ll faces issues of poverty, human-wildlife conflict, and habitat loss.
Beyond the coast, Namibia’s desert-dwelling elephants and black rhino are the focus of critical conservation efforts. Within Africa, these desert species only live in Namibia and Mali. Protecting them is as important for their survival as it is for the local communities since they are a major tourist attraction that generates millions of dollars each year.
However, as human populations grow, they are running out of space and natural resources, causing an increase in human-elephant conflict. These elephants have been known to damage community water installations, take vegetation from gardens, and, on occasion, even kill people, oftentimes resulting in retaliatory killings.
Our solutions to protecting Namibia's unique biodiversity:
The Grootberg Lodge is the first lodge in Namibia to be entirely owned by a community. The lodge sits in the 850,000-acre Khoadi-Hoas Conservancy, and while it continuously had high rates of occupancy and provided stable jobs for a region where employment is hard to come by, several structural design flaws limited its potential.
African Wildlife Foundation funded an impact investment in Grootberg Lodge allowing it to reach its full potential by making the necessary infrastructural updates and upgrading its alternative energy. The upgraded lodge not only benefits the local community by bringing in more revenue and increasing employment by about 30 percent, but it also contributed to the rehabilitation of the land by providing communities with economic incentives to conserve wildlife and their natural surroundings. Wildlife is now returning once again to the conservancy. The development of conservation tourism enterprises, like the Grootberg Lodge, provides local communities with tangible benefits from wildlife, which further incentivizes communities to coexist and engage in wildlife conservation.
Become a member
Join African Wildlife Foundation as a member for just $25. Your partnership is vital to our mission to protect Africa’s most precious - and imperiled - creatures.
Spread the word