Sesfontein Constituency Councillor Bernadus ||Hoeb has called upon conservancy leadership in the Kunene region to work hard, as conservancies play an internal part in improving the living standards of rural communities.

||Hoeb said it is high time that leaders in conservation have proper planning to enhance community developments through conservancies and other related tourism activities in the region.

He added that leaders should also discuss in detail the issue of human-wildlife conflict, as this continues to affect many rural communities in the Kunene region.

"Problems for the communities, as they are known to members of such conservancies, should be treated with the same urgency and consistency. It is very dangerous for people to lose trust in leaders. Dear participants, I know for a fact that many of the conservancies are struggling to generate sufficient income; however, we should bear in mind that as much as we would like to spend so much on our operation of our conservancies, we should greatly consider allocating funds for the benefit of our members in order to make a meaningful impact on their lives."

The Executive Director of the Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC), John Kasaona, pointed out that despite challenges, a lot has changed in terms of conservation and benefits derived from these natural resources.

"conservancies become self-managed, financially sustainable and robust institutions that are there to conserve and also to ensure that the members receive meaningful benefit from conservation; that is what we are looking at now, and this is what we are redoing, and the demand for having the conservancy is increasing day by day, and it is not easy to make all the conservancies financially self-sustainable; we really have to look at many other aspects."

Anabeb Conservancy Chairperson Titus Rungondo says that the biannual sessions help to shape the leadership skills and share ideas on how to improve conservation activities in the area.

"We are going to have a lot of discussions for these days; we want to agree and set the way forward, and we shall also reflect on what we have been doing as conservancies," noted Rungondo.