NamibRand: Lessons Learned

Greetings Everyone:

On Friday, I briefly updated everyone about my upcoming NamibRand Trip and a few details about NamibRand. I’ll go a little deeper into the idea behind NamibRand, my amazing experiences with their game guards Mike and Anne, and what I learned from NamibRand. This last weekend will be one of my most memorable weekends for a long time to come.

I send many thanks out to Danica and Nils Oldenhaal [CEO NamibRand] for pulling out all the stops for my visit to NamibRand. Having NamibRand’s game guards as my personal tour guides, pre-arranged travel, and the amazing housing and dining accommodations, was more then anything I expected and I’m so grateful for the experience! It truly gave me new insight concerning working conservation into the previous ranching landscapes in a “high dollar low impact” process. Thank-you again! I truly learned so much seeing things in person and experiencing the quality of your staff and guides.

Quick Blast to the Past……………..

About 4-5 months ago or so, the Northern Great Plains WWF learning exchange group arrived in Namibia to learn about Namibia’s conservation. They covered a lot of ground in a short time thanks to aircraft flying everyone around. One of the destinations I was a little forlorn about not being able to attend was the NamibRand destination. Before leaving the states for Namibia, I heard a lot about the NamibRand model from Nils, CEO of NamibRand, personally at Grassland’s conference, and knew I’d have to see it before I leave.

Also, this learning exchange program with WWF Northern Great Plains and Grassland Foundation [my previous employer] was recognized by Travel and Leisure Mag with a 2009 World Visionary award for Wildlife Tourism. I’m happy to play catch up with the rest of the tour by visiting the sites I wasn’t able to attend while in the field or in Windhoek.

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NamibRand truly is an amazing place and I can say right now NamibRand has been the most amazing, breath-taking, and informative experience I’ve had to date in Namibia. The timing couldn’t have been better, because I only have two weeks left in Namibia. I have so many other experiences to compare it to at this time; therefore the timing is also good for my own personal development/reflection.

What hits me about NamibRand is the quality of the nature experience produced on commercial private ranch land. It truly rivals. I hear this area referred to as one of the best tourism products in Namibia and arguably Southern Africa. Everything is extremely professional to the “T” in the word eco-tourism.

I’ve been to nearly all the “hot spots” in Namibia like Etosha National Park, the Caprivi Parks, Damaraland’s conservancies, Suss and Deadveil, Skwakopmund and Walvis Bay, and some really nice commercial conservancy farms with a lot of outstanding wildlife. And to see 13 visionary private landowners come together and say. “Hey, we can do this nature gig thing” and produce an experience that equals the “hot spots” instilled new inspiration in me given what we’re talking about back home on the Gracie Creek Watershed using similar ideas.

This area is extremely difficult to access too, just like our ranches back home. It took almost 6 hours to drive down there, along with many supplies for the farm and lodge. Flying was almost considered for my main travel method. BUT people still come out.

I see where this can scare some people to death back home when you look at the complete other side of the coin NamibRand transitioned too, but I still feel there are some key lessons to be learned here without implementing a total nature reserve idea that could be economically/ecologically viable in the Northern Great Plains.
Why is NamibRand unique? What can we learn from this model?

This area of Namibia is referred to as the Namib Desert. Generally speaking, many tourists visiting Africa in general want to see the big charismatic species like elephants, lions [which I still need to see BTW], water buffalo, ect. Who can blame people though?

The unique thing about NamibRand is how they lack the previously listed species yet capitalize on other things like: thousands of Oryx running around [I prefer these critters the most in Namibia. They’re peaceful, easy going creatures and safe to be around vs. elephants], 5 CCF cheetahs that were introduced to keep the balance, “singing rocks,” quiver trees, chances for guests to participate in conservation with research concessions operating in the area, thousands of sand grouse, and most importantly OPEN spaces just like we find back home in the Sand Hills.
But what do you do when you live in an area that cannot viably support livestock, lack the wildlife everyone is so crazy about, but you have one heck of a view that has attracted the likes of National Geographic, Vouge, and Elle magazines?

Try marketing open spaces/stars, tours where people participate in conservation, and high quality housing/food with local flare.

It’s been extremely successful for this area. We simply are running out of peaceful, quiet, open spaces in the world today, while people are more conscious about their environmental impacts demanding products that make a difference ecologically.
NamibRand essentially markets the exclusive open space experience with as little human/truck disturbance around as possible. Consider this quote from the Wolwedans Lodge located on the reserve: http://www.wolwedans-namibia.com/namibrand.htm
“The main objective of NamibRand Nature Reserve is the conservation of this beautiful land on a self-sustainable basis. The lodges and camps on the NamibRand Nature Reserve are limited to 20 beds each. The park is governed by a strict code of ethics and the number of guests this wilderness paradise can accommodate is restricted. Despite the tremendous potential for more tourist development, it was decided that in theory every bed must be surrounded by 1000 hectares of nature - now and forever. This means that every guest at Wolwedans has one million square meters to themselves - a sanctuary free of tour buses and overland trucks. This luxury of space makes the reserve the pristine destination it is today.”

Trust me this is a unique group NamibRand markets to, but I met a guy who has been to the lodge 3 different times now. That says something about the quality of the experience at NamibRand and the value of space.

This lodge is not the only place where one can stay and there are other housing accommodations that make it affordable for locals too. It’s always good to be good neighbors with locals and especially your neighbors when introducing predators like cheetahs.

I can see how other organizations would see this as a way of restricting people from visiting areas, but there are solutions and reduced prices and the park fees NamibRand implements I see as helping with the sustainable future of the area for tourists, neighbors, and owners in the area.

I hope you’re asking the same questions I’m thinking right now. What are the “drivers” behind this model? We’ll explore them briefly in this blog.

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Friday afternoon, I received a call from Anne that they were a little lost trying to find the WWF office and we finally connected and I could tell by their warm welcoming smiles greeting me as I struggled to carry my fully equipped camera bag, my ultra light duffle bag, and cooler full of food for 3 days across the street that I was going to be in good hands. What sealed the deal for me was when Anne and Mike both said to let them know if we need to stop so I can take a photo, “Because we understand.” 8D Those three words associated with photography are magic to my ears.

I told them a little bit more about my background and purpose for being in Namibia and we hit things off before we even left the WWF office block. They asked me if I was the neighbor they heard about from Bruce and Sarah Switzer and I said yes. They both mentioned how it was nice to meet everyone on that tour guide.

Mike and Anne are from South Africa and they’ve been involved in nature conservation their whole lives –especially birds and blue cranes. They’ve been working in Namibia for the last 6 years and just started working at NamibRand. Currently, they’re on contract to be game guards for NamibRand, which basically consists of overseeing many aspects of the natural resources on the 13 ranches. Just like any well managed cattle ranch back in the states with good grazing records, herd vac records, and ect. NamibRand has the same idea but purely focused on conservation and overseen by game guards.

We made our way to the NamibRand [NGO] office in Windhoek to pick up supplies for NamibRand and the reserve’s new in-service training student Preston [who happens to be a previous student of the UNL Fullbright Professor Larkin Powell –see Larkin’s blog in my website of interest section located after the blog]. And I have to say, Larkin and I could each dedicate a blog to the “Nebraska Connection” we’ve discovered in Namibia. It has blown me away how many people know someone from Nebraska here in Namibia.
All roads to Namibia seem to pass through Nebraska. I think its because both start with “N’s.” N=N. Its truly worth a blog topic someday…

Just within the last two weeks I’ve met Preston and a master student from Canada who knew UNL’s star volleyball player Jordan Larson [plays professional VB in Italy now and destined for the Olympics] as a childhood/high school friend.

The weather was incredibly hot. 43 degrees C or 109 degrees F! I felt like melting. The driving route was the exact same one I took with my German travel friend Tina to the parks located down there and it was nice to see Solataire again. This town has the best desert snacks.

When we arrived at the farm house, there were already wildlife running around at the water hole and beautiful mountains and prairie sounding us. I could step foot outside my door and sit down on a table 45 meters away from the community drinking well. Frans Lanting, National Geographic photographer and his wife spent a day photographing Sand Grouse flying into the water hole and were so impressed they didn’t even want to go see the cheetahs Anne told me. That is impressive! And the birds were. Trust me.
But the rooms all have guide books and themes that resemble the area, along with information about the area you’re in so you have a context for the experience vs. a disassociated mess of experiences.

The next morning everyone met at the office that reminded me so much of the ranch office back home on Gracie Creek Ranch. NamibRand is all about wildlife and they had records of game counts, predator kills, management plans, ect. all neatly lined up on the wall, just like the records we keep of grazing and vaccination/treatments on GCR. This is not a whimsical fluffy idea. Its serious business on NamibRand.
We all left to report on recent wildlife kills in the area cheetahs were responsible for, so the data could be collected about the animal’s age, sex, what animals were eating it, and were it was killed so the information could be sent to CCF here in Namibia and linked to the satellite data they have from the 5 NamibRand cheetahs who are collared.

Having guests participate in conservation and understanding the systems around you is a huge step and a much more valued and meaningful experience for people. I could see this being picked up more in the US.

Later that night we all had a conversation with the manager of Wolwedan and how to best incorporate the new cheetah information packets they been receiving for the guests. Not only are NamibRand guests seeing great stuff, but they’re actually helping out and learning about the ecological issues/challenges in the process. Imagine what this will do for nature deficit children in the US and future agriculture and environmental leaders?

But other research concessions also have contracts to do research on game and cheetahs, which is essentially what our ranches are doing with university, NGO, and federal institutions already with prairie chicken and water issues.

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This is already way too long for one blog and I still need to mention the lodge stuff I learned about some other time. I’m off to Etosha area tomorrow to survey. non-conservancy members. I will post my most recent photos from here tomorrow sometime on flickr and as a separate blog!

I gotta run, but thank-you for reading.

Cheers,

A.E. Price

PS: Other field notes

As one who’s taken photography somewhat seriously during my 6 months in Namibia, you enter into a photographer’s paradise in NamibRand. At this point in my Namibia experience, I’ve been to basically every part of Namibia except the Naye Naye area I’ll leave for another time. I’ve also been to many amazing places in the states –especially national parks and reserves. But in NamibRand I’ve never been in a place where I can truly say everywhere I looked there was a photo opportunity. Every place has its own beauty, but there is something special about the Namib Desert area.
Even my colleague Helge Denker, who was with me on our eventful Elephant trip in the Huab, said if I ever get the chance to go down there make it happen. Helge use to work in this area and can vouch for the amazing scenry.

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But two pretty special photography moments happened for me during my time with Mike and Anne. One involved 5 male cheetahs sitting on their kill site with “war paint” on their faces or the blood from the fresh kill, and two breeding pairs of klipspringer standing on the same rock together [EXTREMELY rare site]. Both Mike and Anne joked that people might accuse me of photo shopping my klipspringers into one photograph.
My cheetah experience was amazing, because NamibRand adopted these 5 males from the Cheetah Conservation Fund here in Namibia, and released them onto the reserve to bring back the natural predator/prey cycle. NamibRand currently doesn’t do any hunts, so having predators introduced helps with their management plans.
Cheetahs at CCF [Lorrie Marker’s NGO] and other farms who run cheetah farms feed the cats by hand and care for them day and night. These cats on NamibRand did not grow up with their parents and would have been shot by the farmers who captured them if CCF or other groups do not take them in.
Enough said… but to see these cats go from essentially domestic cats to being released in the wild and slowly weaned away from meat handouts and being forced to learn how to hunt goes against a lot of research and thought that domestic cats are doomed in the wild. The 5 cats I’ve seen at NamibRand look healthy and obviously from the “war paint” faces are learning to work as a team.
“You’re very lucky. Not everyone gets to see the cheetahs, especially sitting on a kill site.”