Namibia's Wildlife Law, Made Accessible: The Sustainable Wildlife Management Programme Launches Its Namibian Legal Hub

As part of the Sustainable Wildlife Management (“SWM”), ENS | Namibia served as the legal lead in the development of the Programme's online Legal Hub for Namibia, a freely accessible platform that, for the first time, makes the country's wildlife legal framework available to the public. The work was led by Stefanie Busch, Executive at ENS | Namibia, and supported by Lelan Beukes, Candidate Legal Practitioner. ENS conducted a comprehensive legal analysis that forms the backbone of the Hub, applying four specialist diagnostic tools across all sectors of Namibian wildlife law. These efforts reflect ENS’ ongoing work in support of advancing sustainable development in Africa and align with the firm’s sustainability and ESG practice, harnessing legal expertise to support the conservation of natural resources and the empowerment of communities across the continent.

Understanding the SWM Programme

Since its inception in 2017, the SWM Programme has grown into a major international effort spanning 16 countries, with a dual focus on wildlife conservation and food security. The Programme reflects a fundamental truth: that wildlife underpins the food security, economic wellbeing and cultural heritage of millions of people around the world.

The Programme operates at two interconnected levels: collaborating directly with communities on the ground and engaging with national governments to advance legal and institutional reform in natural resource management.

The Legal Hub: What it offers and how it was developed

The Namibia Legal Hub is a user-friendly online platform providing access to the country's wildlife legal framework. Each country hub offers historical and political background, access to national legal texts organised by sector, a legal assessment identifying strengths and weaknesses, an overview of how international conventions are domesticated and a description of national institutions and their roles.

The Hub was developed following a rigorous process undertaken in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (“FAO”). Our team conducted systematic legal diagnosis across all sectors, consolidated the findings into an online country profile and coordinated with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism to facilitate a national validation workshop in Windhoek in May 2025. The analysis received official non-objection from the Ministry of Justice in July 2025. The Legal Hub was officially launched on 24 April 2026 at an event in Windhoek attended by the Honourable Indileni Daniel, Minister of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, who delivered the keynote address and presided over the unveiling of the platform. Namibia has now joined more than ten countries, including Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, creating a unique comparative resource for legal reform across Southern Africa.

Key findings from the legal analysis

The legal analysis has revealed important findings across several thematic areas.

1. On the question of wildlife tenure and land use, the analysis found that freehold landowners enjoy stronger rights over wildlife compared with those in communal areas, since private landowners may own huntable game on fenced land of 1,000 hectares or more. Conservancies, by contrast, grant communities’ wildlife management rights but not ownership, creating an inequitable distribution of wildlife rights between freehold and communal land.
2. Regarding hunting and subsistence use, the analysis identified a significant gap: there is no statutory definition of subsistence or traditional hunting rights, and subsistence hunting has no legal exemption, unlike subsistence fishing. Penalties for wildlife offences under the Nature Conservation Ordinance of 1975 were found to be outdated and insufficient as deterrents, whilst the sale of game meat in restaurants is not addressed by any legislation. In respect of ecotourism and concessions, the analysis found that there is no dedicated ecotourism legislation or regulatory framework, no specific licences for ecotourism, and no legal definition of ecotourism. The Concession Policy, 2007 is administrative and not legally binding, and benefit-sharing arrangements with communities lack statutory basis. A key finding of the analysis is that community-based natural resource management is provided for in policy rather than law, meaning that many of the frameworks governing wildlife management in communal areas rest in non-binding instruments with limited legal standing and enforceability.
3. In the area of human-wildlife conflict, the analysis noted that set-off mechanisms are underfunded and payments often delayed, with no statutory obligation on government to provide set-off for wildlife damage caused to property. Set-off rates were found to be outdated; for instance, NAD 100,000 for human death and NAD 3,000 for a cow.
4. On animal health and food safety, the analysis revealed limited integration between animal health and wildlife management legislation. The Animal Health Act, 2011 does not extend to free-ranging wildlife, and there are no specific provisions for wildlife disease surveillance. There is no regulatory framework for a One Health approach at the wildlife–livestock–human interface, and inter-ministerial coordination between Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Land Reform on disease issues is insufficient. Additionally, the Animals Protection Act, 1962 does not extend to free-ranging wildlife, leaving wild animals outside the scope of animal welfare legislation. The analysis also identified significant concerns regarding the handling of dead wildlife: there is no legally binding ante-mortem or post-mortem inspection of wild game, no comprehensive traceability system for wild meat, and no legal requirement for hunter training in inspection techniques. The absence of robust food safety frameworks for wild game poses risks to community health, particularly in rural areas where bushmeat consumption is common.

Opportunities for reform

The analysis has also identified clear opportunities to enhance legislation. These include reviewing the Nature Conservation Ordinance to strengthen community rights over wildlife in conservancy areas, developing specific provisions for subsistence and traditional hunting, creating a regulatory framework for game meat from field to fork, enacting comprehensive human-wildlife conflict legislation with a clear set-off framework and modernising the Animals Protection Act of 1962 to include provisions for wildlife welfare.

Explore the Legal Hub

The Namibia Legal Hub is now publicly accessible and offers legal texts, thematic summaries with detailed gap analysis, and access to the growing regional network of SWM Programme legal hubs. Readers are encouraged to visit the platform here to explore the full legal analysis and access Namibia's wildlife law resources.

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