Communal land reform and tourism investment in Namibia's communal areas: a question of unfinished business?

Abstract

The policy and legislative environment affecting natural resource management in Namibia's communal areas has undergone significant reform since independence. This article traces the history of this process and illustrates some of the advances and difficulties that have emerged in post-independence attempts to create durable tenure security in communal areas. It does so by reviewing key pieces of legislation which devolve certain resource rights to local communities and renovate the administration of land in communal areas. It describes the gains but also notes the limits of these reforms: the restricted powers of conservancies impede their ability to offer investment partners basic security of tenure, and the tourism leases available under the new system of communal land administration are of questionable commercial value. It also touches on the complexity of a modernising reform process that proceeds alongside – and has to accommodate – long-established customary systems of land tenure and management.

1. Introduction

Tourism enterprises based on Africa's natural attractions are today widely regarded as important drivers of development, particularly in remote areas with rich resource endowments but few other formal economic opportunities. There is a plethora of data indicating that the rural poor in these areas already benefit from the tourism market, mainly as sellers of labour to safari lodges (Ashley et al., 2000; Massyn & Koch, 2004; Poultney & Spenceley, 2004). But the involvement of the poor is curtailed by a number of factors. In rural African settings – often characterised by a shortage of skills, insecure land rights and a high degree of informality – external interests typically capture a large proportion of the benefits generated by the tourism market. The local poor often provide only unskilled labour, with outside suppliers meeting the industry's other requirements. These include factor inputs in the form of land, capital and skilled labour, and various intermediate goods and services. This results in a skewed distribution of returns that does little to support social and economic advancement in the remote rural areas where the tourism destinations are located.

Simply promoting tourism growth in underdeveloped settings is clearly not a guarantee of sustainable advances for the poor and disadvantaged of such regions. This poses an important challenge to policy makers, local residents, the private sector, donors and development practitioners: to devise strategies that simultaneously promote market led tourism growth and enhance the capacity of the local poor to benefit from that growth (Ashley et al., 2000).

One option is for the rural poor to make their land available to the tourism market. In large parts of the developing world, the ability of the poor to trade in land has, however, been constrained by the lack (or insecurity) of formal tenure rights. This is especially true in the so-called communal areas of southern Africa where contemporary land regimes are a legacy of colonial policies that effectively curtailed the tenure rights of rural African residents. The insecurity of tenure typical of these areas by and large clashes with the needs of the tourism industry, particularly capital intensive enterprises such as safari lodges and other accommodation establishments. In general, tourism investors require secure rights to land and associated resources for periods that enable reasonable returns on the capital and expertise invested in their businesses. Reputable investors tend either to avoid areas with insecure tenure or, if they do invest, to select only those opportunities that offer the prospect of a quick return on a limited investment. In such circumstances, development outcomes are characterised by the proliferation of small, often precarious, businesses which are generally unable to obtain rights within more formalised land frameworks (such as on private land or in public parks) because they are unable to compete against better resourced rivals. They flourish in conditions of informality, relying on personal relationships with local – often tribal – elements and the lack of enforceability typical of the areas within which they function. Their operations are mostly small-scale, undercapitalised, vulnerable and of limited benefit to all but a handful of local employees. This is a classic instance of a weak and fragmented property rights system creating conditions under which private sector activity is ‘informal, fragmented and local’ (Prahalad, 2005: 79).

Part of the solution to this problem is located in tenure reform that devolves resource rights to those denied them under colonialism. Over the last two decades, various African countries – especially in southern and east Africa – have begun experimenting with the transfer of rights to resources that are valued by commercial users. These so-called ‘community based natural resource management’ (CBNRM) programmes have, in some cases, led to promising results, with rural residents acquiring tradable rights over one of the principal factors of the nature based tourism market, i.e. land.

Namibia has been one of the leaders in this regard. The country's wildlife-rich and scenic communal areas are widely thought to hold significant potential for increased economic activity, especially in the form of photographic tourism (Ashley, 2000; ComMark Trust, 2005). In the past, insecure tenure in the communal areas resulted in a proliferation of exactly the type of small-scale, often informal, developments described above. But since independence the country's policy and legislative environment has undergone significant reform, based on the recognition that the majority of the population had been historically excluded from the full enjoyment of socio-economic rights. In the communal land sector, the broad thrust of the reforms has been to restore control over land and other natural resources to resident communities and to create incentives to manage these resources sustainably and for community benefit. Legislation has been passed providing for community based management of natural resources in the wildlife, forestry and inland fisheries sectors. In addition, legislation is now in place that modernises the allocation and administration of land rights in communal areas.

On the face of it, Namibia appears therefore to have made significant progress towards a tenure regime in its communal areas that is more conducive to tourism investment. Indeed, a number of high value tourism lodges have recently been established in the communal areas, often in the form of joint ventures between local communities and the private sector. But, while rural people have benefited from these enterprises, there is still a widespread view that the tourism potential of the communal areas remains underdeveloped and that more could be done to encourage beneficial links between rural communities and tourism businesses operating on their land.

The reasons for the continued underdevelopment of Namibia's communal lands are complex. The areas are remote and isolated, basic public services and infrastructure are lacking, human and social capital is generally weak, and development agencies often bring an orientation dominated by social or conservation priorities that are not well suited to market based business development (ComMark Trust, 2005). In addition to these factors, property rights in the country's communal areas – despite legislative and policy reforms – continue to be regarded as tenuous by many potential investors. This negative view may be partly explained by past experience of the old land allocation dispensation, which was widely perceived as inadequate to the needs of modern commerce. But it is also rooted in the uncertain and sometimes contradictory outcomes of the current process of legislative reform, which is at a relatively early stage of implementation and sits uncomfortably alongside customary systems of land tenure.

This article traces the history of this process and illustrates some of the advances and difficulties that have emerged in post-independence attempts to create durable tenure security in Namibia's communal areas. It does so by reviewing two key pieces of legislation: the Nature Conservation Amendment Act of 1996 (GRN, 1996), which devolved certain resource rights to local communities organised in the form of communal conservancies, and the more recent Communal Land Reform Act of 2002 (GRN, 2002), which renovated the administration of land in communal areas. These reforms have undoubtedly improved the general environment for tourism development in the communal areas by granting local residents valuable commercial rights and creating a framework for modernised land allocation. The article describes these gains but also notes the limits of the reforms: the restricted powers of conservancies impede their ability to offer investment partners basic security of tenure and the tourism leases available under the new system of communal land administration are of questionable commercial value. Finally, the article touches on the complexity of a modernising legal reform process that proceeds alongside – and has to accommodate – long-established customary systems of land tenure and management. Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the article draw on a report commissioned as part of the review (Corbett, 2004).

2. The Nature Conservation Amendment Act, 1996

The basis of Namibia's CBNRM programme is the Nature Conservation Amendment Act of 1996, which gives communal area farmers similar rights to those already enjoyed by farmers on private land (Jones, 1999a; Nott & Jacobsohn, 2004). In terms of the Act, a communal conservancy, upon its declaration by the Minister of Environment and Tourism, acquires the rights to manage and use game and to benefit from wildlife. By requiring that conservancies establish uncontested boundaries, have legal personality and a management structure by virtue of their constitutions, the government attempted to provide not only a more solid management entity but also a more reliable investment partner for those interested in cooperating with conservancies in joint tourism ventures.

However, the legislation limits the extent of the powers vested in conservancies. The fact that a conservancy has been declared by the Minister gives members no more than the right to manage and benefit from game within the boundaries of the conservancy. This has several implications for a tourism investor. Firstly, the Act does not give exclusive rights to members to so benefit. In practice, a rival investor might secure rights from the government to establish a tourist lodge metres from the site of the conservancy's preferred investor, despite the protests of the conservancy committee. In this situation, the conservancy committee could do no more than lobby the government to prevent the rival from undermining the preferred investor's business.

Secondly, the rights and duties of conservancies over the land falling within their boundaries are limited and do not, for example, enable them to exclude certain third party users from their land. This means that conservancies are not formally empowered to develop and enforce rules and regulations on the ground that guarantee a stable operational framework for tourism, and they cannot therefore make commitments to their private sector partners in this regard. Theoretically, a site in the conservancy identified for tourism use could face a multitude of threats, including:

• at a broad level, a land invasion by settlers from an area outside the boundaries of the conservancy claiming a right to the land in question;

• at a local level, resident non-members of the conservancy settling in the area or practising land use options to the detriment of the conservancy or the tourism investor (such as grazing livestock or cultivating lands in the vicinity of lodges); and

• the conservancy's income generation and the tourism investor's traversing rights within a conservancy being interfered with by self-driven tourists undertaking photographic safaris within the conservancy area in conflict with conservancy-sanctioned tourism activities.

Joint venture agreements in some parts of Namibia have dealt with this constraint innovatively by committing the partners to a set of practical measures to promote an enabling environment for high value tourism, such as the erection of no-entry signs to enforce agreed zoning schemes, but these measures remain legally unenforceable and have the overall effect of escalating commercial risk.

The Ministry of Environment and Tourism is currently drafting legislation on wildlife. A recent draft of the Parks and Wildlife Management Bill grants conservancies exclusive rights to use wildlife, wildlife habitats and tourism in the conservancy. This would effectively take care of the problem of rival investors making deals with elements within the conservancy and bypassing the conservancy committee in the process. However, such exclusivity is controversial because it could conflict with rights granted under the Forest Act of 2001 to community forest management institutions and therefore be legally untenable. Should the current draft of the Parks and Wildlife Management Bill be enacted, a conservancy's exclusive rights to use wildlife and wildlife habitats and encourage tourism may therefore be challenged under the Forest Act or, possibly, under the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002. This contributes to an environment of legal uncertainty which in turn undermines business confidence.

3. The Communal Land Reform Act, 2002

In recognition of the need to ensure security of tenure in communal areas, the Communal Land Reform Act, 2002, modernises the allocation of rights in respect of communal land. This Act (and its associated regulations – GRN, 2003) now forms the cornerstone of land administration in Namibia's communal lands. Among other things, it establishes Land Boards for land administration and delineates the powers of chiefs, traditional authorities and Land Boards in relation to communal land.

The Act permits the allocation of three types of customary land rights: in respect of a farming unit, a residential unit and any other form of customary tenure recognised at the discretion of the Minister of Lands. This last confers wide discretionary powers on the Minister of Lands to recognise forms of customary tenure other than residential and farming rights.

The second main category of land right is a right of leasehold for a period not exceeding 99 years. This right replaces the arbitrary and unevenly applied system of ‘Permissions To Occupy’ under previous legislation and is the principal mechanism for awarding commercial rights of tenure in communal areas. The lessee may use the leased land only for the purposes for which it is leased and subject to the conditions imposed by the Act and the accompanying regulations (GRN, 2003).

On the face of it, the leasehold rights available under the Act provide adequate protection in respect of each of the four sets of rights generally associated with security of tenure.1 However, the implementation of the Act is at an early stage and there is still uncertainty about aspects such as the period, size, transferability and pricing of leasehold rights. In addition, the lack of integrated land use planning means that tourism areas are not effectively regulated within an overall planning framework. These issues are discussed in more detail below.

The maximum lease period available in terms of the Act (99 years) is undoubtedly sufficient to satisfy the needs of ecotourism investors. However, in terms of section 34(2) any right of leasehold for a period exceeding ten years must be approved by the Minister of Lands. International and domestic best practice suggests that fair lease periods in the ecotourism industry are generally for longer than ten years. Recently concluded lease agreements in the ecotourism sector tend to be for fixed periods ranging from 15 to 50 years. Some older leases are for periods of up to 99 years, but such agreements are today extremely rare. In surveys of commercial leases in the conservation sectors of six southern African countries, including Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, Mafisa and Contour reported average lease periods ranging from 10 to 45 years (Contour, 2003; Mafisa, 2002). It is therefore likely that prospective developers of ecotourism facilities in communal areas will lodge numerous applications for longer lease periods. At this stage it is unclear what criteria the Minister would apply in considering such applications.

In terms of section 31(3) of the Act read with regulation 13, a right of leasehold may be granted to an area exceeding 50 hectares only with the written approval of the Minister of Lands. Where tourism infrastructure is dispersed over a broad area or where an operation requires extensive traversing rights to conduct activities such as game viewing, an investor will require rights over a site larger than 50 hectares. Again, the criteria to be applied by the Minister are not currently defined.

In terms of section 30(3)(a) of the Act, the grant of leasehold rights should not unreasonably interfere with or curtail the use and enjoyment of the commonage by members of the traditional community. Where the investor requires a traversing area as part of the tourism product, this provision places potential restrictions on the quality of the experience that may be offered to clients.

Transferability of rights is crucial to underpin the commercial value of leased properties. It is necessary to ensure not only the collateral value of the lease but also the saleability of the business and thus the ability of the lessee to trade or otherwise transfer his rights during the period of the lease.

In general, the free disposal of communal land is not legally possible because:

Under customary law, land is subject to multiple interests. Family heads and individual members of a family have rights of benefit; traditional leaders have powers of allotment and control. It is arbitrary to permit one of these interest-holders to dispose of an object, when others have concurrent rights and powers. (Bennett, 2004: 41)

This customary law principle is carried into the Communal Land Reform Act in that section 17(1) of the Act vests all communal land in the State in trust for the benefit of traditional communities residing in those areas. Section 17(2), furthermore, prohibits the granting or acquisition of freehold title over communal land.

Moreover, the Act strictly regulates the activities that may be conducted in the area subject to leasehold rights and by whom they may be conducted. It also makes any grant of leasehold rights subject to the consent of the traditional authority having jurisdiction over the land in question. However, the Act does enable the transfer of existing leasehold rights, provided such transfer is approved in writing by the Land Board. This may enable a market in leasehold rights but it is currently uncertain what guidelines the Land Boards or Minister of Lands will use in considering approval of such transfers.

In terms of regulation 15(1)(g), any tourism business operating on a right of leasehold must be personally conducted by the holder of the right of leasehold, unless the Land Board or the Minister has approved in writing the conducting of the business by another person. This might complicate matters where the conservancy holds the rights of leasehold over the tourism site (as some conservancies would wish to do) and then subleases these rights to the tourism operator.

In terms of section 32 of the Act, a leasehold fee must be paid to the Land Board for the right of leasehold and for any improvements on the land. The regulations published under the Act provide broad guidelines to determine the amount that the Land Boards are entitled to charge. These suggest that the Boards can levy competitive rentals taking into account factors such as the duration of the lease, the particular use for which the right is required, the size of the land and the value of improvements on the land. However, precise guidelines for the valuation of lease rights are not yet available and it thus remains unclear how the Boards will value ecotourism leases. This is causing considerable uncertainty in the tourism industry where concerns have been expressed that high rentals will raise the cumulative cost of resource and other levies payable by ecotourism businesses above affordability thresholds. Likewise, concerns have been raised that Land Board rentals should be calculated to preserve the CBNRM principle of strengthening local incentives for resource stewardship. If the direct income of conservancies from tourism is diluted too much through revenue sharing with other agencies such as the Land Boards, local incentives for conservation may be severely compromised, with adverse consequences for Namibia's CBNRM programme in particular and biodiversity conservation in general.

In terms of the Act, the power to allocate customary land rights resides with the chief or traditional authority of a particular traditional community, but any such allocation must be ratified by the appropriate Land Board. By contrast, the power to allocate leasehold rights lies only with the Land Board. But it is by no means clear what guidelines the Land Board would follow should it, for instance, be confronted with conflicting land use needs, such as the need of local farmers for intensive grazing of livestock close to a leasehold area set aside for a tourist lodge.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Namibia does not yet have an overall policy and legislative framework for land use planning. Planning tends to take place sectorally, creating numerous problems for those implementing national or local development plans. There have been moves by the Ministry of Lands to develop policy and legislation to establish a land use and environmental board but these efforts have thus far been frustrated by the sectoral interests of various players. Accordingly, land use planning has taken place at ministerial level, with various ad hoc initiatives at local level such as the development management plans for conservancies and community forests. But in the absence of coherent land use planning the integration of local plans remains a challenge and creates the possibility of land use conflicts at the local level that could seriously undermine tourism development on communal land.

A final point is the position of conservancies as possible intermediaries for tourism leases. In practice, this would mean that the Land Boards would grant ‘headleases’ to conservancies that in turn sublease to third parties. This is regarded as important to strengthen CBNRMs by building a sense of resource ownership amongst conservancies (who are responsible for wildlife management at the local level) and to enable conservancies to secure an income stream (from resource rentals), thus strengthening local incentives for sustainable natural resource management. This is the approach advocated by the Namibia Community Based Tourism Association (NACOBTA) and incorporated into the joint venture concessioning framework for communal areas developed under NACOBTA's auspices (NACOBTA, 2004). It is also similar to the approach used in Botswana where communities (organised in the form of trusts) can acquire headleases to areas designated for community management or community photographic use. In terms of these agreements, communities acquire the leases on nominal terms from the land boards and have the right to sublease to third parties using standardised tender procedures and documentation.

Although the principle of conservancy intermediation is widely supported by CBNRM advocates, some voices in the Ministry of Lands question the wisdom of such a practice. They argue that many conservancies lack the organisational, technical and managerial capacity to efficiently manage such arrangements. The lack of resident institutional capacity and entrepreneurial culture at the local level means that conservancies are often unstable and weak organisations. This escalates the so-called ‘transaction costs’ of doing business in the communal areas where negotiating and maintaining agreements is time consuming and expensive. Deriving lease rights via a sublease from an intermediary such as a conservancy and not directly from the land authority also escalates risk for the investor and probably undermines the collateral value of the sublease. Given these reservations, it is not clear whether the principle of ‘headleasing’ to conservancies will become standard practice in the awarding of tourism leases in communal areas.

The uncertainties described above may be remedied by publishing new regulations under the Communal Land Reform Act to guide the Minister of Lands in the granting of leasehold rights for tourism purposes. If they are to provide adequate security for optimal investment, such regulations should include guidance on:

• the appropriate size for tourism lease areas;

• the appropriate period for such leasehold rights;

• the rental to be paid by the holder of tourism leases (including guidelines on the rental to be charged where conservancies hold headleases);

• the conditions under which tourism leasehold rights are transferable to third parties (including guidelines on the position of conservancies as intermediaries for leasehold rights);

• the regulation of existing land uses in the area to be covered by the leasehold rights;

• the integration of land use plans already in existence (such as conservancy or forestry management plans);

• the environmental impact of the proposed development on the leasehold area;

• the social impact of the granting of leasehold rights over an area in terms of lost livelihoods, restricted grazing areas, restricted access to forests and water points, etc.; and

• the conditions to be attached to leasehold rights that might mitigate the exclusionary impact of such rights (it might, for example, be possible to grant leasehold rights that provide ‘hard’ tenure to a core development site and ‘softer’ tenure to a broader tourism traversing area).

4. The Residual Influence of Customary Law

Recent legal reform in Namibia has taken place against the background of deeply rooted traditional land practices. Forms of tenure over land and associated resources have existed under customary law for many centuries. Customary law provides a set of legal rules, not only for the allocation and use of communal land but also for the award of other resource rights. However, tenure of land and natural resources under customary law is difficult to assert because its ascertainment is challenging (since it is mostly unwritten and survives in an oral tradition), and its rules unsystematic and subject to diverse interpretations. Consequently, its enforcement and efficacy depend largely on the respect and legitimacy enjoyed by the traditional authority structures charged with its implementation.

The Namibian Constitution states that the customary law in force at the date of independence shall remain in force to the extent that it does not conflict with the Constitution itself or any other statutory provision (Article 140(1)). This implies that indigenous practices in regard to natural resources that have been formalised into traditional rules will be enforceable amongst members of a particular traditional community by its traditional authority. However, such rules are not enforceable against people who do not belong to such a traditional community. This means that in practice, for instance, should a person from one traditional community trespass on another traditional community's traditional area such person may not be evicted in terms of that traditional community's customary law but only by invoking civil law or statutory authority under the Communal Land Reform Act.

While there are reasonably well developed customary rules relating to land administration, hunting and forests elsewhere (Hinz, 1995), the degree to which such rules are applicable in Namibia is uncertain. Moreover, the entitlement of communities to local land and other natural resources can be termed ‘fuzzy’ (Devereau, 1996) and can be contrasted with western notions of property rights:

In developed countries, property is often sharply defined in terms of ownership, implying that the owner has sole use of the resource, and has recourse to legal sanctions preventing its use by others. In traditional societies, such strict notions of ownership are less prevalent. Instead, people have individual or collective property rights, defined by their membership of the community. (Ellis, 1993: 72)

Some commentators argue that chiefs and headmen have retained important powers over the allocation of land according to customary law (Hinz, 1995), while others are of the opinion that in reality they enjoy extremely limited legally sanctioned authority over land administration because such customary rules have been overridden by statute (Corbett, 2004).

Clearly, customary law cannot provide the robust tenure over land and associated resources required by tourism developers; such rights must be acquired in terms of the Communal Land Reform Act. But whatever statutory rights are acquired and whatever the formal interpretations of law, the reality on the ground remains ambiguous: a parallel system of deeply rooted customary law continues to operate alongside and impact on any investor's tenure rights. The uneasy co-existence of traditional and modern tenure systems creates an unsettled environment where rights formally acquired sit uncomfortably within the ‘fuzzy’ context of customary practices and entitlements.

The difficult process of accommodation between customary and modern land management systems may also be illustrated in the following example. Conservancies and forestry management committees are new institutions which have been given responsibility by the government for areas of natural resource management that once fell under the jurisdiction of traditional authorities. In many cases, committees are dominated by younger community members and include several women. This contrasts with the mostly elderly male-dominated traditional authorities. In some cases, conflict has arisen between traditional authorities and the new conservancy committees, particularly over the patronage involved in endorsing applications for developing tourism facilities.

In the north-east and north-west of Namibia, where traditional leadership is strong, some traditional leaders have delegated authority to the committees to manage natural resources on their behalf. Institutionally, this strengthens the committee as it taps both customary and statutory authority, deriving its powers not only from the central government but also from the local traditional leadership (Jones, 1999a,b). In Caprivi, for example, the forest management committee has in some cases been positioned as a committee of the sub-khuta (or traditional authority) responsible for the area in which the community forest is located. Likewise, conservancies in a number of areas have cemented this relationship by offering the traditional authority ex officio representation on the conservancy committee.

It is therefore imperative that there is good cooperation and understanding between traditional authorities and the modern resource managing institutions at the local level. This is all the more important in the tourism context because a Land Board may grant a right of leasehold for tourism development only where the traditional authority having jurisdiction over the area consents thereto (although, where the Land Board considers that a traditional authority should have consented but refused to do so, it can refer the matter to arbitration). Where the relationship between the traditional and modern institutions breaks down, or where tensions cannot be mediated, the investment environment can be severely compromised.

5. Conclusion

Since independence, the Namibian government has sought to develop a rational basis in policy and legislation for the ownership and management of natural resources in communal areas. This process of reform – anchored in two key pieces of legislation – has brought positive spin-offs for the tourism industry by endowing rural residents with valuable resource rights and establishing a modern system of land management. Namibia also has independent-minded courts, which provide an enforcement mechanism that safeguards investor confidence and mitigates some of the risks attendant on investing in the communal areas.

But despite its considerable promise the process of reform has not yet delivered tenure conditions that are likely to attract the levels of tourism investment required to optimise the full potential of the country's communal areas. The restricted resource rights of communal conservancies, the limitations on tourism leases under the new land administration system and the ongoing tensions between modernising reforms and more traditional customary systems continue to impede investment. The institutional conditions on communal land in Namibia – the system of rules affecting land tenure in these areas – thus remain only partially reformed.

This situation is, of course, not unique to Namibia. Many developing countries are in a transitional phase characterised by tensions between older customary systems and newer modernising reforms:

A prerequisite for a dynamic economy is a system of rules, which reduces transaction costs in the economy by making economic transactions predictable and allowing the enforcement of contracts. Many countries are in the process of shifting from traditional economic systems, including customary rules of ownership, often intermingled with colonial imposed systems, to modern systems in a short period of time. A common problem is that the new and old systems operate simultaneously, and the penetration of the modern is often shallow. (SIDA, 2003: 63)

With the current drafting of the Parks and Wildlife Management Bill and indications from the Ministry of Lands that it would welcome new regulations under the Communal Land Reform Act to guide the allocation of leasehold rights, the opportunity exists to further enhance the gains already achieved. But the process is likely to be an evolutionary one as the reforms consolidate the gains but continue to interact with traditional systems. The next few years will reveal how Namibia's process of communal land reform unfolds and to what extent it remains a question of unfinished business.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter John Massyn

1Director, Mafisa Planning & Research (Pty) Ltd, and PhD student, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The author has extensive experience in tourism as a form of rural development. This article draws on a recent review of barriers to investment in Namibia's communal areas commissioned by the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism and The ComMark Trust, WWF LIFE and the Namibia Tourism Development Programme.

Notes

¹Security of tenure is generally associated with four sets of rights, namely:

• Use rights: the right to grow crops, make permanent improvements, bury the dead, traverse for tourism purposes, collect firewood and wild fruit, cut trees, hunt, mine, etc;

• Transfer rights: the right to sell, mortgage, lease and bequeath;

• Exclusionary rights: the right exercised at individual or community level to exclude others from appropriating any such rights; and

• Enforcement rights: the right to make use of legal and administrative measures to guarantee any such rights.