New tourism concessions in National Parks to benefit community conservancies in Namibia

Abstract

part to the provision of 49% matched funding by Millennium Challenge Account–Namibia and the improved financial climate for tourism. In July 2011 three conservancies were given tourism rights over the Palmwag concession, which forms the core of Africa's largest unfenced rhino population. Wilderness Safaris, which had previously held the concession, now became sub-concessionaire for the existing Desert Rhino Camp and a new camp, and another operator took over the existing Palmwag Lodge. A new set of concessions, awarded in October 2013, included two sites in the Skeleton Coast National Park, two additional sites in Bwabwata National Park and one in Mamili National Park. Two conservancies on the northern boundary of Etosha National Park were given private gates into the Park and exclusive traversing rights, greatly enhancing the value of tourism facilities on the Park boundary. Three of these conservancies have existing private-sector partners and the others will need to go through a competitive tender process to find investors. The new concessions should generate c. 250 new full-time jobs for local people and up to NAD 5 million (USD 500,000) per year in additional income to communal conservancies. Approximately 75% of this typically goes to supporting operations, including community game guards, and the rest is distributed as benefits in cash or in kind to conservancy members. These new concessions will further strengthen Namibia's communal conservancies, generally acknowledged to be the most successful example of community-based natural resource management in Africa. This is timely as the concessions in the Skeleton Coast National Park and Palmwag Concession Area will provide additional income to conservancies that have so far provided effective protection for the largest free-ranging black rhino popu-lation. New population of Abbott's duiker and other species' range records in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania Vertebrate surveys in the ancient and endemic-rich Afromontane forests of Tanzania continue to reveal new species and range extensions. Here we report on a survey conducted during October–November 2013 in the Udzungwa Mountains, the southernmost and largest block within the renowned Eastern Arc Mountains. The target forest, Iyondo, is part of the Kilombero Nature Reserve, which was gazetted in 2007 to allocate upgraded protection status to a number of forest reserves to the west and south of the Udzungwa Mountains National Park (Oryx, 41, 429–430). Within this protected area Iyondo is the south-westernmost forest patch, with an extension of 28 km 2 , comprising mostly pristine montane moist forest at elevations of 1,200–1,900 m. As far as we are aware only one biological survey has been conducted previously in this forest, targeted mainly at primates. Our survey targeted medium–large mammals and forest birds. For mammals we used camera-trapping and oppor-tunistic observations. We deployed 16 digital camera-traps each for a maximum of 40 days, resulting in a total sampling effort of 635 camera-days. To maximize captures, cameras were set opportunistically along wildlife trails. Forest birds were surveyed using a combination of mist netting and observations. Netting was carried out for 7 days, using 12 12-m-long nets. After identification the birds were released. Camera-trapping yielded 2,320 photographs or video-clips of 12 species of mammals belonging to 11 genera. The most significant record was of Abbott's duiker Cephalophus spadix, which was captured on three occasions. This is a large, Endangered duiker endemic to Tanzania, restricted to a few montane forests, with Udzungwa being considered the species' stronghold (Oryx, 46, 14–15). In Udzungwa Abbott's duiker occurs in most of the largest forest blocks but is known to be heavily hunted in unprotected sites, and thus this additional record is of considerable conservation relevance. Among the other forest mammals detected was Lowe's servaline genet Genetta servalina lowei, which was captured on camera-traps on 14 separate occasions. This genet subspecies is endemic to moist forests in the Eastern Arc Mountains (Oryx, 40, 468–471). Besides the camera-trapped species we also sighted a galago whose identification requires confirmation but which may be a new record of the mountain galago Galagoides orinus. We also confirmed the presence of the Udzungwa-endemic red colobus monkey Procolobus gordonorum, along with the Angolan colobus Colobus angolensis and Sykes' monkey Cercopithecus mitis monoides/moloneyi. Sixty species of montane forest birds were recorded, including the Vulnerable Udzungwa-endemic rufous-winged sunbird Nectarinia rufipennis. Other Red-Listed bird species recorded were the white-winged apalis Apalis chariessa, dapple-throat Arcanator orostruthus and Swynnerton's robin Swynnertonia swynnertoni (all Vulnerable) and the Endangered Usambara weaver Ploceus nicolli. Overall our survey confirmed that Iyondo is a typical Eastern Arc montane forest, with many restricted-range species. Despite being remote and comprising predomi-nantly steep terrain, we found signs of human encroach-ment in the form of hunting, tree logging and pole cutting.