Clemencia Jacobs - Clemencia@economist.com.na
12 December 2008
Windhoek — The Ministry of Environment and Tourism will auction nine trophy hunting concessions located on State land and game on 19 December.
The concession areas to be auctioned are located in the Mahango Game Park, east and western Kavango, the Mangetti National Park, the Waterberg Plateau Park, the Daan Viljoen and Von Bach game parks, the Namib Naukluft Park.Also up for grabs are three rhinoceros concessions, which are yet to be identified.
Dr Kalumbi Shangula, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, said that since the establishment of trophy hunting concessions in 1992, similar auctions had been held, adding that these auctions were an important source of revenue.
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"The ministry sees trophy hunting as an effective way of harvesting wildlife populations in a sustainable manner and removing animals that are too old to reproduce from wildlife populations, whilst providing the maximum revenue from the wildlife resource," said Shangula in a statement.
He said trophy hunting can play a beneficial role in Namibia's rural areas as a means of creating employment, empowering formerly disadvantaged Namibians, contributing to the management and control of human/wildlife conflicts and providing meat for distribution to traditional authorities and rural communities.
Income generated from the auctions go towards the Game Product Trust Fund and will be re-invested in the conservation and management of the country's protected areas, as well as funding rural areas' wildlife projects.
Following the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species' (CITES) approval of an annual quota of five black rhinoceros, the ministry will also offer black rhinos for trophy hunting. The ministry will identify old post-productive males for this purpose, it said.
Other animals that will be on auction include buffaloes, white rhino, lion, leopard, elephant, giraffe, eland, hippopotamus, crocodile, roan and sable antelope, kudu, Oryx, lechwe, blue wildebeest, Burchell and Wartmann zebras, impala, reed buck and springbok.
Only Namibian companies owned by or employing registered professional hunters will be allowed to bid.
Hunters interested in elephant, rhinoceros, buffaloes and lion concessions, must also be registered for trophy hunting of big game. Black empowerment trophy hunting companies will be given preference
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