About N$41,8 million has been spent as compensation for human-wildlife conflict-related issues since 2009.

This is contained in a report presented by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism at the just-ended National Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC) in Windhoek.

The highest compensation of N$9,2 million was made last year, followed by 2021 with N$6,3 million and N$5,3 million in 2021.

N$3.3 million in compensation was made between 2011 and 2016.

The Kavango East Region recorded the highest payments outside conservancies of N$2,7 million, followed by the Kavango West and Zambezi regions with N$2,5 million.

In 2019, the government, through the ministry, spent N$670,000 on HWC injuries caused outside and inside conservancies.

In the same year, N$3.6 million was paid out to families who lost members due to HWC.

"For the loss of human life, currently it's N$100,000; previously it was N$5000. In the previous policy, we didn't have an injury category, but this is now included in the three categories: N$10,000 for injury without loss of body parts, N$30,000 for loss of body parts, and N$50,000 for disability," explained Richard Freyer, Chief Control Warden at the ministry.

However, Fryer said that despite government efforts to compensate those affected by HWC, challenges still exist.

"There is still a massive amount of backlog we haven't been able to clear, specifically the backlog in conservancies. We are trying our best, and we will still get to each conservancy and make sure that these backlogs are paid. While some conservancies cannot account for funds, this is demoralising because they are paid lump sums and the sum just disappears. This is serious, as communities suffer more at the end of the day."

Other challenges are conservancies not keeping records on funds spent on HWC incidents and a lack of investigation skills among staff when it comes to HWC incidents.