World Wildlife Day commemoration

March 3, 2019

The Minister of Environment and Tourism unveiling the newly built storage infrastructure to mitigate Human Wildlife Conflict

UNDP Namibia joined the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for the commemoration of the World Wildlife Day in the Ohungo Conservancy, Omatjete area on 03 March 2019. The Ministry officially handed over storage and water infrastructure to the community to mitigate Human Wildlife Conflict.

Human Wildlife conflict in the area is mainly caused by desert elephants which destruct crops and housing. This is caused by sharing water points for both animals and people. The ministry built eleven water infrastructure for humans and wildlife in different parts of the Ozondati Village. The boreholes provided will lead wildlife away from human settlements. There are a lot of human settlements in the Erongo Region which attract the desert elephant population.

In Namibia, the wildlife populations and their home locations have expanded deep into communal farming areas, which is resulting in more frequent conflicts between people and wild animals, particularly elephants.

UNDP works to diversify rural livelihoods and Namibia is home to many different types of wild animals such as the big five: rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo, lion, and leopard among others. Namibia is home to Four Thousand, Three Hundred and Fifty (4,350) species and subspecies of vascular plants, of which seventeen percent (17%) are endemic.