The Minister of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism (MEFT) has called on traditional leaders to be mindful of the Environmental Management Act when allocating land. 

Pohamba Shifeta was speaking at the official appointment of environmental officers in Windhoek on Friday.

Shifeta says the ministry has noticed that some traditional leaders sell or allocate land in a protected area and allow people to carry out activities without a clearance certificate as listed by the Environmental Management Act. 

With illegal sand mining activities happening in most parts of the country, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism is training environmental officers in all regions.

They are from the Department of Parks and Forestry.

Although more is expected from the environmental officers, the current pressing matter is that of illegal sand mining, which the ministry is working hard to put an end to.

Currently, Namibia does not have environmental officers, though there are provisions in the Act.

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Belgium's Lignaverda Reforestation Cooperation Project.

The Lignaverda Reforestation Cooperation Project is involved in reforesting semi-arid areas at risk of land degradation and desertification.

Its approach includes the active involvement of communities in sustainable forest management practices to coordinate forest protection and valorisation of grass, crops, and non-timber forest products.

Namibia is hosting the inaugural Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) congress.

Namibia, with a clear focus on promoting biodiversity conservation and sustainable utilisation of resources, adopted the SMART approach in all its protected areas to enhance monitoring in those areas.

The digital technology-driven Spatial Monitoring and Reporting tool has, for over a decade, supported tens of thousands of conservation practitioners in protecting wildlife.

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism's Executive Director says poaching of rhinos and elephants in Namibia has decreased significantly over the years. 

This year, Teofilus Nghitila says 48 rhinos and eight elephants were poached.
Nghitila says this year's poaching statistics are better compared to 2018, when 84 rhinos and 27 elephants were poached. 

He attributed the poaching reduction to the measures they have put in place. 

Namibia is still working to reclaim its number-one position as the cleanest country in Africa.

To that effect, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism recently joined hands with the organisation 'Let's Do It Namibia' to create awareness around cleanliness.

Currently, Namibia is ranked as the 10th cleanest country in Africa, down from the number one spot after it lost that status to Rwanda. 

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism is developing a five-year National Human-Wildlife Conflict Action Plan.

The action plan comes after the Cabinet's approval of the resolutions of the first National Conference on Human-Wildlife Conflict Management that was held earlier this year.

Cabinet directed the ministry to develop a five-year action plan for implementation of the resolution within three months.

In close collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism played a crucial role in facilitating the preparation and adoption of the national framework.

The main objective of this framework is to enable Namibia's active participation in the international carbon market. It outlines the necessary processes for developing and implementing carbon market activities within the country.

More than N$163 million was spent on upgrading the road network infrastructure that connects to the Etosha National Park.

The upgrade was meant to enhance mobility and accessibility for visitors to the park, as well as provide a service road for effective park management.

From 2018/2019 to 2023/2024, the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism initiated a project to upgrade the restricted western roads and parks within the Etosha National Park.

To date, some of the roads have been successfully upgraded. 

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism carried out the dehorning of rhinos at Etosha National Park in order to combat poaching in the country.

The Ministry says the dehorning of all rhinos is also a means of safeguarding them from poaching activities and preventing them from causing harm to each other.

Since 2014, more than 2,000 rhinos have undergone the dehorning process.

During the recent operation, only two rhinos were dehorned.