people from most direct monetary or other bene®ts. The parks system was developed mainly in the period 1955±1980, starting with the establish- ment of an ocial `Game Conservation Section' and a South West Africa Parks Board (de la Bat, 1982; Schoeman, 1996). These two bodies had no jurisdiction over the species-rich northern communal lands, however, which were administered from afar by a Department of Bantu Aairs in Pretoria. This remote-control South African administration of communal lands failed miserably at keeping up a pretence of conservation, and is remembered in Namibia today as a period of extraordinary corruption and widespread poaching by South African ocials and others (Owen-Smith, 1996; Schoeman, 1996). Under South African regulations of the 1950s and 1960s, farmers occupying state communal lands were increasingly cut o from traditional rights of access to natural resources (Jones, 1991, 1995). Commercial farmers, meanwhile, were granted legal own- ership of both the land and, after 1967, speci®ed game mammals on it as a means of reversing downward trends in game populations. These disparities of natural resource access, and the widespread resentment of government conservation policies and sta which inevitably followed, became one of the most dicult obstacles facing the new government's environment ministry at independence in 1990 (Jones, 1991). Namibia's political independence saw the fruition of eorts to proclaim signi®cant reserves in the biologically diverse northeast of the country. It also ushered in a new era in 534 Barnard et al. the way people and parks coexisted, and in the recognition that conservation could not be con®ned to formal reserves (Brown, 1992). Conservation management policies in national parks and game reserves remain focused on the active manipulation of the size and movements of mammal populations, especially herbivores and large carnivores, through fencing, waterpoint provision, animal translocation and selective culling. However, environmental conservation policies in broader terms have expanded signi®cantly from this parks-focused, law enforcement-driven agenda to one more in line with the restoration of rural people's rights over natural resources (Jones, 1995). As a result of this paradigm shift, the PAN is currently being augmented with numerous conservancies for wildlife management, ecotourism and game hunting (see below). Namibia's productive marine environment has suered from severe overexploitation and lack of local control, paralleling in some ways the history of terrestrial game species. Stocks of commercial pelagic ®sh were badly decimated in the 1960s and 1970s, and several species have undergone population bottlenecks likely to have diminished hetero- zygosity (O'Toole, 1997; Sakko, this issue). Both before and after independence, the marine environment has been controlled by ®sheries departments focused more on sup- porting commercial exploitation than protecting the marine ecosystem as a whole. Before independence, this authority was based in Cape Town and did not adequately protect Namibian waters from heavy exploitation by both regional and foreign ®shing trawlers. Since independence, control has improved through the formation of a powerful Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, the declaration of a 200 mile exclusive zone, and improved capacity for surveillance and enforcement.

Representativeness of the state protected area network Although the state PAN in Namibia is impressively large (Fig. 1), it is inadequate for eective biodiversity conservation at a national scale. Representation in the PAN of Namibia's four major biomes (Table 1; mapped by Robertson et al., this issue) and speci®c vegetation types (Fig. 2) is currently highly skewed. At the biome level, the Namib Desert parks, plus the Ai-Ais/Hunsberg Reserve Complex in the transition between the Namib and Karoo biomes, account for 69.3% of the PAN. Together with the saline desert of the Etosha National Park and the two small Karoo Biome parks (Fig. 1), these `desert parks' comprise almost 90% of the PAN. State protection of the Namib is augmented further by a large (26 000 km2), privately protected diamond mining area in the ¯oris- tically rich southern Namib (code S in Fig. 1), known as the `Sperrgebiet' or forbidden zone (Pallett, 1995). The Namib is thus comprehensively protected, with nearly 30% of land classi®ed as Namib desert biome included in state parks alone (Table 1). By contrast, savanna and woodland biomes are somewhat underrepresented in the PAN (Table 1), and the Karoo biome is substantially underrepresented, relative to the target of 10% (Brown, 1992). At a ®ner scale, six of Namibia's 14 major vegetation types (Giess, 1971) are adequately to very well protected, with more than 10% of their land area under state protection (Fig. 2). These are Northern Namib, Central Namib, Southern Namib, Saline Desert, Mopane Savanna, and the endemics-rich, winter rainfall Desert and Succulent Steppe. Four of these six types (all desert) can be described as comprehensively protected, with between 67 and 94% of their land areas in state reserves. Two vegetation types (Forest Savanna and Woodland, Semi-Desert and Savanna Transition) need minor additional The Namibian protected area network 535

Figure 1. Map of Namibian state protected area network and the vegetation zones of Giess (1971). S Sperrgebiet diamond mining concession, currently not part of the state network. protection to reach the goal of ³10% representation of each vegetation type in the PAN (Brown, 1992). However, by stark contrast, six types of savanna have less than 2% representation: Mountain Savanna, Thornbush Savanna, Highland Savanna, Dwarf Shrub Savanna, Camelthorn Savanna, and Mixed Tree and Shrub Savanna (Fig. 2). Agricultural monocultures have dramatically transformed several of these savanna types, particularly in the Mountain Savanna valleys, making it a matter of urgency to protect natural portions remaining. Farming practices in Namibia vary widely in their environmental 536 Barnard et al. Table 1. Distribution of state-controlled protected areas in the four major biomes of Namibiaa

Proportion Total Proportion Number of protected areas of land protected of biome per size category (km2 ´ 100): Biome area (%) area (km2) (%) <1 1±10 10±200 >200 Woodland 17 11 766 8.4 1 3 3 0 Savanna 37 22 704 7.5 4 1 0 1 Namib 32 77 728 29.7 1 1 3 1 Karoo 14 1882 1.6 0 2 0 0 Total/mean 100 114 080 13.8 6 7 6 2 a Major biomes as in Robertson et al. (this issue, Fig. 1). impact, and poor land management through overstocking has led to soil erosion, loss of grass species diversity, and bush encroachment over some 14 million ha of savanna (Strobach, 1992; Quan et al., 1994). Numerous livestock and game farmers in Namibia practice exemplary land management. However, good land management is expensive, and such practices may have been jeopardized by uncertainty about impending land reform in the commercial areas, particularly at the time of independence (Quan et al., 1994), as well as by open access to rangeland in the communal areas. As 85% of the country's land is zoned for actual or potential agricultural use (Ashley, 1996), it is therefore essential to work outside the state PAN to conserve biodiversity eectively. Marine reserves are urgently needed in Namibia, where the productive Benguela upwelling system is heavily exploited commercially as a major sector of the country's economy. Industrial development, including coastal diamond mining and oshore gas exploitation, potentially threatens intertidal and pelagic communities (Sakko, this issue). The coastline itself is well protected, with approximately 860 km (58%) of the 1489 km coast to the low-water mark included within the Skeleton Coast and Namib-Nankluft Parks and the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, and another 180 km (12%) under much less stringent protection in the National West Coast Recreation Area. However, subtidally there is no real protection. Hypothetically, about 49 km (3%) of the country's linear 1489 km near-shore environment, and 0.01% of its overall marine environment, is protected in two small marine reserves. There is legal uncertainty about the marine reserve at Sandwich Harbour, an important Ramsar wetland on the coast of the Namib-Naukluft Park regarded as a ®sh nursery, recruitment and foraging site (Lenssen et al., 1991). A 45 km stretch of coastline centred on Sandwich Harbour was incorporated into the park in 1979, extending seaward 1.6 km from the low-water mark. However, since that time a jurisdictional dispute between the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, and con¯icting sectoral legislation, has thrown the reserve's status into question. A second, small reserve (ca 4 km2) was declared by South Africa before Namibia's independence to protect rock lobsters Jasus lalandii around the inshore island of Ichaboe, a seabird colony. It restricts only lobster harvesting, not other harmful activities, and is largely unenforced. A shipwreck and oil spill on Ichaboe in 1996 damaged this area badly (P. Tarr, pers. comm.). Although the Sea Fisheries Act (29 of 1992) provides for the gazetting of marine reserves, none has ever been declared under that Act, and the waters of these two sites are not managed as reserves by the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources. There is thus an urgent need for these and additional The Namibi an protected area network

Figure 2. Percentage representation of Giess' (1971) 14 major types of vegetation in the country as a whole (dark bars) and in state protected areas (white bars). Numbers atop the bar are percentage representation in the protected area network. 537 538 Barnard et al. marine areas, including other coastal Ramsar wetlands such as Walvis Bay (see Curtis et al., this issue) to be strategically identi®ed, proclaimed, and eectively managed.

Wildlife conservancies To what extent is the ecological skew in the state-controlled PAN mitigated by other forms of protection, such as conservancies, private nature reserves and game farms? The answer, so far, is surprisingly well. Conservancies are land units jointly managed for resource conservation purposes by multiple landholders, with ®nancial and other bene®ts shared between them in some way. They occur on both private (commercial) and tribal (communal) land. Most aim to enhance habitat for, and numbers of, game species such as ungulates or gamebirds, and many draw income from tourism ventures (Barnes and de Jager, 1996). Over one million hectares (10 000 km2) of land on commercial farmland has so far been consolidated into nine conservancies, ranging in size from 600 to 2300 km2 and bound by constitutions and ecologically-sensitive land management plans (J.L.V. de Jager, pers. comm.; Barnes and de Jager, 1996). These are in the Highland Savanna (three conservancies), Thornbush Savanna (two), Forest Savanna and Woodland (one), Mountain Savanna and Karstveld (one), Mopane Savanna (one) and Camelthorn Sav- anna (one), with several conservancies overlapping adjacent vegetation types slightly. Other commercial conservancies are at early stages of formation. Many are increasing in size, as formerly skeptical landowners agree to join existing conservancies (J.L.V. de Jager, pers. comm.). Communal land conservancies also show excellent potential for balancing the state PAN in terms of representativeness, and these communal conservancies will mainly be very large. As of mid-1997, ®ve large communal conservancies have submitted formal proposals for gazetting. One of these is an area of about 9023 km2 managed by Ju¢//Hoan (San) people at Nyae Nyae in the ecologically diverse northeastern pan region of the Forest Savanna and Woodland vegetation type (J. Tagg and P. Skyer, pers. comm.). Another is an arid region of almost twice this size in the former western corridor of Game Reserve No. 2 , stretching along the eastern boundary of the Skeleton Coast Park. This conservancy will cover Northern Namib, Central Namiba and Mopane Savanna vegetation types. The proximity of the Etosha and Skeleton Coast Parks oers considerable direct and indirect economic bene®ts to rural communities in these western regions (Ashley, 1995), making ecotourism and conservancy management a very attractive land use option. Ultimately, we expect that about 50% of the land formerly occupied by Game Reserve No. 2 in the Kaoko region will again be protected, in this case by communal conservancies (J. Tagg and B.T.B. Jones, pers. comm.). Not only will this provide incentives for communities to safeguard land identi®ed as having a high conservation value for endemic species (Simmons et al., this issue), but it will create a mosaic of formal and informal protected areas extending across the border to Iona National Park in southern Angola. Numerous other communal conservancies are also developing in the tropical Forest Savanna and Woodland region of the northeast, including an area of roughly 910 km2 joining the Mudumu and Mamili National Parks. Conservancy management is a land use in addition, not in opposition, to traditional farming. It can thus diversify people's livelihoods, broaden their resource dependence as a means of coping with drought, and potentially double household incomes (Barnes, 1995). Many rural communities have been stimulated to form conservancies by the government's The Namibian protected area network 539 recent policy to return resource management rights and responsibilities to carefully de®ned conservancy committees with an approved constitution (Jones, 1995). Most communities which have expressed a desire to form conservancies with government assistance are expected to have formalised them by the year 1999 (J. Tagg, pers. comm.). To compete with other land uses, however, all wildlife-based initiatives must remain ®nancially and eco- nomically competitive (Richardson, this issue), which means making optimal and sustainable use of wildlife resources. Any actions undermining the principle of sustainable wildlife use may, therefore, jeopardize biodiversity conservation aims in Namibia.

Private reserves and game farms Private nature reserves and game farms, both on commercial land, are potentially less permanent categories of conservation land in Namibia. These land uses dier chie¯y in the intensity of management and direct utilisation. Private reserves are often based on scenic and biological diversity, and hunting is not allowed, whereas game farms normally manage land explicitly to maximize production of desirable species. Private nature reserves are subject to the most stringent restrictions on land use. Often run as guest farms, they normally generate less income than game farms, from which tourism fees, trophy hunting fees, and meat income can all be derived (Ashley and Barnes, 1996; Barnes and de Jager, 1996). There is thus a fair turnover of private reserves as some owners opt to deproclaim them and convert to game farming. Game farming is increasing rapidly in Namibia, with about 420±450 farms currently classed as game and hunting farms (J.L.V. de Jager, pers. comm.), partly because much of the country is only marginally suitable for sedentary livestock farming. Although game farms are sometimes intensively managed to bene®t selected game species, using methods such as ®re and chemical control of woody vegetation, their biodiversity conservation value is generally perceived to be higher than that of livestock farms (Quan et al., 1994; Ashley and Barnes, 1996). This remains to be tested, however. It is also not clear how the active management of land for game may aect the biodiversity value of land relative to low-management uses, such as private nature reserves.

Threats to the current protected area network Security of tenure is the primary concern in safeguarding the existing PAN, whether state controlled, individually owned, or managed collectively on commercial or communal land. Despite Namibia's history of park deproclamation for political and ideological ends, most state protected areas appear secure under its ®rst independent government. The country's current President, Dr Sam Nujoma, favours the implementation of environmentally ap- propriate land reform, involving the maintenance and expansion of the PAN in collabo- ration with rural communities as managers and bene®ciaries of natural resources (Nujoma, 1997). This may not always be the case with future governments, and vigilance is required to ensure that the ideals of Namibia's constitution, which explicitly safeguards biological diversity and essential ecological processes (Article 95 L) are not corrupted for expedient ends in the future. Poor coordination between government ministries may pose a substantial threat to the long-term tenure of conservancies and other areas. Large parts of the state PAN are also vulnerable to potentially con¯icting land uses such as mining, and 540 Barnard et al. the country's environmental assessment policy (Tarr, 1995) must be stringently applied inside as well as outside protected areas.

The need for additional protected areas Making the network more evenly representative of ecological diversity will not be an easy task, despite a reasonably favourable political climate. Namibia's recent biodiversity country assessment (Barnard, 1998, and papers in this issue: Curtis et al.; M. Grin; R.E. Grin; Maggs et al.; Robertson et al.; Simmons et al.) identi®es priority areas of the country in terms of taxon richness, endemism and conservation threat. The following section summarises, at a coarse scale, priority areas for greater legal protection and/or consolidation in conservation areas (Table 2). However, given the pressures of a 3%

Table 2. Priority areas for additional conservation protection in Namibia

Region Vegetation zones Suggested approach/comments 1. Kaoko escarpment, Mopane Savanna, Transboundary contractual park Brandberg and nearby Semi-Desert and with multi-use conservancy zones inselbergs and domes Savanna Transition linking Skeleton Coast, Etosha and Iona (Angola) National Parks. Would protect important ephemeral river and inselberg habitats. Top endemism zone. 2. Sperrgebiet Desert and Transboundary biosphere reserve Succulent Steppe linking Namib-Naukluft and Richtersveld (South Africa) National Parks. High richness and endemism zone. 3. Caprivi woodlands, Forest Savanna Transboundary `peace park' or river ¯oodplains and Woodland biosphere reserve linking Mahango Game Reserve, Caprivi Game Park, Chobe National Park (Botswana) and Okavango Delta (Botswana) with multi-use conservancies in eastern Caprivi. High richness zone. 4. Otavi Mountains Mountain Savanna Formally protected area to and Karstveld supplement conservancy, protecting karst sinkhole endemics and sites of botanical importance. High richness and endemism zone. 5. Brukkaros Crater Dwarf Shrub Savanna Communal conservancy site/site of special scienti®c interest for endemics. 6. Sandwich Harbour (Coastal estuary) Legally strengthened and clari®ed marine reserve. Important Ramsar wetland. The Namibian protected area network 541 human population growth rate (Population Planning Unit, 1994) and land reform needs, there is a need for a ®ner scale area-selection analysis to identify precise sites within the larger regions where hotspots of richness, endemism and conservation threat in various taxa coincide (Rebelo, 1994; Lombard, 1995; Hacker et al., 1998). This paper lays part of the groundwork for such an analysis.

Criteria for conservation prioritization Criteria for identifying priority conservation areas dier in value under dierent cir- cumstances. Namibia's predominantly arid, ancient landscapes are characterized more by taxonomically distinct endemics than by high overall species richness (Simmons et al., this issue), although the country also has several internationally important areas of biotic richness (Table 2). Other than birds (Robertson et al., this issue), most Namibian taxa are insuciently known systematically, biogeographically and ecologically to attempt a ®ne- scale, quantitative area-selection analysis based on algorithm methods (e.g. Williams, in press). We therefore consider ®ve simple, qualitative indices for evaluating broad priority areas for conservation: taxon richness, endemism, representation, conservation threat, and unique habitats and landscapes. These are brie¯y treated in turn below.

Taxon richness. In terms of overall species richness for many taxa, Namibia's top priority areas are the wetlands and woodlands of the Caprivi and Okavango Regions (see papers in this issue: Curtis et al.; M. Grin; R.E. Grin; Maggs et al.; Robertson et al.). This re¯ects the availability of surface water in an otherwise arid to semi-arid landscape and the anities of taxa in those regions to tropical central African biota (e.g. M. Grin, this issue). However, for some essentially arid or specialized taxa, such as solifuges, scorpions and succulent plants, high species richness coincides with areas of high endemism in the Northern, Central and Southern Namib and Desert/Succulent Steppe vegetation types (see papers in this issue: R.E. Grin; Maggs et al.; Simmons et al.). These desert habitats are extremely well protected and are not under immediate threat, but the Okavango and Caprivi Regions need ®ne-scale identi®cation of sites of high biodiversity value to augment conservancies and state parks.

Endemism. Namibia's two priority areas for endemism are in the northwest and southwest (Simmons et al., this issue). These are the Kaoko escarpment, along with the nearby inselbergs and granite domes of the Kunene and Erongo Regions, and the Sperrgebiet winter-rainfall region in the Desert and Succulent Steppe vegetation type (S in Fig. 1). The endemics-rich Kaoko escarpment, previously contained within Game Reserve No. 2, forms an important regional centre of endemism (e.g. Kingdon, 1990). This escarpment, including the Brandberg massif and granite domes of the Omaruru District (Erongo Region), is the most important endemism hotspot for vertebrate taxa in both Namibia and Angola (Simmons et al., this issue, and references therein). The Brandberg is a National Monument in view of its rock art, but in all other respects the Kaoko escarpment is not formally protected. The Sperrgebiet is part of the Southern Namib centre of endemism, abutting the Richtersveld succulent steppe of South Africa (Maggs et al., this issue). The 26 000 km2 Sperrgebiet diamond mining area has been eectively sealed o from public access since about 1910, and has since been managed by multinational diamond interests (Pallett, 1995). The lease for this biotically valuable and endemics-rich area expires in about 2020, 542 Barnard et al. at which time the Sperrgebiet may be included in a biosphere reserve adjoining the ¯o- ristically rich Richtersveld National Park in South Africa (Grobler, 1997). Sections of this area have already been abandoned by the mining concessionaire, but will remain under its protection until a thorough land use plan is developed (P. Tarr, pers. comm.). Optimal protection of both the Kaoko and Southern Namib centres of endemism requires transboundary conservation, and indeed this has been discussed by all three countries for some years (Grobler, 1997). If the Kaoko and Sperrgebiet regions can be incorporated into biosphere reserves by Namibia, this would create an unparalleled and unbroken multi-zoned conservation area stretching from southern Angola (Iona National Park) to northern South Africa (Richtersveld National Park). The ecological uniqueness and endemism of this landscape is extraordinary by regional and international standards. More localized centres of endemism identi®ed by Simmons et al. (this issue) and Curtis et al. (this issue) include the extinct volcanic crater of Brukkaros and the karst caves and sinkholes of the Mountain Savanna vegetation type. Ephemeral pools and mineral springs, and `islands' of dune, gravel plain, mountains and rocky hillsides in the Namib Desert habitat mosaic, are intrinsically valuable for endemics (Curtis et al., this issue; R.E. Grin, this issue). Major regional river systems, such as the Okavango and Zambezi, contain numerous `catchment endemics' (Curtis et al., this issue) which require regional protection via established international committees. The highest avian endemism in Na- mibia occurs locally within the Kaoko escarpment zone at the intersection of vegetation types containing rocky terrain (especially granite domes) and major river courses (Rob- ertson et al., this issue). These latter habitats fall largely on private farmland, and deserve urgent action in cooperation with landowners to ensure long-term protection.

Representation. `Representation' is here de®ned as the degree to which an ecological unit is already represented in the protected area network. This paper has identi®ed glaring gaps in the PAN at the level of both biome (Karoo biome) and vegetation type (six types of savanna: Mountain, Thornbush, Highland, Dwarf Shrub, Camelthorn and Mixed Tree/ Shrub Savannas). Protection of signi®cant areas in these severely underrepresented or wholly unrepresented ecological units is a national priority. As a second priority, Namibia must identify sites to supplement the somewhat underrepresented Semi-desert/Savanna Transition (along the southern Kaoko escarpment in the Erongo and southwestern Khomas Regions) and Forest Savanna and Woodland vegetation types. The former type of vegetation, due to its importance for endemic species, and the latter, due to its overall species richness, warrant ®eldwork to identify sites with high rank scores for lesser known taxa. As a start, we recommend the immediate ®eld appraisal of inselberg sites on private farmland north and northeast of the Naukluft Mountains, such as the Gamsberg and Hakosberg. This paper has relied on biomes and vegetation types as indices of overall biological diversity. It has not generally discussed species-level representation in the PAN, because taxa other than birds are insuciently known for detailed analysis. In simple terms of species occurrence, the PAN is surprisingly eective, but we know virtually nothing about whether parks contain viable populations of most taxa. For example, 95% of Namibian terrestial mammal species are expected to occur at least marginally in the existing PAN, and 28% probably occur in ten or more conservation areas (M. Grin, this issue). However, except for some large herbivores and predators, we have little idea of mammal population viability in parks. Analysis of population viability within the Namibian PAN The Namibian protected area network 543 for priority (endemic and red data) species of dierent taxa is urgently needed. For endemic birds, Jarvis and Robertson (1997) have estimated population sizes and viability within four Namibian parks, and conclude that the PAN is probably inadequate for protecting most endemic bird species. This approach serves as a model for application to other Namibian taxa.

Conservation threat. The identi®cation of priority sites for protection based on conservation threat or `endangerment' (sensu Hacker et al., 1998), at the habitat level, is best done on the basis of comprehensive red data lists and atlasses. Draft red data books for Namibia have been drawn up only for birds (C.J. Brown, A.J. Williams and P. Barnard, in preparation), mammals, reptiles, and amphibians (all by M. Grin, in preparation). A recent regional plant red data book (Hilton-Taylor, 1996) and bird atlas (Harrison et al., 1997) cover Namibia, and a national tree atlas is underway (B.A. Curtis and C.A. Mannheimer, in preparation). Broad conclusions for threatened bird habitats apply reasonably well to other taxa. Wetland birds are a major red data category (Brown et al., in preparation), and wetland mammals are also generally at risk in Namibia (M. Grin, this issue). Conserving wetlands is dicult in an arid country like Namibia, but priorities include sections of riverine vegetation in the Okavango, Zambezi and Kunene River ba- sins, the karst caves and sinkhole lakes of the Mountain Savanna, and ephemeral pans, springs and seeps (Curtis et al., this issue). Many small wetlands in the latter categories occur within the Namib Desert parks, Sperrgebiet, or Nyae-Nyae conservancy, but additional protection is required at others. Designation as `sites of speci®c interest' may assist in specifying and protecting these and other key sites, and legislation is planned to support this category of small protected area.

Unique habitats and landscapes. Finally, Namibia's value in terms of conservation and tourism lies as much with its extraordinarily rugged, scenic landscapes as with its impressive and distinct biological diversity (Baker, 1996; Barnard, 1998). The Kaoko escarpment, including its associated inselbergs and its central and southern sections in the Erongo, Khomas, Hardap and Karas Regions, is one of the most distinctive major features of the Namibian landscape. The dune ®elds, inselbergs, rocky hills and gravel plains of the Namib Desert are well protected in the Namib parks, but the adjoining escarpment region presently lies outside the PAN. Considering the escarpment's immense value in biological, cultural and scenic wilderness terms (e.g. Owen-Smith, 1996), it is a priority for additional protection, largely via conservancies (Table 2). The Mountain Savanna vegetation type represents a unique habitat in Namibia, with impressive ¯oristic richness (Maggs et al., this issue) and unique, endemics-rich limestone wetland formations (Curtis et al., this issue). A small (600 km2) commercial conservancy has been established in this area, but additional protection of karst and botanical features is urgently needed.

Principles for expanding the protected area network This paper has shown that the existing state-controlled protected area network, although large, is not representative of Namibia's terrestrial biodiversity. Marine biodiversity is currently essentially unprotected, and freshwater diversity faces considerable threats in some areas (Curtis et al., this issue). However, the biodiversity conservation eectiveness of the state-controlled PAN, as judged by the representation within protected areas of 544 Barnard et al. biomes and vegetation types, is considerably enhanced by alternative approaches to conservation, including conservancies on commercial and communal lands, private nature reserves, and private game farms. Improving the design of Namibia's protected areas in terms of representativeness and population viability requires not only the opportunistic supplementation of the PAN with land units under alternative conservation approaches. It also requires a careful analysis, using landscape ecology and conservation biology principles, of the existing areas, their relative distribution, their taxonomic complementarity, and corridors which may need to be created to increase their ecological viability. Since the radical excision of large, endemics-rich parts of Game Reserve No. 2, there has never been a protected area in Na- mibia which could realistically be called `viable' for all taxa. In many respects, Namibia is a case history of how not to develop a protected area network. However, despite its haphazard origins and skew in ecological representation, the parks system is a reasonable framework on which to build a more representative mosaic of formal and informal conservation areas. Strategically augmented with alternative conservation strategies, and with carefully identi®ed and designed sites under formal protection, Namibia's PAN will much more comprehensively safeguard its precious biological diversity.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to DoÈ rthe Holme and John Mendelsohn for supplying us with digital information; Hu Berry, Dave Boyer, Rod Braby, Tana Burger, Anton Esterhuysen, Jean- Paul Roux, Rob Simmons, Flip Steyn and Peter Tarr for data and perspectives on indi- vidual protected areas; Mick de Jager, Brian Jones, Patricia Skyer, Jo Tagg and Chris Weaver for information on commercial and communal land conservancies; and Nico Kisting and J Kutzner (both of the National Archives), Rob Simmons, Danie Grobler, Rob Blackie, Jo Tagg, Brian Jones and Helmut zur Strassen for discussing historical maps of the PAN. Jon Barnes, Hu Berry, Guy Cowlishaw, Brian Jones, Pauline Lindeque, Mike Grin and Rob Simmons reviewed earlier drafts. We acknowledge with gratitude ®nancial support to the National Biodiversity Programme by the United Nations Environment Programme, Deutsche Gesellschaft fuÈ r Technische Zusammenarbeit, and Namibia Nature Foundation.

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Park Area (km2) Established Comments

1. Etosha National Park 93 240.00 1907 amended 89 834.00 1947 amended 99 526.00 1958 amended 27 554.00 1963 Odendaal report amended 22 912.00 1975 1997 measurements (ODA) 2. Namib-Naukluft Park 49 768.00 1907 amended 1968, 1979, 1986, 1989, 1990 3. Gross Barmen Hot Springs 0.10 1968 4. Caprivi Game Park 5715.00 1968 5. Hardap Recreation Resort 251.77 1968 6. Daan Viljoen Game Park 39.53 1968 7. Cape Cross Seal Reserve 60.00 1969 8. Ai-Ais/Hunsberg Reserve 461.17 1969 then called Ai-Ais Hot Springs Complex amended 3461.17 1988 Huns Mts incorporated 1988 9. South West Nature Park 0.04 1970 10. Skeleton Coast Park 8000.00 1971 amended 17 450.00 1973 11. Waterberg Plateau Park 405.49 1972 12. Von Bach Recreation Resort 42.85 1972 13. Nat'l West Coast Recreation Area 13 000.00 1973 amended 7800.00 1974 14. Nat'l Diamond Coast 50.49 1977 Recreation Area 15. Naute Recreation Resort 224.62 1988 16. Mangetti Game Camp 482.92 1988 17. Popa Game Park 0.25 1989 18. Mahango Game Park 244.62 1989 19. Khaudum Game Park 3841.62 1989 20. Mudumu National Park 1009.59 1990 21. Mamili National Park 319.92 1990 Total 114 079.98 a Updated from Baker (1996). As not all parks have been precisely measured with modern techniques, size data for some may not yet be de®nitive.