Supporting Communities to Lead Conservation - Elephants and Ecotourism ft. Maxi Pia Louis and Lorna Dax

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Beneath the Beer Bump, the Conservation and Communities Podcast from JAMA International. My name is Gordon Buchanan and I've spent more than 30 years seeking out stories from our wild world in my career as a wildlife filmmaker. Right now, as I speak, up to one eighth of the world's species are at risk of extinction and the pressures of human activity and climate change are pushing habitats and ecosystems to breaking point. Now, more than ever, we're under pressure to act to conserve species that will otherwise be lost forever. International policies and regulations may be introduced with the best intentions but implementing conservation on the ground in real communities is a whole different story and the voices of those people historically have been marginalized. The livelihood and rights of communities and indigenous people worldwide can at times lie in direct conflict with global North conservation policies which in some cases call into questions their right to use the land and resources that they've relied on for generations. And in spite of the data, in spite of the challenges in this series, I want to bring you stories of hope and radical ideas for solving some of these critical problems before it's too late. If like me, you live in the UK or Europe, you might be surprised to learn that these world-changing wildlife conservation actions aren't all on a global scale either. We may hear about pledges to increase or protect environments and biodiversity, climate conferences and international committees, but when it comes down to it, it all relies on actions taken by the people and communities who every day live hand-in-hand side-by-side with wildlife, with birds, with plants, insects, fish or in the case of our guests, lions, elephants, rhinos and wild dogs. So where are the voices of these communities? This podcast will introduce you to the people of our living and working on the front lines of conservation and allow you to glimpse into the complicated, often difficult realities of sharing space, sharing lives with wildlife. Please listen with an open mind and join us as we talk conservation beneath the bearbub. One of the things that continues to fascinate me are the narratives we share around wildlife and our relationship with the natural world. For the majority of us, the idea of sharing space with animals that have the potential to inflict deadly harmonies is far beyond our frame of reference and it's not something we've had to concern ourselves with for generations. But this is the lived experience of millions of people across rural Africa right now. The reality of coexisting with potentially dangerous animals is never as simple as many in the Western world would assume. So how would you respond to an elephant in your backyard or maybe a lion on the road to school? Well, unsurprisingly, this question is fundamental to how successful conservation can be where people and wildlife collide. Understanding the nuanced and complex nature of these relationships is absolutely vital for conservation and we will be exploring some of these stories in the podcast. Successful conservation is just as much about people as it is about lions, elephants and rhinos. Rights-based and community-driven initiatives have been incredibly successful but are seldom recognised or championed in Western conservation narratives. Incentivising and empowering the people who bear the cost of protecting Africa's last great wildernesses is increasingly at the very heart of conservation. Strategies reflect this are more important now than ever before and that's why I want to start today by introducing the concept of CBNRM. Have you heard of it? Well, until recently, I hadn't. It stands for Community-Based Natural Resource Management. For me, it took a little while to sink in, so I'm going to say it again. Community-Based Natural Resource Management. As the name suggests, it's all about helping communities develop models to sustainably utilise their natural resources, decide how best to manage wildlife and perhaps most importantly, recognise their vast cultural knowledge and experience which has long been neglected. Today's guest is a world-renowned expert in the CBNRM approach and she has been instrumental in a remarkable conservation success story. Maxi Piallus is director of Naxel, the Namibia Association of CBNRM Support Organisations. She has had more than 22 years experience working in the conservation space. She cares as deeply about people as she does wildlife and that is fundamental to the incredibly important work that she does. Hello, Maxi. Thank you for joining me. Hi, Gordon. Maxi, for anyone that's not heard of Community-Based Natural Resource Management or CBNRM, what is this and where did it come from? So CBNRM was a blessing in 1990 when we got our independence because it actually meant that it was freedom in terms of changing our policies and so we changed one of our policies to allow communities to start being involved in their own natural resource management and also being part of an industry such as tourism where they can actually derive some benefits. So we went across all these Southern African countries. Look at what they're doing. But one, mainly, is the Bombay Headed Program called the Can Fire Programmet and they still continue to have that program. We look at what is the pros and cons and what is the lessons learned from them and when we created our own CBNRM, trying to address issues and gaps that we had at the time and a lot of them had to do with rights. So it's addressing issues about rights over your natural resources, issues around communities to take part in economic activities such as tourism. So those are some of the activities that describe what CBNRM is for us in Namibia. It's just making sure that communities are involved in conservation activities and as they are involved in conservation activities, they also derive benefits from those conservation activities. And in Namibia, it can be, you know, consumptive and non-consumptive. So just to describe CBNRM, more rights orientated in terms of natural resources but also benefits and livelihoods being addressed as part of that. And prior to independence in 1990, what was the mood on the ground in rural communities when it came to resource management? Did people feel completely disempowered and it was for decisions to be made by someone else? Yes, that's what the system was all about. It was a top-down system where decisions will be made mainly from South Africa because we were not regarded as a country, we were regarded as a province for South Africa at the time. So everything will be coming from government. It will be imposed then on people. But, you know, communities and people felt helpless because if you had, for instance, just to give you an example, wildlife in your area and you could not make use of the wildlife, it doesn't matter in a wide way, people will rather go for poaching because, you know, that was for them to have something to eat or to fit their families at the time. There was a lot of disemation of wildlife around that time but also of just people chopping trees if no regard because if you don't own it and you don't make any use of it, what's the use of looking after it? So that was the reason why people did not take part in anything because they had no rights in taking part. So for me, that is the mood I described, helplessness, no regard for anything because you did not own it and you did not have the right to eat. So that's what I will describe the mood was. - And I've read that the communities nowadays, they want to be part of conservation. - So when we started this program in 1996, this is when the first policy started changing but there was a lot of studies that we went around and then we did the studies was first, we did not want to impose anything like the previous government. First was to go around and do some studies and this studies was studies that involve the social aspects but also looking scientifically, for instance, we had to return some wildlife in areas where it was completely disemated. And based on this studies, we make sure there was engagement but the communities participated as part of a lot of these studies and based on the outcome of the studies, that informed policy and that policy then is the one that allowed them now to be part of what we call our CBNRM program that allowed our first four consequences to be registered legally, or casated as we say in Amibia, for them to legally now being engaged in managing their resources. So that's how the whole situation started. So we first started to pilot in different regions, but on you are here, you could see how contrasting this country is. So we had to pilot to see in which area we will implement what when it comes to certain conservation activities. - That's a good point, but I've been to Namibia a couple of times and it is a phenomenally beautiful country. I would hope that most people listening will have heard of Namibia, but can you describe the landscape, the habitats of Namibia, but also the human landscape, out with the cities, how the populations made up? - It is around 840,000 square kilometers. It's quite a huge country, a huge landscape, but the landscape is also very much diverse and very contrasting. So in the north west of the country, that's when we have the Namib Desert and people might have heard about the skeleton coastal, we have the Atlantic Ocean, but you know, you don't have a lot of people. There's no much human people living around. It is a couple of communities living there. Then you go up to the north central of the country, very savanna forests orientated, but where the majority of the population live. We are on 2.4 million people now in the country of 840 square kilometers and the majority of that population live in the north and the north east of the country. So the most north east of the country, this is where you find a bit more forested, according to our standards. People coming from west or east Africa, they think that is nothing when you compare it to forest, but for us that is forest. And then in the south, totally different. That's where you have the Kalahari Desert, we share that with Botswana and that is also very few communities living there. And then we have actually towns, we have like 14 political regions and in 13 of those political regions, we have major towns, not big, big ones, but it's our towns. So Venduk is the capital city and then we have two major towns on the coast in the north, there's several bigger towns and in the south one or two bigger towns. So in terms of infrastructure and going around very good roads, it doesn't matter whether it's a tire road or a dead road as we call them. It's you can access maybe from anywhere, from the desert to the central, from the northeast everywhere. So access is actually very easy. But it's a very dry country. We don't have much big rivers inland, we have rivers that we call in favoral rivers, they don't have water, they just have water when it rains, it's very strange for people. Our major rivers are on the borders with other countries. - You did a very good job at describing them, maybe as I know, I was kind of almost closing my eyes and picturing those dust roads and picturing windweaks. So you took me back to Namibia there in your description. It's a vast country, not massively populated. So it sounds like there's a lot of space for wildlife and wild animals. Is that the case? - We are very agricultural driven people, whether you are on a communal lane. We depend on agriculture, whether it's crop or livestock, we do depend and depend where you are. In the northeast where there's a bit more water and resources, this is where people do a lot of crop farming. In the northwest, people do more livestock, cattle and small livestock. But also a lot of wildlife. So it depends where you are. And that is also because of the open landscapes when you are in the northwest, it's easy because elephants need range, lions need range, leopards. You know, all these big mamas need range and we provide those ranges, especially in the north, east and the north, west of the country. So yes, open lands actually provide a lot of that space for wildlife and livestock to be able to live a very balanced land use. Remember, the country is also fairly, very, very dry. - I'm just going to describe, obviously, the listeners of the podcast won't see what I can see is the photogallery behind you. How many photos? 1, 2, 3, 4, there's about 10. Most of them are people and there's a few wildlife and landscape shots. It's a gallery depicting people and a little bit of nature. Is conservation, is it a people centered job in your case? Are you a people person or are you a wildlife person? - I will say both. You know, yes, because the work that I do, but I also think my personality is easily, I can easily connect with people. That's just my personality. But also, it makes my job easier to connect with people and connect those people with nature. And I think that was my job when I started because I studied tourism. And tourism is that you travel, you see the world. And in the country, I had an opportunity to do that. It's a very young person working in areas where I could connect with people at the same time, connect with wildlife. And that brings me together and for me, it's difficult because I love both. Nature is what I live and I also like people. - I think in kind of the global north, people kind of remove themselves from nature. And I'm sort of always saying that we are, you know, we came from nature. We're part of it. It's just that we've have a broken relationship with the natural world. And I think sort of certainly having traveled a fair amount around the world a lot in Africa. You see that there are people that sort of wildlife is part of their life. It's not something other. It is just part of the existence. So how did you come to work in this field? I'm interested in your story. - I was born in Vento, which is not at the time when I was growing up. And I grew up not knowing much about wildlife because it was in a town. The only thing that I remember I was having around was our dog. And then that was the pet that we, and we used to think that is wildlife. And then occasionally I had a grandfather who was managing a farm on behalf of a white farmer because he was working for these white farmers during a party. And during holidays, I would be traveling there as a child. And one of the things I was very amazed by the openness on that farm when I go there for holidays. And he was a farm manager and how he managed the farm. He was a very sustainable person because he believed in managing wildlife at the same time we need to. He was looking after his livestock and then he has his chickens. So he had everything around that makes a farm. And it was for us, I think is the issue of being in town, exposed us to town life at the same time we could come back to the farm and still see the realities that what a farm is all about. And that was my first exposure. So when I finished school, I decided first that I wanted to work in agriculture. And then I realized, no, that is not my thing. And then I got exposed to traveling a little bit around. I went to a national park, a Tosha, which is our national park here. And I was very amazed to see an elephant for the first time. And I think that's what touched me. And I said, yes, that's what I want to do. I really want to travel like these people when they have money because there was a lot of tourists in the park. And then one day I also want to work with these communities on the other side of the park that I felt had nothing to do with the park because they were not allowed to be part of the park. So this is how my interest then came. And then I got a busary then to study in Australia. And in Australia I got to learn more about how a region is where living in a park or the Cardinal National Park, which is in the Northern Territory. And how the Australian government was managing some mining contracts and having these communities benefiting from some of these mining contracts. So for me it actually started trickling the thing of all the communities outside the park. They can get involved in tourism and conservation. So this is actually what triggered my mind. But I think also it's a child. I just wanted to travel when I see a flight when I see anything in the air. I said, I want to go there. I want to go and experience that. So that is also what triggered me. And then when I finished my studies I came back to Namibia. And then that was at the time when they were changing a lot of the policies around evolving communities in 1996. And so one of my colleagues asked me to go and be a translator because I'm very multilingual. And go to the North West of Namibia to go as a translator and I thought, yeah, I didn't have money. This is a good job. Let me go. When I got there I was very amazed how rich people's ideas were on the ground. They are knowledge with wildlife and some of the strategies they had in terms of going further. And because I could speak English they said, OK, we want you now to get our message across in Ventuk, which is probably around 700, 800 kilometers from where they always had to travel to come and negotiate things. We want you to become a leader and get our voice across to the government people, the people that make decisions because we are very far removed from there. And this is when I started towing with the idea of how we need to get formalized. We need to get an association. And a couple of us with some community leaders then at the time decided we are going to form an organization that will allow for communities to get involved in ecotourism. But we have to work on our own issues, getting their voices yet, getting them involved. But also my previous life before, when I was a student, I was an activist. So I always-- anything that has to do with rights and a voice, I was always there. So when I got into this space it was easy for me to just go on there and be that advocate for them. So I think this is how my life then started getting involved in this program. And so when that organization, I worked for that organization for nine years. We built campsites. We built lodges for communities that were income. And then I think I thought, yeah, I have lost my-- I have to do something else. So I then got a job to work in the current organization that I work with. But exactly the same type of landscape, but a little more to the conservation side. So this is how I got involved in conservation and tourism both. And that makes me happy because I color both. Thank you, Maxi. We'll be back with you again shortly. Now, though, I want to look at one of the ecotourism schemes in a little more detail. I'm joined by Lorna Dax. And Lorna is the former manager of the Quadriquas Conservancy in Northwest Namibia. Now working at the Save the Rhino Trust. Lorna, hello, thanks for joining me. Thank you so much, Gordon. Lorna, can you tell me about the problems of community there faced with conservation before projects were put in place? When conservation was introduced to the communities, our conservancy was able to set up two lodges. We own two lodges in a campsite. And I would say before conservation or before conservancy's unemployment with indoor conservancy was very high. As you know, we are living in rural areas and employment opportunities were very scarce. So when the lodges opened, I am glad to say that around 85% of the people that are currently working at the two lodges and the campsite are local people that are actually from the communities. And also the conservancy itself employes people to work as community game guards or what we call and its environmental shabots. They would look after the wildlife and do the monitoring activities. Now that sounds fantastic. And I suppose you think setting up lodges, you're not just talking about the staff to run those lodges, you're talking about guides, drivers, handicrafts that the revenue that can be brought into these rural communities that hopefully will stay in those communities and not disappear into the ether. The people that I employed at the lodges are local people. And the agreement that we have is that whenever there is a vacancy at one of the lodges, the people that would get priority are people from within the conservancy area. So only if there are no skills or experience people for the specific position, then people from outside would be given an opportunity to come and work at the lodges as well. And so prior to that, what was rural life like with these people involved in agriculture? The people within the conservancy boundary currently before conservancy is introduced and currently they are mostly small stock farmers. They depend on livestock. So if they are not employed at the lodges or some of the schools, 85% or 90% of them still depends on livestock farming, which is currently also being challenged. Was there any resistance or concerns when you set up these projects? Our lodges that cutting has conservancy own has a totally different arrangement. It's not a normal J.B. arrangement where an investor would come in with money, set up the infrastructure and then hire people from the area or give back to the community. So from the get-go, the community members were really looking forward and optimistic to have a lot of their own within the conservancy. And they were fully supporting the idea of setting up lodges within the conservancy, but with them being 100% owners of the establishments. There's obviously a lot of wildlife in Namibia that there's not much conflict with, but there are some of those key species that sort of lead to conflict, animals that are potentially dangerous. With sort of local communities been involved in tourism, has that changed the relationship with species like elephants? The relationship has changed. I would say in a very great way, because communities have seen the benefit that having an elephant within the farms is giving them. And also having a rhino within the conservancy has its benefits as well. As I said before, a lot of people are employed at the lodges and if it weren't for that elephant or the rhino, say for instance, the rhino triggers all the guides would not have any jobs to do. So the communities are still in full support of conservation and they are still willing to go access to a wildlife. - So for you and your line of work, what are your hopes for the future moving forward? Is there improvements you can make or is that about actually kind of extending this to involve other communities with a similar scheme? - You know, COVID taught as a lesson. And as conservancies, we were mostly dependent on tourism and conservation hunting. So my hopes for the future is that we focus on being prepared if we are faced with other natural disasters or other pandemics again. So I would like to see conservancies being more sustainable and also continue to see policies that are already there to support our program and support what we do as local communities within our conservancies. - I think when it comes to the pandemic, it kind of threw the world off of its axis. And I think it just affected everyone's lives in so many different ways all around the world and I'm just hoping that it seems the moment. Things are getting back to normal and I think especially for Namibia, other countries that are relying on tourism. I hope that everything bounces back and I'd like to wish you all the very best of the future. - Thanks so much for that. - Okay, we're back with Maxi. So for you working in wildlife conservation in Namibia, what are the current challenges? - Before I get to the challenges, maybe just to mention a couple of things that I have seen changing in the years that I've been part of the program was that. When I started with the program, there was very little wildlife on most of the escarpment. As I said to you, a lot of it was decimated by the world, but also by poaching by the people themselves. And here has a work on this landscape. I see wildlife coming back. And then I start asking myself, how did this happen that happens because communities were really treating wildlife with respect in terms of not poaching anymore instead of handing when they should be and when there's enough for them to do so. That is just the whole management aspect and not poaching anymore, brought it back. The other one was just the landscape itself where the range land itself started changing because people were not just chopping trees anymore. So things came back. But also for me, the biggest one was the people one where people were organized in forms of governance, where they started managing things. They didn't have that before. Independence, they were just everybody was all over the place. There was a lot of tribal infighting. And now they have organized themselves. They go to meetings, they sit down underneath the tree, there's negotiations, there's elections. So all these normal systems that we take for granted in the West became something that I have seen over my years working there. And then love youth, income people, making getting income from tourism, getting income from products they sell. So it made so much difference in people's livelihoods on top of maybe some livestock or crop farming that they have just to have cash and having a cash economy going around there made a lot of difference in their lives. Yes, let's get to the challenges. What has been the challenges? And some of the challenges are also challenges that came because of their successes. And their successes has been too much wildlife, too much predators. That now started becoming a problem. And so it caused human wildlife conflict in the areas. And that was one of the biggest problems. And when you sit underneath the tree and you talk to them and you say, "Yeah, but you remember, you wondered to be part of this program." And now we have too much. You still want this wildlife and these predators on your landscape and they will say yes, but on our terms and how we manage it. And I do agree with them around that. The other one I have also seen drought, the climate has changed. I have seen that with my own eyes over time. It's not something I read in the book. I have seen how it became more dry and more hotter. We had a drought maybe in some areas for more than 12 years, some of them eight years. And you just, like I was traveling last two years, I couldn't see livestock, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't see wildlife. They all disappeared. And so the drought has also considerably changed a lot around that. The other one is what we are dealing with now, the epidemic, where it was very distracting for all Namibians. We have all this space and openness. And you were in a lockdown. You couldn't do anything mentally. It was very exhausting. And I think it really had an impact on all of us. And especially not just on us, but mostly the youth. Because it was very difficult for them. Maybe also a bit of food chain coming back during that time. But not so much. We were very lucky. We did not have much food chain in terms of rhino or elephant at the time. But then maybe planes game, kudu, and so forth. People were hungry and people would go for food chain. So I think for me, the epidemic was the worst that I have seen as to how people lost income. And they are loved ones, how people mentally were lost. We were completely lost. You did not know who you are, where you're going. What is happening? So yeah, it's now coming back. But yeah, we were completely lost. But the poaching issue, that's something that's happened in the COVID years in other countries in Kenya, in Zimbabwe and Botswana. And I think when the pandemic hit, I think everybody just sort of was sucked into their own worlds. And everybody was thinking from a kind of very personal perspective. And it wasn't until a couple of months into the pandemic. And I spoke to a friend that lives in Kenya and she was saying, this is just such bad news for economies in Africa that are reliant on tourism. So is that something? Have you seen tourism starting to bounce back in the media? I just came from the fields on Friday. And I went to the North West, where the situation was really, really bad. And I must tell you, we had really good rains in the past three months. It's amazing what can happen in three months in this country. White life is back and it's starting. Not all of it. I've not seen a lot of the white life that I normally see, but it is so green. People's moods are changing. And I'm sure when there's water, there will be at least improvement in people that can do their crop. I mean, one of the most devastating part was when you talk to a family and they say, you know, I've not even fed my family today because there's nothing to feed them. So those were very devastating and continued to be devastating moments because it will take a while for people to be able to grow crops, for white life to come back. And this is Namibia. You never know whether in the next couple of months and years, we are going to have rain again. But in terms of the rains, things have really changed. And maybe another six weeks or so, we might even see better white life returning. Okay, I'm talking from a white life point of view because it's easy for white life to come back. It's not easy for livestock. And people have lost all of their livestock. And especially the indigenous communities. We have indigenous communities in this country that live on livestock. They are just, you know, they depend on it. And at the moment, they have nothing. And that will take time because they are pastoralists. And that is the ones that we think we need to probably rethink how we are going to address a lot of these issues. For me, what is important now is to feed people. They should be some food security at the moment. And once people are fed, they can look after the environment. They can look after white life. They can look after livestock. If people are hungry, always scared that they might go back to poaching. They might go back before independence because we all have to live. We all have to feed our children. If we can get to feed our families, there is vulnerability and that vulnerability can lead to other things that we don't want. And that is my biggest concern at the moment. One word that you've mentioned a lot is change. And I was listening to a talk that you gave. And you said that Nimbibians have this ability to cope with change. Yes, because I remember during the drought when I drive with colleagues from outside. And I'm talking about colleagues from the west. They look at it and say, how can you survive in this country? As beautiful as it is, you need to eat. And I said, we are used to this. We come from wars that we survived. We had the big HIV/AIDS situation we survived. So the issue of resilience against certain things that we have gone through have made us very strong people. What we need to learn now is to adapt and climate change is not just our issue. It's an issue everywhere else in the world. We are heavily affected by that. We are strong nation and we change and we adapt. And we learn quickly. And it's not as if we have a choice. We don't. We have to. You've pointed out that there's a human wildlife conflict. There's pure governance. There's climate change. There's these overly successful initiatives that have created problems in themselves. I'd like to hear about just some of the kinds of actions and solutions that you've supported through your work to combat what's happening right now. As I mentioned, unfortunately, part of our success is I will not actually call it success because in some ways I feel is what needs-- it should be like that. This is a land where we need to have wildlife. We need to have people managing that wildlife. We need to have livestock. We need to have people living. But they should also be some balances around that. As a country, we had a lot of criticism in the way we do things. But for us, we get shocked because in the way that we have managed our resources, there has been some successes. Our communities depend on wildlife and we hand. And we have done that over years very sustainably. And even if we are doing that, they still a lot of wildlife on the lands. I mean, we have been criticized, but I drove two weeks ago and I see lots of springboks, lots of orexes, lots of kudos. We are not a nation that will finish it all up because we have learned to sustainably use our resources and share those landscapes. It's not perfect. And I will repeat, it's not perfect. We need to improve a lot. But we have been criticized for that. And especially your country is one of those countries that does not allow us to do what we want to do. Your policies can have a negative impact in terms of the way we look at wildlife and the way we manage wildlife. And I can understand because everybody in the world is very concerned through the experiences that they had. I'm sure a lot of the Britons would not like for us to make the same mistake that you guys made in getting rid of everything that you had a couple of hundreds years ago. And we are very mindful of that. But we are also mindful that if you don't allow communities and people to benefit and still managing those resources sustainably, we might be in the same position that you guys are at the moment. And so we are trying to avoid that. So creating policies that has a negative impact on things that already work can be something that can have a very detrimental effect on the conservation work that we are all doing. And then I think that something that has really concerned us, not just in Amivia, but in South Africa. And we try to speak up what about it. And maybe if we have solutions together, we can talk about it and make those programs much more stronger, rather than criticizing something that you have never seen before, that you have never experienced, or that you just do because you think this is what I am. And this is how things needs to be done. For me, and for everybody else that is in conservation in South Africa, in Amivia, in particular, is to save the elephant, to save the lion, to save the rhino. We need to be able to do what we think will work. And at the moment, what we do as a conservation strategy in the country, it works for us. The lot of work that is being done, saving species, and making sure that we have the conservation and addressing some of the livelihoods that we have today, is also because there has been so much assistance coming from the West in keeping the work going. And we are very thankful for that. And we continue to be thankful because if we did not have this assistance here and that assistance there, we could have possibly not be where we are. And we are really, really thankful for those right-minded, like people that listen to us and they allow us to do what we do. The UK has been part of the eight organizations that have supported my country a lot around this issue. For me, it's just ironic when they come back and say, oh, you need to bend it. I'm like, you just supported it and it was successful. Why are you now wanting to take away it again? But yes, there is so many people in the UK that support us. And we really want to thank those people. And we really appreciate that, especially the communities, they normally remind me saying the reason why we are today is for those people. It's just because I have this opportunity to thank them as a platform I would like to thank them. It has to work for wildlife and it has to work for people. And I think there's a kind of level of ignorance, I think even in the UK, people do not realize that at one time in history, we lived in a much, much, wilder landscape and that we have lost so much of our wild places and wild, wild animals. And it always is my bugbear is like, how can we travel around the world and say, Brazil, this is what you should be doing with the rainforest. Namibia, this is how you should manage these conflict species. When we actually were not prepared to live alongside, even the smallest, the dinkyest of predators in the UK, I think certainly a bit of CBNRM would work in communities in Scotland. So you seem like an incredibly optimistic person with your optimism all the way up to 11, what's your hope and what's your vision of the future in Namibia? How do you see that human wildlife landscape? Yeah, the future looks bright to me. I think we have come too far to turn around and say, oh, this is not working for us, I think it is working. With all those challenges that I have mentioned, we always find a way in the world to get around it. And I believe we will get around it. As a nation, I think we always got around certain situations. And I think also with having these good rains coming, we prayed and prayed and it happened. Because if it was another five or six years, I might not be as optimistic as I'm now. But I think there was also a reason for it to happen, but I think we can get around it. I believe wildlife will come back. It will always go through this up and down that it's just part of a cycle that we need to go through. I believe the climate change will get worse. We need to get around it and try and live around it and see how resilient we can become as people. I think we need to save these habitats. For me, it's very important. And it's maybe a point that I did not made some emphasis on for our wildlife to survive. We need to keep those arrangements open. We need to keep that space open for them to move. If they don't move around or they don't have grass or whatever they eat to have, then we have a problem. So those are the ones. And nowadays because of the populations, it makes it also difficult. We need to have people and wildlife living together. The most challenging thing. So with assistance from anywhere and everywhere and anybody doesn't matter who you are, we need to keep this area open for our wildlife. It not just our wildlife, our trees, everything. You need to put the people in the center of everything you do. I cannot see that you take out the people and you think things will be there by themselves. It will not happen. So I think from a conservation point of view, I'm very optimistic things will be fine if we just manage them well. We have very good strategies. And we listen to those ones that are at the core of making these decisions. Yeah, community has different tiers. It might start in a small village or indigenous community of 30, 40 people. But community is a global thing. And if we can work together as a global community and evolving every on all of those communities, especially those in the ground, that's when great things can happen. Maxi, thank you so much. It's been enlightening, inspiring, and uplifting. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so very much to Maxi and Lorna for talking to me. I hope that this episode of "Belief the Bay of Ab" has brought you some new insights into the unique challenges faced by communities who live amongst the magnificent wildlife. They're also seeking to conserve. It is so crucial to give voice to the Heather II marginalized experiences that are so vital in making sure we can enact meaningful conservation now and in the future. Supporting communities to build new economies and value around wildlife in circumstances where they're also under pressure is no small feat. But building dialogue and understanding the needs of people and livelihoods is key. What's more, Maxi's point about empowering communities and villages to build internal resilience against change will be ever more crucial to the health of our planet and its use of resources into the future. If you'd like to find out more about Naxel or learn about community-based natural resource management, you can find the links in the show notes or you can just visit the website jamainternational.com to explore more amazing international projects. If you'd like to listen to our next episode, make sure you follow or subscribe to this podcast on your favorite app. Jama International are passionate about conservation and well-being for people and planet and know it's crucial to open positive dialogues and share ideas. If you'd like to share this podcast and I strongly suggest you do, please do so with the hashtag beneath the bearbub on social media. And as you know, bearbub is spelled B-A-O-B-A-B. Positive dialogue and sharing ideas can happen anytime, any place, anywhere. So why don't you start a conversation with a friend, a family member, a neighbor, or a complete stranger. I'm Gordon Buchanan and I hope you'll join me next time and beneath the bearbub. (gentle music)