Extending the Namibian protected area networkto safeguard hotspots of endemism and diversity

PHOEBE BARNARD*, CHRISTOPHER J. BROWN, ALICE M. JARVISand ANTONY ROBERTSONNamibian National Biodiversity Programme, Directorate of Environmental A�airs, Ministry of Environment

and Tourism, Private Bag 13306, Windhoek, Namibia

LEON VAN ROOYENDirectorate of Resource Management, Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Private Bag 13306, Windhoek,

Namibia

Namibia's state protected area network (PAN) covers 13.8% of the country's land area, but is

seriously inadequate as a basis for e�ective biodiversity conservation. The early parks system was notdesigned with biological diversity in mind, and re¯ects instead a history of ideological, economic andveterinary considerations. Currently, parks in the Namib Desert biome make up 69% of the PAN,

while savanna and woodland biomes are somewhat underrepresented (7.5 and 8.4% of their re-spective land areas), and the Karoo biome is badly underrepresented (1.6%). Four of 14 desertvegetation types are comprehensively protected, with 67 to 94% representation in the PAN, yet six

savanna types have 0 to 2% representation by area. Mountain Savanna, a vegetation type unique toNamibia, is wholly unprotected. The status of two marine reserves, which in theory protect only0.01% of Namibia's marine environment, needs clari®cation and augmentation with new reserves.Nearly 85% of Namibia's land is zoned for agriculture, so e�ective biodiversity protection means

working outside the PAN to improve the sustainability and diversity of farming practices. Wildlifeconservancies on commercial and communal farmlands show excellent potential to mitigate theecological skew in the state PAN, with the ecological management of large areas being decentralized

to rural communities in habitats otherwise neglected for conservation. Two important endemismzones, the Kaoko escarpment and coastal plain and the Sperrgebiet succulent steppe, plus thespecies-rich Caprivi area, o�er three valuable opportunities for regional consolidation of protected

areas into transboundary `peace parks' or biosphere reserves.

Keywords: protected area network; conservation history; endemism; conservancy; biosphere reserve.

Introduction

This paper has four aims. First, we sketch a brief history of the protected area network inNamibia, showing how it was shaped by sociopolitical factors which were unrelated to theconservation of biological diversity in a broad sense. Second, we compare the current statePAN to two broad levels of ecological classi®cation (biomes and vegetation types) to givea simple quantitative index of its adequacy in protecting Namibian biodiversity. Third, welook qualitatively at the emerging alternatives to formal protected areas (jointly managedconservancies on commercial and communal agricultural lands, private nature reservesand game farms) to assess the extent to which they can potentially balance the ecologicalskew in the state PAN. Finally, we identify priority areas and types of Namibian

*To whom correspondence should be addressed.

0960-3115 Ó 1998 Chapman & Hall

Biodiversity and Conservation 7, 531±547 (1998)

vegetation which need additional conservation attention to safeguard biodiversity. Wesee this paper as a platform on which to build an area-selection analysis in the future.

Namibia's protected area network and its history

At ®rst glance, Namibia has an impressively high percentage of its land area under stateconservation protection, one of the highest of any country in Africa (World ResourcesInstitute, 1996). Twenty-one parks and other protected areas under state control (Ap-pendix 1) account for 114 080 km2, or 13.8% of the land surface, with an increasingamount additionally protected by private reserves and jointly-managed wildlife cons-ervancies. Within Africa, only Botswana and Tanzania, also semi-arid to arid countries,have proportionately more land committed to conservation as judged by IUCN categoriesI-V (World Resources Institute, 1996). Marine habitats in Namibia are unprotected inpractice, although in theory about 49 km (about 3%) of the subtidal near-shore marineenvironment and 0.01% of the overall marine environment is covered by two presentlyunenforced marine reserves. Three coastal and one inland wetland totalling 6296 km2

(<0.8% of Namibia's land area) are Ramsar sites of international importance. However,most other wetlands, including river systems, are unprotected or ine�ectively protectedfrom degradation (Curtis et al., this issue).

Unfortunately, the high percentage of land in the protected area network probablyre¯ects less the values attached to conservation than the unsuitability of the land foragriculture, particularly in the ®rst half of this century. Historical processes shaping thePAN included veterinary control and, more profoundly, South Africa's experiments inapartheid social engineering (Schoeman, 1996). The history of conservation in Namibiaprior to independence in 1990 re¯ects the bitter land con¯icts of the colonial era, whichincreasingly alienated rural people from their traditional land and biological resources.Both the German and South African colonial governments parcelled out the disease-free,fertile savannas to white livestock farmers, and marginal lands to black farmers and lessin¯uential whites (Adams and Werner, 1990). Arid lands too marginal even for pasto-ralism were set aside for conservation or left as undesignated state land. Namibia's PANwas not designed with the primary aim of protecting biological diversity, other than largegame mammals, or of safeguarding ecological functions (Brown, 1992, 1996).

Conservation initiatives in Namibia have a surprisingly long history, however, given thecountry's traditional emphasis on resource-exploitation industries. Like many colonialfrontier territories, Namibia (earlier Deutsch-SuÈdwestafrika and South West Africa) had aboom-and-bust history. Its mineral, marine, and terrestrial game resources were all subjectto severe local depletion, especially in the 19th century. Hunting regulations were intro-duced under German colonial rule in 1892 to curb excessive hunting of game mammals.Reserves were ®rst discussed in 1902 as a means to stop tra�c of livestock and humans,especially hunters (Kutzner, 1995), and in 1907 the ®rst parks, then known as GameReserves 1, 2 and 3, were proclaimed through expropriation of tribal lands (Schoeman,1996). As well as protecting large mammals from overhunting, these reserves formedbu�er zones between the then-exclusively white commercial farmers in the central andsouthern regions and black subsistence farmers to the north (Schoeman, 1996). Thishelped to protect commercial farms from rinderpest and other diseases which had dev-astated livestock in the late 1890s (Schneider, 1994).

532 Barnard et al.

The vast Game Reserve No. 2, now Etosha National Park, originally covered roughly80 000 km2 (mapped by Berry, in press) and was the largest nature reserve in the world(Lovegrove, 1993). It included the endemics-rich escarpment and rugged coastal plain ofKaokoland, from the northern Kunene River border southwards more than 200 km to theHoarusib River. This enormous park allowed the westward seasonal migration of ele-phants, lions and other mammals as far as the Atlantic Ocean. However, until World WarII the Etosha section was administered largely for security and veterinary reasons by themilitary and police, and mammal populations were not well protected. In 1947 the Kaokosection of Game Reserve No. 2 was excised `for the sole use and occupation by natives',and over 3400 km2 were removed from the Etosha section for development as farms (de laBat, 1982). This was partly reversed in a strategic move in 1958, when valuable arable landto the east of Etosha (Game Reserve No. 1) was exchanged for a large game-rich corridorto the southwest, linking Etosha again to the Atlantic (de la Bat, 1982).

However, in the early sixties the Etosha National Park was dramatically diminished bythe master plan of South African `grand apartheid,' the Odendaal Commission of Enquiryinto South West Africa A�airs (Republic of South Africa, 1964). This extraordinarydocument laid out a detailed blueprint for development of South West Africa, promotingthe ideology of `separate development' in ethnically partitioned `homelands' through amassive social engineering scheme. Despite strong protest and detailed negotiations, theEtosha National Park was reduced by 72% through recommendations of the OdendaalCommission to its present size of 22 912 km2 (Berry, in press) by the re-allocation of landto the communal homelands of Owambo, Kaokoland and Damaraland (de la Bat, 1982;Schoeman, 1996). In the political climate of the times, land lost to Etosha and allocated totribal homelands was regarded as land e�ectively lost to conservation.

The South African colonial era (1915 to early 1990) did, however, see the overallexpansion and diversi®cation of the protected area network. A larger system of parks,game reserves and `recreation resorts' was established. There was little consistency in theuse of these terms. Most areas were initiated primarily as recreation areas, and theydisplaced and excluded local people from most direct monetary or other bene®ts. Theparks system was developed mainly in the period 1955±1980, starting with the establish-ment of an o�cial `Game Conservation Section' and a South West Africa Parks Board (dela Bat, 1982; Schoeman, 1996). These two bodies had no jurisdiction over the species-richnorthern communal lands, however, which were administered from afar by a Departmentof Bantu A�airs in Pretoria. This remote-control South African administration of com-munal lands failed miserably at keeping up a pretence of conservation, and is rememberedin Namibia today as a period of extraordinary corruption and widespread poaching bySouth African o�cials and others (Owen-Smith, 1996; Schoeman, 1996).

Under South African regulations of the 1950s and 1960s, farmers occupying statecommunal lands were increasingly cut o� from traditional rights of access to naturalresources (Jones, 1991, 1995). Commercial farmers, meanwhile, were granted legal own-ership of both the land and, after 1967, speci®ed game mammals on it as a means ofreversing downward trends in game populations. These disparities of natural resourceaccess, and the widespread resentment of government conservation policies and sta�which inevitably followed, became one of the most di�cult obstacles facing the newgovernment's environment ministry at independence in 1990 (Jones, 1991).

Namibia's political independence saw the fruition of e�orts to proclaim signi®cantreserves in the biologically diverse northeast of the country. It also ushered in a new era in

The Namibian protected area network 533

the way people and parks coexisted, and in the recognition that conservation could not becon®ned to formal reserves (Brown, 1992). Conservation management policies in nationalparks and game reserves remain focused on the active manipulation of the size andmovements of mammal populations, especially herbivores and large carnivores, throughfencing, waterpoint provision, animal translocation and selective culling. However, envi-ronmental conservation policies in broader terms have expanded signi®cantly from thisparks-focused, law enforcement-driven agenda to one more in line with the restoration ofrural people's rights over natural resources (Jones, 1995). As a result of this paradigmshift, the PAN is currently being augmented with numerous conservancies for wildlifemanagement, ecotourism and game hunting (see below).

Namibia's productive marine environment has su�ered from severe overexploitationand lack of local control, paralleling in some ways the history of terrestrial game species.Stocks of commercial pelagic ®sh were badly decimated in the 1960s and 1970s, andseveral species have undergone population bottlenecks likely to have diminished hetero-zygosity (O'Toole, 1997; Sakko, this issue). Both before and after independence, themarine environment has been controlled by ®sheries departments focused more on sup-porting commercial exploitation than protecting the marine ecosystem as a whole. Beforeindependence, this authority was based in Cape Town and did not adequately protectNamibian waters from heavy exploitation by both regional and foreign ®shing trawlers.Since independence, control has improved through the formation of a powerful Ministryof Fisheries and Marine Resources, the declaration of a 200 mile exclusive zone, andimproved capacity for surveillance and enforcement.

Representativeness of the state protected area network

Although the state PAN in Namibia is impressively large (Fig. 1), it is inadequate fore�ective biodiversity conservation at a national scale. Representation in the PAN ofNamibia's four major biomes (Table 1; mapped by Robertson et al., this issue) andspeci®c vegetation types (Fig. 2) is currently highly skewed. At the biome level, the NamibDesert parks, plus the Ai-Ais/Hunsberg Reserve Complex in the transition between theNamib and Karoo biomes, account for 69.3% of the PAN. Together with the saline desertof the Etosha National Park and the two small Karoo Biome parks (Fig. 1), these `desertparks' comprise almost 90% of the PAN. State protection of the Namib is augmentedfurther by a large (26 000 km2), privately protected diamond mining area in the ¯oris-tically rich southern Namib (code S in Fig. 1), known as the `Sperrgebiet' or forbiddenzone (Pallett, 1995). The Namib is thus comprehensively protected, with nearly 30% ofland classi®ed as Namib desert biome included in state parks alone (Table 1). By contrast,savanna and woodland biomes are somewhat underrepresented in the PAN (Table 1), andthe Karoo biome is substantially underrepresented, relative to the target of 10% (Brown,1992).

At a ®ner scale, six of Namibia's 14 major vegetation types (Giess, 1971) are adequatelyto very well protected, with more than 10% of their land area under state protection(Fig. 2). These are Northern Namib, Central Namib, Southern Namib, Saline Desert,Mopane Savanna, and the endemics-rich, winter rainfall Desert and Succulent Steppe.Four of these six types (all desert) can be described as comprehensively protected, withbetween 67 and 94% of their land areas in state reserves. Two vegetation types (ForestSavanna and Woodland, Semi-Desert and Savanna Transition) need minor additional

534 Barnard et al.

protection to reach the goal of ³10% representation of each vegetation type in the PAN(Brown, 1992). However, by stark contrast, six types of savanna have less than 2% rep-resentation: Mountain Savanna, Thornbush Savanna, Highland Savanna, Dwarf ShrubSavanna, Camelthorn Savanna, and Mixed Tree and Shrub Savanna (Fig. 2). Agriculturalmonocultures have dramatically transformed several of these savanna types, particularlyin the Mountain Savanna valleys, making it a matter of urgency to protect naturalportions remaining. Farming practices in Namibia vary widely in their environmental

Figure 1. Map of Namibian state protected area network and the vegetation zones of Giess (1971).S � Sperrgebiet diamond mining concession, currently not part of the state network.

The Namibian protected area network 535

impact, and poor land management through overstocking has led to soil erosion, loss ofgrass species diversity, and bush encroachment over some 14 million ha of savanna(Strobach, 1992; Quan et al., 1994). Numerous livestock and game farmers in Namibiapractice exemplary land management. However, good land management is expensive, andsuch practices may have been jeopardized by uncertainty about impending land reform inthe commercial areas, particularly at the time of independence (Quan et al., 1994), as wellas by open access to rangeland in the communal areas. As 85% of the country's land iszoned for actual or potential agricultural use (Ashley, 1996), it is therefore essential towork outside the state PAN to conserve biodiversity e�ectively.

Marine reserves are urgently needed in Namibia, where the productive Benguela up-welling system is heavily exploited commercially as a major sector of the country'seconomy. Industrial development, including coastal diamond mining and o�shore gasexploitation, potentially threatens intertidal and pelagic communities (Sakko, this issue).The coastline itself is well protected, with approximately 860 km (58%) of the 1489 kmcoast to the low-water mark included within the Skeleton Coast and Namib-NankluftParks and the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, and another 180 km (12%) under much lessstringent protection in the National West Coast Recreation Area. However, subtidallythere is no real protection. Hypothetically, about 49 km (3%) of the country's linear1489 km near-shore environment, and 0.01% of its overall marine environment, is pro-tected in two small marine reserves. There is legal uncertainty about the marine reserve atSandwich Harbour, an important Ramsar wetland on the coast of the Namib-NaukluftPark regarded as a ®sh nursery, recruitment and foraging site (Lenssen et al., 1991). A45 km stretch of coastline centred on Sandwich Harbour was incorporated into the park in1979, extending seaward 1.6 km from the low-water mark. However, since that time ajurisdictional dispute between the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and Ministry ofFisheries and Marine Resources, and con¯icting sectoral legislation, has thrown the re-serve's status into question. A second, small reserve (ca 4 km2) was declared by SouthAfrica before Namibia's independence to protect rock lobsters Jasus lalandii around theinshore island of Ichaboe, a seabird colony. It restricts only lobster harvesting, not otherharmful activities, and is largely unenforced. A shipwreck and oil spill on Ichaboe in 1996damaged this area badly (P. Tarr, pers. comm.). Although the Sea Fisheries Act (29 of1992) provides for the gazetting of marine reserves, none has ever been declared under thatAct, and the waters of these two sites are not managed as reserves by the Ministry ofFisheries and Marine Resources. There is thus an urgent need for these and additional

Table 1. Distribution of state-controlled protected areas in the four major biomes of Namibiaa

Proportion

of land

Total

protected

Proportion

of biome

Number of protected areas

per size category (km2 ´ 100):Biome area (%) area (km2) (%) <1 1±10 10±200 >200

Woodland 17 11 766 8.4 1 3 3 0Savanna 37 22 704 7.5 4 1 0 1

Namib 32 77 728 29.7 1 1 3 1Karoo 14 1882 1.6 0 2 0 0

Total/mean 100 114 080 13.8 6 7 6 2

aMajor biomes as in Robertson et al. (this issue, Fig. 1).

536 Barnard et al.

Figure 2. Percentage representation of Giess' (1971) 14 major types of vegetation in the country as a whole (dark bars) and in state protected areas(white bars). Numbers atop the bar are percentage representation in the protected area network.

TheNamibianprotected

area

netw

ork

537

marine areas, including other coastal Ramsar wetlands such as Walvis Bay (see Curtiset al., this issue) to be strategically identi®ed, proclaimed, and e�ectively managed.

Wildlife conservancies

To what extent is the ecological skew in the state-controlled PAN mitigated by other formsof protection, such as conservancies, private nature reserves and game farms? The answer,so far, is surprisingly well. Conservancies are land units jointly managed for resourceconservation purposes by multiple landholders, with ®nancial and other bene®ts sharedbetween them in some way. They occur on both private (commercial) and tribal (com-munal) land. Most aim to enhance habitat for, and numbers of, game species such asungulates or gamebirds, and many draw income from tourism ventures (Barnes and deJager, 1996). Over one million hectares (10 000 km2) of land on commercial farmland hasso far been consolidated into nine conservancies, ranging in size from 600 to 2300 km2 andbound by constitutions and ecologically-sensitive land management plans (J.L.V. de Jager,pers. comm.; Barnes and de Jager, 1996). These are in the Highland Savanna (threeconservancies), Thornbush Savanna (two), Forest Savanna and Woodland (one),Mountain Savanna and Karstveld (one), Mopane Savanna (one) and Camelthorn Sav-anna (one), with several conservancies overlapping adjacent vegetation types slightly.Other commercial conservancies are at early stages of formation. Many are increasing insize, as formerly skeptical landowners agree to join existing conservancies (J.L.V. de Jager,pers. comm.).

Communal land conservancies also show excellent potential for balancing the statePAN in terms of representativeness, and these communal conservancies will mainly bevery large. As of mid-1997, ®ve large communal conservancies have submitted formalproposals for gazetting. One of these is an area of about 9023 km2 managed by Ju¢//Hoan(San) people at Nyae Nyae in the ecologically diverse northeastern pan region of theForest Savanna and Woodland vegetation type (J. Tagg and P. Skyer, pers. comm.).Another is an arid region of almost twice this size in the former western corridor of GameReserve No. 2 , stretching along the eastern boundary of the Skeleton Coast Park. Thisconservancy will cover Northern Namib, Central Namiba and Mopane Savanna vegeta-tion types. The proximity of the Etosha and Skeleton Coast Parks o�ers considerabledirect and indirect economic bene®ts to rural communities in these western regions(Ashley, 1995), making ecotourism and conservancy management a very attractive landuse option. Ultimately, we expect that about 50% of the land formerly occupied by GameReserve No. 2 in the Kaoko region will again be protected, in this case by communalconservancies (J. Tagg and B.T.B. Jones, pers. comm.). Not only will this provide in-centives for communities to safeguard land identi®ed as having a high conservation valuefor endemic species (Simmons et al., this issue), but it will create a mosaic of formal andinformal protected areas extending across the border to Iona National Park in southernAngola. Numerous other communal conservancies are also developing in the tropicalForest Savanna and Woodland region of the northeast, including an area of roughly910 km2 joining the Mudumu and Mamili National Parks.

Conservancy management is a land use in addition, not in opposition, to traditionalfarming. It can thus diversify people's livelihoods, broaden their resource dependence as ameans of coping with drought, and potentially double household incomes (Barnes, 1995).Many rural communities have been stimulated to form conservancies by the government's

538 Barnard et al.

recent policy to return resource management rights and responsibilities to carefully de®nedconservancy committees with an approved constitution (Jones, 1995). Most communitieswhich have expressed a desire to form conservancies with government assistance are ex-pected to have formalised them by the year 1999 (J. Tagg, pers. comm.). To compete withother land uses, however, all wildlife-based initiatives must remain ®nancially and eco-nomically competitive (Richardson, this issue), which means making optimal and sus-tainable use of wildlife resources. Any actions undermining the principle of sustainablewildlife use may, therefore, jeopardize biodiversity conservation aims in Namibia.

Private reserves and game farms

Private nature reserves and game farms, both on commercial land, are potentially lesspermanent categories of conservation land in Namibia. These land uses di�er chie¯y in theintensity of management and direct utilisation. Private reserves are often based on scenicand biological diversity, and hunting is not allowed, whereas game farms normallymanage land explicitly to maximize production of desirable species. Private nature reservesare subject to the most stringent restrictions on land use. Often run as guest farms, theynormally generate less income than game farms, from which tourism fees, trophy huntingfees, and meat income can all be derived (Ashley and Barnes, 1996; Barnes and de Jager,1996). There is thus a fair turnover of private reserves as some owners opt to deproclaimthem and convert to game farming.

Game farming is increasing rapidly in Namibia, with about 420±450 farms currentlyclassed as game and hunting farms (J.L.V. de Jager, pers. comm.), partly because much ofthe country is only marginally suitable for sedentary livestock farming. Although gamefarms are sometimes intensively managed to bene®t selected game species, using methodssuch as ®re and chemical control of woody vegetation, their biodiversity conservationvalue is generally perceived to be higher than that of livestock farms (Quan et al., 1994;Ashley and Barnes, 1996). This remains to be tested, however. It is also not clear how theactive management of land for game may a�ect the biodiversity value of land relative tolow-management uses, such as private nature reserves.

Threats to the current protected area network

Security of tenure is the primary concern in safeguarding the existing PAN, whether statecontrolled, individually owned, or managed collectively on commercial or communal land.Despite Namibia's history of park deproclamation for political and ideological ends, moststate protected areas appear secure under its ®rst independent government. The country'scurrent President, Dr Sam Nujoma, favours the implementation of environmentally ap-propriate land reform, involving the maintenance and expansion of the PAN in collabo-ration with rural communities as managers and bene®ciaries of natural resources(Nujoma, 1997). This may not always be the case with future governments, and vigilance isrequired to ensure that the ideals of Namibia's constitution, which explicitly safeguardsbiological diversity and essential ecological processes (Article 95 L) are not corrupted forexpedient ends in the future. Poor coordination between government ministries may pose asubstantial threat to the long-term tenure of conservancies and other areas. Large parts ofthe state PAN are also vulnerable to potentially con¯icting land uses such as mining, and

The Namibian protected area network 539

the country's environmental assessment policy (Tarr, 1995) must be stringently appliedinside as well as outside protected areas.

The need for additional protected areas

Making the network more evenly representative of ecological diversity will not be an easytask, despite a reasonably favourable political climate. Namibia's recent biodiversitycountry assessment (Barnard, 1998, and papers in this issue: Curtis et al.; M. Gri�n; R.E.Gri�n; Maggs et al.; Robertson et al.; Simmons et al.) identi®es priority areas of thecountry in terms of taxon richness, endemism and conservation threat. The followingsection summarises, at a coarse scale, priority areas for greater legal protection and/orconsolidation in conservation areas (Table 2). However, given the pressures of a 3%

Table 2. Priority areas for additional conservation protection in Namibia

Region Vegetation zones Suggested approach/comments

1. Kaoko escarpment,Brandberg and nearbyinselbergs and domes

Mopane Savanna,Semi-Desert andSavanna Transition

Transboundary contractual parkwith multi-use conservancy zoneslinking Skeleton Coast, Etosha

and Iona (Angola) National Parks.Would protect important ephemeralriver and inselberg habitats. Top

endemism zone.

2. Sperrgebiet Desert andSucculent Steppe

Transboundary biosphere reservelinking Namib-Naukluft andRichtersveld (South Africa)

National Parks. High richnessand endemism zone.

3. Caprivi woodlands,

river ¯oodplains

Forest Savanna

and Woodland

Transboundary `peace park' or

biosphere reserve linking MahangoGame Reserve, Caprivi Game Park,Chobe National Park (Botswana)

and Okavango Delta (Botswana)with multi-use conservancies ineastern Caprivi. High richness zone.

4. Otavi Mountains Mountain Savannaand Karstveld

Formally protected area tosupplement conservancy, protectingkarst sinkhole endemics and sitesof botanical importance. High

richness and endemism zone.

5. Brukkaros Crater Dwarf Shrub Savanna Communal conservancy site/siteof special scienti®c interest for

endemics.

6. Sandwich Harbour (Coastal estuary) Legally strengthened and clari®edmarine reserve. Important

Ramsar wetland.

540 Barnard et al.

human population growth rate (Population Planning Unit, 1994) and land reform needs,there is a need for a ®ner scale area-selection analysis to identify precise sites within thelarger regions where hotspots of richness, endemism and conservation threat in varioustaxa coincide (Rebelo, 1994; Lombard, 1995; Hacker et al., 1998). This paper lays part ofthe groundwork for such an analysis.

Criteria for conservation prioritization

Criteria for identifying priority conservation areas di�er in value under di�erent cir-cumstances. Namibia's predominantly arid, ancient landscapes are characterized more bytaxonomically distinct endemics than by high overall species richness (Simmons et al., thisissue), although the country also has several internationally important areas of bioticrichness (Table 2). Other than birds (Robertson et al., this issue), most Namibian taxa areinsu�ciently known systematically, biogeographically and ecologically to attempt a ®ne-scale, quantitative area-selection analysis based on algorithm methods (e.g. Williams, inpress). We therefore consider ®ve simple, qualitative indices for evaluating broad priorityareas for conservation: taxon richness, endemism, representation, conservation threat, andunique habitats and landscapes. These are brie¯y treated in turn below.

Taxon richness. In terms of overall species richness for many taxa, Namibia's top priorityareas are the wetlands and woodlands of the Caprivi and Okavango Regions (see papers inthis issue: Curtis et al.; M. Gri�n; R.E. Gri�n; Maggs et al.; Robertson et al.). Thisre¯ects the availability of surface water in an otherwise arid to semi-arid landscape and thea�nities of taxa in those regions to tropical central African biota (e.g. M. Gri�n, thisissue). However, for some essentially arid or specialized taxa, such as solifuges, scorpionsand succulent plants, high species richness coincides with areas of high endemism in theNorthern, Central and Southern Namib and Desert/Succulent Steppe vegetation types (seepapers in this issue: R.E. Gri�n; Maggs et al.; Simmons et al.). These desert habitats areextremely well protected and are not under immediate threat, but the Okavango andCaprivi Regions need ®ne-scale identi®cation of sites of high biodiversity value to augmentconservancies and state parks.

Endemism. Namibia's two priority areas for endemism are in the northwest and southwest(Simmons et al., this issue). These are the Kaoko escarpment, along with the nearbyinselbergs and granite domes of the Kunene and Erongo Regions, and the Sperrgebietwinter-rainfall region in the Desert and Succulent Steppe vegetation type (S in Fig. 1). Theendemics-rich Kaoko escarpment, previously contained within Game Reserve No. 2,forms an important regional centre of endemism (e.g. Kingdon, 1990). This escarpment,including the Brandberg massif and granite domes of the Omaruru District (ErongoRegion), is the most important endemism hotspot for vertebrate taxa in both Namibia andAngola (Simmons et al., this issue, and references therein). The Brandberg is a NationalMonument in view of its rock art, but in all other respects the Kaoko escarpment is notformally protected.

The Sperrgebiet is part of the Southern Namib centre of endemism, abutting theRichtersveld succulent steppe of South Africa (Maggs et al., this issue). The 26 000 km2

Sperrgebiet diamond mining area has been e�ectively sealed o� from public access sinceabout 1910, and has since been managed by multinational diamond interests (Pallett,1995). The lease for this biotically valuable and endemics-rich area expires in about 2020,

The Namibian protected area network 541

at which time the Sperrgebiet may be included in a biosphere reserve adjoining the ¯o-ristically rich Richtersveld National Park in South Africa (Grobler, 1997). Sections of thisarea have already been abandoned by the mining concessionaire, but will remain under itsprotection until a thorough land use plan is developed (P. Tarr, pers. comm.).

Optimal protection of both the Kaoko and Southern Namib centres of endemismrequires transboundary conservation, and indeed this has been discussed by all threecountries for some years (Grobler, 1997). If the Kaoko and Sperrgebiet regions can beincorporated into biosphere reserves by Namibia, this would create an unparalleled andunbroken multi-zoned conservation area stretching from southern Angola (Iona NationalPark) to northern South Africa (Richtersveld National Park). The ecological uniquenessand endemism of this landscape is extraordinary by regional and international standards.

More localized centres of endemism identi®ed by Simmons et al. (this issue) and Curtiset al. (this issue) include the extinct volcanic crater of Brukkaros and the karst caves andsinkholes of the Mountain Savanna vegetation type. Ephemeral pools and mineral springs,and `islands' of dune, gravel plain, mountains and rocky hillsides in the Namib Deserthabitat mosaic, are intrinsically valuable for endemics (Curtis et al., this issue; R.E.Gri�n, this issue). Major regional river systems, such as the Okavango and Zambezi,contain numerous `catchment endemics' (Curtis et al., this issue) which require regionalprotection via established international committees. The highest avian endemism in Na-mibia occurs locally within the Kaoko escarpment zone at the intersection of vegetationtypes containing rocky terrain (especially granite domes) and major river courses (Rob-ertson et al., this issue). These latter habitats fall largely on private farmland, and deserveurgent action in cooperation with landowners to ensure long-term protection.

Representation. `Representation' is here de®ned as the degree to which an ecological unit isalready represented in the protected area network. This paper has identi®ed glaring gaps inthe PAN at the level of both biome (Karoo biome) and vegetation type (six types ofsavanna: Mountain, Thornbush, Highland, Dwarf Shrub, Camelthorn and Mixed Tree/Shrub Savannas). Protection of signi®cant areas in these severely underrepresented orwholly unrepresented ecological units is a national priority. As a second priority, Namibiamust identify sites to supplement the somewhat underrepresented Semi-desert/SavannaTransition (along the southern Kaoko escarpment in the Erongo and southwesternKhomas Regions) and Forest Savanna and Woodland vegetation types. The former typeof vegetation, due to its importance for endemic species, and the latter, due to its overallspecies richness, warrant ®eldwork to identify sites with high rank scores for lesser knowntaxa. As a start, we recommend the immediate ®eld appraisal of inselberg sites on privatefarmland north and northeast of the Naukluft Mountains, such as the Gamsberg andHakosberg.

This paper has relied on biomes and vegetation types as indices of overall biologicaldiversity. It has not generally discussed species-level representation in the PAN, becausetaxa other than birds are insu�ciently known for detailed analysis. In simple terms ofspecies occurrence, the PAN is surprisingly e�ective, but we know virtually nothing aboutwhether parks contain viable populations of most taxa. For example, 95% of Namibianterrestial mammal species are expected to occur at least marginally in the existing PAN,and 28% probably occur in ten or more conservation areas (M. Gri�n, this issue).However, except for some large herbivores and predators, we have little idea of mammalpopulation viability in parks. Analysis of population viability within the Namibian PAN

542 Barnard et al.

for priority (endemic and red data) species of di�erent taxa is urgently needed. For en-demic birds, Jarvis and Robertson (1997) have estimated population sizes and viabilitywithin four Namibian parks, and conclude that the PAN is probably inadequate forprotecting most endemic bird species. This approach serves as a model for application toother Namibian taxa.

Conservation threat. The identi®cation of priority sites for protection based on conser-vation threat or `endangerment' (sensu Hacker et al., 1998), at the habitat level, is bestdone on the basis of comprehensive red data lists and atlasses. Draft red data books forNamibia have been drawn up only for birds (C.J. Brown, A.J. Williams and P. Barnard, inpreparation), mammals, reptiles, and amphibians (all by M. Gri�n, in preparation). Arecent regional plant red data book (Hilton-Taylor, 1996) and bird atlas (Harrison et al.,1997) cover Namibia, and a national tree atlas is underway (B.A. Curtis and C.A.Mannheimer, in preparation). Broad conclusions for threatened bird habitats apply rea-sonably well to other taxa. Wetland birds are a major red data category (Brown et al., inpreparation), and wetland mammals are also generally at risk in Namibia (M. Gri�n, thisissue). Conserving wetlands is di�cult in an arid country like Namibia, but prioritiesinclude sections of riverine vegetation in the Okavango, Zambezi and Kunene River ba-sins, the karst caves and sinkhole lakes of the Mountain Savanna, and ephemeral pans,springs and seeps (Curtis et al., this issue). Many small wetlands in the latter categoriesoccur within the Namib Desert parks, Sperrgebiet, or Nyae-Nyae conservancy, but ad-ditional protection is required at others. Designation as `sites of speci®c interest' may assistin specifying and protecting these and other key sites, and legislation is planned to supportthis category of small protected area.

Unique habitats and landscapes. Finally, Namibia's value in terms of conservation andtourism lies as much with its extraordinarily rugged, scenic landscapes as with its im-pressive and distinct biological diversity (Baker, 1996; Barnard, 1998). The Kaoko es-carpment, including its associated inselbergs and its central and southern sections in theErongo, Khomas, Hardap and Karas Regions, is one of the most distinctive major fea-tures of the Namibian landscape. The dune ®elds, inselbergs, rocky hills and gravel plainsof the Namib Desert are well protected in the Namib parks, but the adjoining escarpmentregion presently lies outside the PAN. Considering the escarpment's immense value inbiological, cultural and scenic wilderness terms (e.g. Owen-Smith, 1996), it is a priority foradditional protection, largely via conservancies (Table 2). The Mountain Savanna vege-tation type represents a unique habitat in Namibia, with impressive ¯oristic richness(Maggs et al., this issue) and unique, endemics-rich limestone wetland formations (Curtiset al., this issue). A small (600 km2) commercial conservancy has been established in thisarea, but additional protection of karst and botanical features is urgently needed.

Principles for expanding the protected area network

This paper has shown that the existing state-controlled protected area network, althoughlarge, is not representative of Namibia's terrestrial biodiversity. Marine biodiversity iscurrently essentially unprotected, and freshwater diversity faces considerable threats insome areas (Curtis et al., this issue). However, the biodiversity conservation e�ectivenessof the state-controlled PAN, as judged by the representation within protected areas of

The Namibian protected area network 543

biomes and vegetation types, is considerably enhanced by alternative approaches toconservation, including conservancies on commercial and communal lands, private naturereserves, and private game farms.

Improving the design of Namibia's protected areas in terms of representativeness andpopulation viability requires not only the opportunistic supplementation of the PAN withland units under alternative conservation approaches. It also requires a careful analysis,using landscape ecology and conservation biology principles, of the existing areas, theirrelative distribution, their taxonomic complementarity, and corridors which may need tobe created to increase their ecological viability. Since the radical excision of large, en-demics-rich parts of Game Reserve No. 2, there has never been a protected area in Na-mibia which could realistically be called `viable' for all taxa. In many respects, Namibia isa case history of how not to develop a protected area network. However, despite itshaphazard origins and skew in ecological representation, the parks system is a reasonableframework on which to build a more representative mosaic of formal and informal con-servation areas. Strategically augmented with alternative conservation strategies, and withcarefully identi®ed and designed sites under formal protection, Namibia's PAN will muchmore comprehensively safeguard its precious biological diversity.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to DoÈ rthe Holme and John Mendelsohn for supplying us with digitalinformation; Hu Berry, Dave Boyer, Rod Braby, Tana Burger, Anton Esterhuysen, Jean-Paul Roux, Rob Simmons, Flip Steyn and Peter Tarr for data and perspectives on indi-vidual protected areas; Mick de Jager, Brian Jones, Patricia Skyer, Jo Tagg and ChrisWeaver for information on commercial and communal land conservancies; and NicoKisting and J Kutzner (both of the National Archives), Rob Simmons, Danie Grobler,Rob Blackie, Jo Tagg, Brian Jones and Helmut zur Strassen for discussing historical mapsof the PAN. Jon Barnes, Hu Berry, Guy Cowlishaw, Brian Jones, Pauline Lindeque, MikeGri�n and Rob Simmons reviewed earlier drafts. We acknowledge with gratitude ®nan-cial support to the National Biodiversity Programme by the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme, Deutsche Gesellschaft fuÈ r Technische Zusammenarbeit, and Namibia NatureFoundation.

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Appendix 1. Namibia's state-controlled protected areasa

Park Area (km2) Established Comments

1. Etosha National Park 93 240.00 1907amended 89 834.00 1947amended 99 526.00 1958amended 27 554.00 1963 Odendaal report

amended 22 912.00 1975 1997 measurements (ODA)2. Namib-Naukluft Park 49 768.00 1907 amended 1968, 1979, 1986, 1989,

1990

3. Gross Barmen Hot Springs 0.10 19684. Caprivi Game Park 5715.00 19685. Hardap Recreation Resort 251.77 1968

6. Daan Viljoen Game Park 39.53 19687. Cape Cross Seal Reserve 60.00 19698. Ai-Ais/Hunsberg Reserve

Complex461.17 1969 then called Ai-Ais Hot Springs

amended 3461.17 1988 Huns Mts incorporated 19889. South West Nature Park 0.04 197010. Skeleton Coast Park 8000.00 1971

amended 17 450.00 197311. Waterberg Plateau Park 405.49 197212. Von Bach Recreation Resort 42.85 1972

13. Nat'l West Coast Recreation Area 13 000.00 1973amended 7800.00 1974

14. Nat'l Diamond Coast

Recreation Area

50.49 1977

15. Naute Recreation Resort 224.62 198816. Mangetti Game Camp 482.92 198817. Popa Game Park 0.25 1989

18. Mahango Game Park 244.62 198919. Khaudum Game Park 3841.62 198920. Mudumu National Park 1009.59 1990

21. Mamili National Park 319.92 1990

Total 114 079.98

aUpdated from Baker (1996). As not all parks have been precisely measured with moderntechniques, size data for some may not yet be de®nitive.

The Namibian protected area network 547