Why Has Human–Carnivore Conflict Not Been Resolved in Namibia?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Social, political, and economic drivers of human–wildlife conflict on commercial farms in Namibia.

Table 1. Main themes that emerged from the data on the human dimensions that affected human–wildlife conflict on farms, with supporting quotes from respondents who reported either more or less poaching, theft, and depredation.

Themes that influence human–wildlife conflict	Quotes from interviews
	Farms with more reported poaching, theft, and livestock depredation	Farms with less reported poaching, theft and livestock depredation
Macro
Surplus of labor	“There are so many people without jobs that if a person doesn’t want to work for such a low salary, someone else will; so the white people are still in power.”—farm worker, FW12	“There’s not enough employment in the country to get another job, so I need to stay here.”—farm worker, FW1
Unequal resource distribution	“If you ask for help from your boss, such as a loan, but the boss doesn’t pay you, then you feel angry towards him, which is why you might poach.”—farm worker, FW6	“All of the thefts are from inside information … Some farms round here have a big problem with it … I think maybe because the workers feel a sense of entitlement.”—farmer, FR6
Lack of worker education	“Those who have a better education go and work in the towns because they get a better salary; it’s only the very uneducated that go to work on farms.”—farmer, FR22	“One of the main reasons why poaching and theft goes on so much is because the education system is broken; people in public schools are shifted from grade to grade without proper examination so that by the time they leave at grade 10 some can’t even read or write. This means they’re not properly educated so can’t get a good job, so many people are unemployed. So to get by they need to steal or poach.”—farmer, FR4
Decreasing profitability of farming	“You farm with 4 people but in the past you have 10 people, where are the other 6 people? They’re not working now. Where must they get food? From these guys who work, or by stealing.”—farmer, FR5	“Many farmers believe it is cheaper to kill the carnivores than spend money on labour.” - farmer, FR21
Micro
Disparity in living conditions	“I live in a metal shack next to the pigs, which gives me asthma. My boss lives in a 3-level mansion with a swimming pool. It’s unfair.”—farm worker, FW18	“The last farm I worked on was nice. I had my own house, TV, chickens, garden … Other farms I worked on it wasn’t like that, so I didn’t care about my job as much.”—unemployed farm worker, UF2
Racist treatment of workers by farmers	“These vultures [workers] come from their nests [the communal areas] to work for us … They’re bobbejaans [Afrikaans for “baboons”].”—farmer, FR12	“When you’re respected, you try harder, you look after the herd better, you don’t want to annoy your boss.”—unemployed farm worker, UF7
Ineffective worker management	“I think that all workers sometime steal and kill livestock. I would say 90% of people doing this is when there are a dispute and the workers want revenge.”—farmer, FR7	“If you treat your workers well they will not steal from you.”—farm worker, FW2.
Ineffective livestock management	“During lambing we don’t count the sheep in order for not to disturb the flock too much. We just move them to the next camp and that’s it. I can’t tell you exact numbers of how much, how many lambs did the jackal did eat.”—farmer, FR20	“I lost a lot of livestock mainly to not paying enough attention … I think from all the losses I had on the farm, 90% was related to managed, 10% to predators. I spent 90% of my time on trying to kill leopards and jackals. I then focused on improving my management, and by doing that one, I automatically addressed the problems of losses to predators.”—farm manager, FM2
Low salaries	“If you’re not paid enough, you have to get meat from somewhere.”—farm worker, FW20	“The farm workers nowadays, they need to have housing, they need to have water, electricity there, they have social security. I don’t see that as a drawback; these things improve staff morale so we have a more productive farm with fewer losses to predators.”—farmer, FR2
Workers blamed predators for stolen livestock	“We would sometimes tell our boss that the jackals came in the night to take the sheep away.”—unemployed farm worker, UF18	“Workers can blame predators for livestock loss in theory, but this doesn’t happen on my farm. If a worker has told me that a leopard has taken a calf, I need proof.”—farmer, FR16