Waste management in Namibia’s protected areas

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The planned FC project is intended to support the Namibian environmental authority in developing and introducing a sustainable waste management system for its national parks. A holistic approach is planned that includes an improvement of the entire process chain from waste generation to removal to further processing and orderly disposal. The project is intended to ensure effective and reliable collection and environmentally friendly recycling and disposal of waste within the national parks. The planned measures include investments in necessary equipment (e.g. garbage trucks, garbage cans) and adequate infrastructure (e.g. collection points, waste treatment plants) as well as consultant services for concept development and training as well as measures to avoid waste, e.g. through regulatory measures and positive incentives. The target group of the project are the residents and employees of the national parks and their users (tourists, tourism industry). Since the tourism industry is the most important employer in these areas and littering in the parks can lead to a significant loss of tourist attractiveness, the project is intended to help secure the economic livelihood of the local population in the long term. Furthermore, the health risks to the people and wild animals living there from contaminated water and air are reduced and the preservation of fragile ecosystems is supported. Overall, a more careful use of natural resources is to be achieved in order to achieve an improved environmental situation and secure rural incomes (congruent with the overall objective). In the wider SADC region, there are currently no practical approaches to sustainable waste management in nature reserves, so the experience of the project in Namibia is to be used for corresponding concepts in other countries. The total cost of the planned measures is estimated at around EUR 6 million. The FC funding share of the project is EUR 5 million and the contribution of the sponsor, the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET), amounts to around EUR 1 million.