Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
privately held and 1.5 million cattle and 2.2 million sheep are farmed, including the unique
karakul black sheep for coats. Goats are usually the last resort when most of the grasses have
been destroyed by overgrazing. The land however is dry and poor and up to 35 hectares are
needed for one large animal unit. In addition, anywhere in Southern Africa where the rainfall is
less than about 600mm, which is much of the country, wildlife herbivores outperform cattle in
meat production and tolerance of drought. On average a large animal unit requires about 5,000
gallons of water to produce one pound of meat. Weaning rural populations from non-
productive cattle to a better return on investment in wildlife is a challenge but Namibia has
shown this is feasible. In comparison, as far as land use, a bison in Yellowstone needs about
25 acres of grassland (approximately ten hectares) and bison need three times as much
foraging range as elk. Wildlife farming has increased by 70% over 20 years to 1.2 million
head and contributes to 11% of the economy. Part of the success has been due to local
communities protecting their wildlife for both harvesting of meat for international export and
for hunting. Christopher Joyce from NPR went on a visit to Namibia to explore the wildlife
industry. The important factor in Namibia, and also South Africa, and was in
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, the farmer owns the wildlife on his farm and hence it is in his interest to
protect and take care of it. In 2009 conservation in Namibia received $15million in support,
$9million from NGOs such as WWF, USAID, and SIDA and $4.1 million from tourism. Of the
latter 21% comes from hunting. One of the people who influenced building this was Garth
Owen-Smith who helped local communities, particularly in the Kaokoveld to setup what now
is in total 64 conservancies since independence in 1990. With this for example the population
of black rhino has grown from 6 in the northwest to 1400. The elephant population has grown
from 7,500 in 1995 when conservation programs were started to now 16,000. Indeed some
200,000 elephants now use the Caprivi Strip corridor. The Namib-Naukluft area has a unique
habitat of desert that gets hardly any rain but early morning mists deposit enough moisture for
geckos, gemsbok, and hardy plants to survive the desert conditions.
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