Community Conservation

IRDNC – Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation – is a Namibian initiative working with rural communities to support conservation, sustainable livelihoods and the responsible management of natural resources.

At its heart, IRDNC focuses on helping people and wildlife coexist. In many of Namibia’s remote areas, communities live alongside elephants, lions and other wildlife outside national parks, making Human-Wildlife Conflict Management an important part of long-term conservation.

Namibia is a vast country with extraordinary landscapes that provide natural habitats for a huge variety of wildlife, including several species that have come under increasing pressure elsewhere in Africa through poaching and habitat loss.

One of the great conservation success stories in Namibia has been the role played by local communities. Community-based conservation has helped wildlife populations recover in many areas while also allowing rural communities to benefit economically from protecting the natural environment around them.

This approach lies at the heart of IRDNC’s work.

The organisation is particularly active in three of Namibia’s most remote regions – Kunene, Zambezi and Kavango East. These are also some of the country’s most rewarding areas to explore as a traveller, but they are home first and foremost to communities who share the landscape with wildlife every day.

IRDNC works with these communities to strengthen conservancies, manage natural resources sustainably and find practical ways to reduce conflict between people and wildlife.

Namibia was the first African country to include protection of the environment in its constitution, and community conservancies have since become a major part of the country’s conservation story. Large areas of communal land are now managed through conservancies, giving local communities a direct role in protecting wildlife and benefiting from tourism and conservation.

For travellers, understanding projects such as IRDNC adds another dimension to a journey through Namibia. The wildlife and remote landscapes we travel to see are closely connected to the people who live there and to the conservation work taking place behind the scenes.

If you are travelling through one of these regions, ask your consultant about appropriate community visits and conservation experiences that can be included in your itinerary.

To learn more about IRDNC and its current projects, visit:  IRDNC

As Leo Tolstoy once said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” We know that travel to Namibia will change you and in this way you can change the world too.