Conservation, Heritage, Tourism and Livelihoods: The Case of Uibasen Twyfelfontein Conservancy, Namibia Silba Ndjiharine MSc, Leisure Tourism and Environment (MLE) GEO- 80436 Cultural Geography Chair Wageningen University August 2014 Supervisor Prof. V.R. (René) Van der Duim, Co-supervisor Mr. Arjaan Pellis Conservation, Heritage, Tourism and Livelihoods: The case of Uibasen Twyfelfontein Conservancy, Namibia By: Silba Ndjiharine Supervisor: Prof. V.R. (René) Van der Duim, Co-supervisor: Mr. Arjaan Pellis MSc, Leisure Tourism and Environment (MLE) GEO- 80436 Cultural Geography Group Wageningen University August 2014 Acknowledgement I firstly want to thank Professor Rene van der Duim for believing in me and for giving me the confidence to eventually pursue the MLE master’s degree at the Wageningen University. Thank you so much for the vote of confidence you have put in me. The completion of my research would have been impossible without the contribution and participation of the Uibasen Twyfelfontein community, the managers of the different tourism enterprises in the Uibasen Twyfelfontein Conservancy and all the key informants who made an active contribution to this research. I am particularly grateful to the respondents from organizations such as NACSO, NHC, MET Kunene region and the Polytechnic of Namibia; I am thankful to them for their time and contributions which formed the foundation of this thesis. I am also indebted to my supervisors, Professor Rene Van der Duim and Mr. Arjaan Pellis for their feedback and continuous assistance in turning this thesis into a final product. A special thanks goes to my husband Mr. Motjari Ndjiharine for the sacrifice he has made by raising our children as a single parent for the two years, I spent pursuing this master degree. Thank you so much for your understanding, your encouragements and your prayers. A final thanks goes to God almighty for giving me the strength and for enabling me to bring this thesis to a completion, to Him be the glory forever. i | P a g e Summary The independence of Namibia in 1990 did not just brought political emancipation to its people, but it coincided with a time, when international ground breaking policies were made to reverse the protectionist conservation methods, which were practiced over vast areas of the African continent and in Namibia. With independence, the Namibian government was aimed at redressing the protectionist conservation methods, for local communal communities to be involved in wildlife management and to benefit from conservation. This has resulted in the amendment of the Nature Conservation Ordinance (4 of 1975), for the state to devolve user rights of land, wildlife and natural resources to communal communities which form legal institutions known as conservancies. The development of conservancies in Namibia is regarded as the driving force behind natural resource conservation, tourism and rural development in communal areas. However, the scope of the devolution of these user rights, to conservancy members is contested by other policies, deployed in communal conservancies. The Uibasen Twyfelfontein conservancy was declared as a conservancy in 1999 and the state has devolved user rights of land, wildlife and natural resources to the Uibasen Twyfelfontein community to manage and to benefit from the conservation of resources in the conservancy. However, the National Heritage Council of Namibia, an organizational institution enacted by the Heritage Act of 2004 was also empowered to manage the country’s national heritage resources, including the Twyfelfontein World Heritage Site, situated within the boundary of the Uibasen Twyfelfontein Conservancy. This study was aimed at understanding the operations of the Uibasen Twyfelfontein Conservancy and the National Heritage Council of Namibia as two policy arrangements which are employed over the same area and community. The study used the policy arrangement approach elements (actors, rules, resources and discourses), to analyze how the two arrangements have shaped processes in the conservancy. In addition to the policy arrangement approach, the sustainable livelihood approach was used to show the impacts of the arrangements on the livelihood activities of the local Uibasen Twyfelfontein conservancy community. The analysis of data for this study was gathered through: 24 interviews with key stakeholders, document reviews and observation. The main outcome of the study revealed that the two arrangements advocate for the sustainable utilization of resources and both arrangements use tourism as a conservation strategy, and depend on tourism for their sustainability. In terms of conservation and its contribution to livelihoods, the ii | P a g e arrangements have managed to enhanced community’s livelihoods through employment creation for conservancy members, cash payments paid to individual conservancy members derived from tourism revenues and the empowerment of members through various trainings offered in the conservancy. However, despite the benefits of the arrangements, there are several challenges in the deployment of the two policy arrangements in the conservancy. The arrangements are characterized by unequal power differences, which threaten the conservation of resources, while elites in the conservancy are acting in their own interest, by capturing the collective benefits that are meant for the community. Even though the two arrangements reflect the broader conservation of resources, they differ in the process and function of attaining their aims and objectives, aspects which threaten the internal congruency of the arrangements. The incongruences of the arrangements can create institutional instability, jeopardize the conservation of resources and deny livelihood benefits to the conservancy members. iii | P a g e Table of Contents Acknowledgement ......................................................................................................................................... i Summary ....................................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................................... iv List of figures ................................................................................................................................................ vi List of plates ................................................................................................................................................. vi Acronyms .................................................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................................................................... 2 1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND .................................................................................................... 2 1.1 Problem background of the study area ........................................................................................ 7 1.2 Problem statement ....................................................................................................................... 8 1.3 Research objectives and research questions .............................................................................. 10 1.4 Significance of the study ............................................................................................................. 11 1.5 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................................................ 11 CHAPTER 2 .................................................................................................................................................. 13 2 POLICY ARRANGEMENT AND LIVELIHOODS: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ACCOUNTS .... 13 2.1 The Policy Arrangement Approach (PAA) ................................................................................... 13 2.2 THE SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOOD FRAMEWORK (SLF) ................................................................... 19 2.3 THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................................................ 24 2.4 Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER 3 .................................................................................................................................................. 35 3 AN OVERVIEW ON CONSERVATION, TOURISM AND THE MANAGEMENT OF NATIONAL HERITAGE IN NAMIBIA ...................................................................................................................................................... 35 3.1 CBNRM, Conservancies and the management of national heritage in Namibia ........................ 35 3.2 The management of cultural and natural resources in UTC ....................................................... 41 3.3 THE NHC as a policy arrangement in UTC ................................................................................... 44 3.4 The Communal Conservancy Policy as a policy arrangement in UTC ......................................... 46 3.5 The reflection on discourses in UTC ............................................................................................ 58 3.6 The