The business of saving cheetahs: Cheetah ecology and the diverse politics at work in human wildlife conflict (HWC) interventions in Namibia

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the intersection of cheetah ecology, human wildlife conflict (HWC), settler colonialism, and private land ownership in Namibia. Cheetahs’ ecological adaptation(s) in Namibia point to the need for a fuller picture of the permutations of conservation and conservation NGOs in Africa. In the case of Namibia, cheetahs’ ecological adaptations to interspecies threats have shaped their territory to be primarily on private commercial farms where they cause HWC. While cheetahs cause HWC on commercial farms and farming communities in Namibia writ large, HWC itself is not the conflict discussed in this research. Rather, HWC is the catalyst for what this paper will analyze to be a conflict between two private sector industries—commercial farming and cheetah conservation. After thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Namibia, this case study suggested diverse politics are at work within the NGOs conservation intervention policies at global, national, and local scales. This research identified a theoretical and conceptual fissure which led to an anomaly in the field of political ecology. This paper will argue HWC is an organizing structure in the business of saving cheetahs. The NGOs studied in Namibia are a service-based industry. They invest in both tangible and intangible conservation services rather than market-based participatory approaches, ecosystem services, and/or economic development. This is illustrative of a shift from market-based conservation to a service-based approach and calls for widening the political ecology lens to account for other cases of NGOs’ on-the-ground conservation business practices in Africa.

Keywords

Service-Based conservation political ecology human wildlife conflict cheetah ecology conservation service industry cheetah conservation

Introduction

Cheetahs are unique among large carnivores in Namibia. In taxonomic classification, cheetahs are the only remaining member of the genus Acinonyx (Melzheimer 2021). A large cat native to Africa and central Iran, cheetahs are characterized by their spots, black tear lines, and speed. Cheetahs are the fastest terrestrial mammal species and can reach up to 70 mph in short sprints. Built for speed, cheetahs have powerful muscles, semi-retractable claws, and a long tail that serves as a rudder. While cheetahs’ slender, fragile body is adapted for speed, it renders them vulnerable to interspecies threats and competition with other carnivores. As a result, cheetahs are both predator and prey. Cheetahs might not be ‘what's for dinner’ but they are preyed upon by other large carnivores for reasons including scavenging a recent kill and/or overlapping territories. Leopards and lions pose the greatest threat to cheetahs but hyenas are a problem as well. Consequently, free-roaming cheetahs in general range in areas with fewer carnivore species, including public and private protected areas and the private facilities of the NGOs studied. Because of large populations of carnivores in Namibia's national parks and in private reserves, more than 95% of the free-roaming cheetah population(s) are found on private/freehold commercial farms¹ where cheetahs do cause human wildlife conflict (HWC) (Morsbach 1987; Melzheimer 2021). While cheetahs cause HWC on commercial farms and farming communities in Namibia² writ large, HWC itself is not the conflict discussed in this research. Rather, HWC is the catalyst for what this paper will analyze to be a conflict between two private sector industries—commercial farming and cheetah conservation. HWC with cheetahs has become an entry point for the NGOs’ conservation intervention policy and practice in Namibia. The NGOs specialize in the business of saving cheetahs and have constructed a private service-based conservation industry around conflict mitigation. This paper posits human wildlife conflict (HWC) is an organizing structure for the business of saving cheetahs.

During fieldwork, on-the-ground experiences in Namibia complicated a priori assumptions about conservation and conservation NGOs. In this research, analyzing the NGOs’ service-based approach to conservation located a fissure in political ecology theorizing and revealed an anomaly. The dominant conservation paradigm in the field of political ecology could not shed light on what is unique to the nature and character of both cheetah conservation and the NGOs studied in Namibia. Kuhn defined an anomaly as “empirical fact that fails to be predicted by an established theorem” (Sam 2013: n.a.). What makes this particular case an anomaly is that empirical evidence collected revealed that the cheetah conservation NGOs were self-contained entities on their own private property and were in Namibia's private sector (Brandon 2021). These NGOs are registered as international NGOs, businesses, charitable trusts and/or foundations and functioned independently from both state- and Namibian NGO-led conservation. They are private facilities, commercial farms, private residences, service-based industries, land holders, and international NGOs all in one. Cheetah conservation NGOs’ private facilities are research centers, working commercial farms, private reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, luxury lodges, tourist accommodations, and, for some, opportunities for volunteers that sell the novelty of cheetah experiences, activities, attractions, and, importantly, conservation. All are economic activities that financially support the NGOs’ own practices of cheetah conservation. Cheetah conservation is inextricably linked to economic activities and business practices at these NGOs. Therefore, the NGOs in this study are conceptualized as the conservation capitalist class. The structure, composition, and management of these NGOs studied adhered to the legal frameworks of international NGOs. Their attributes, however, could not be accounted for under the egis of the established political ecology theorems making the business of saving cheetah less than obvious. This begs the question—Why is it so hard to see conservation as a business model within a political ecology frame of analysis?

The cheetah conservation NGOs in Namibia are indeed an anomaly. They are outside of the egis of the dominant political ecology framework because of cheetah ecology, private property, and private sector actors in conservation. In cheetah conservation by the NGOs studied, private conservation takes a unique form. Specifically, cheetah conservation studied is private because of private land ownership. Namibian conservation, as Brandon (2021) explained, is through the state, whereas cheetah conservation by the NGOs is in “the private sector and outside of state-sanctioned conservation in Namibia” (193). Because they are self-contained entities, these NGOs construct their own conservation agenda and generate income through the services they develop and provide. Their HWC intervention policies and practices are not tied to state-sanctioned conservation efforts. Instead, they are on offer to commercial farmers, the Namibian government, and Namibia's farming community writ large. The cheetah conservation NGOs benefit from private ownership of land without the attachment to state-sanctioned conservation areas, national parks, and reserves that directly benefit local communities through market-based approaches. The NGOs invest in both tangible and intangible conservation services rather than market-based participatory approaches, ecosystem services, and/or economic development. The NGOs studied provided both tangible services (e.g., farmer trainings, captive animal care, rehabilitation, translocations) and intangible, nonmaterial services/goods (e.g., ‘saving’ cheetahs). As a result, cheetah conservation by these NGOs is service-based rather than in situ, territorially-based nature conservation. All of the above contributes to the shift from market-based conservation in political ecology to a service-based approach focused on ‘saving’ species.

The shift from market-based to service-based conservation described above is significant because of differences in value creation and the NGOs’ conservation ‘services’. In the case of the NGOs, cheetahs and their habitat is not a source of value—value is not derived through fictitious capital and/or natural capital but through the NGOs’ conservation services only they provide. For example, the ‘services’ discussed in this paper are not embodied in nature like ecosystems services. Cheetah conservation intervention policy and practice has a material basis because it is produced through research, global fundraising campaigns, and the production of knowledge centered on HWC mitigation by researchers and staff at the NGOs studied. ‘Saving cheetahs (from extinction)’ is the intangible service and goal of the NGOs’ labor and valued by global audiences ‘afraid of losing the species forever’. As defined by Quinn (1992), the service sector includes all economic activities whose output is not a product and one that adds value in a form that is essentially an intangible concern of its purchaser. A service industry is “a type of business that provides services to customers rather than producing a product” (accessed August 25, 2022). The primary distinction between service-based and market-based approaches is that the service-based approach is not reliant on selling a product or, in this case, ‘selling nature to save it’ (McAfee 1999). The NGOs in this research market their own conservation services that contribute to their ultimate intangible goal of ‘saving’ cheetahs (from extinction).

This service-based approach to cheetah conservation does not provide financial and/or economic compensation for loss to incentivize commercial farmers and farming communities in Namibia writ large to conserve cheetahs within their territory. Using HWC conflicts, the NGOs studied have constructed a specialized conservation industry based on providing conservation services, not mitigating HWC. HWC situations in cheetah conservation follow Hussain's (2019) argument, leaving commercial farming communities with the burden of conservation³. In this way, the NGOs are adding fuel to the fire in HWC with commercial farming communities whose land comprises the majority of cheetahs’ territory. This case calls for widening the political ecology lens to account for other cases of NGOs’ on-the-ground conservation business practices in Africa.

Research design

This is an embedded case study of cheetah conservation NGOs that was organized and selected on the basis of known attributes and distinctive features which afforded an opportunity to look at the nature and character of cheetah conservation in Namibia at multiple scales. Empirical data was collected in Namibia through ethnographic fieldwork from September 2017- October 2018. As this single-case study focused on multiple sub-units of analysis, the embedded case study research design offered the best strategy for understanding the complexity of factors constructing HWC and the structure of cheetah conservation NGOs and their intervention policies. This embedded case study had multiple units to be analyzed—cheetah conservation NGOs and their actors, social media content, other conservation NGOs, commercial livestock/game farmers, and Namibian conservation governance that intersect with cheetah conservation in Namibia. This case study used a wide lens to look at the many intersecting perspectives and experiences of cheetah conservation, cheetah conservation NGOs, and HWC conflicts and mitigation. Several NGOs are included in this study but will be identified as ‘the cheetah conservation NGOs’ in order to protect the identities of the respondents. Data was collected from international cheetah conservation NGOs, Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET)⁴, local community members and officials, commercial farming/game community members, tourists, international volunteers, interns, and researchers in the field. Respondents were organized in this paper and divided into three different categories (Researchers, Namibian Officials, and Commercial Farmers) in order to protect the identities of the respondents. So as not to confuse readers, Namibian officials as a category is the combination of government and conservation officials that work directly in Namibian conservation governance. Researchers as a category consists of researchers both at the NGOs and other NGOs with knowledge and/or connection to cheetah conservation and/or HWC situations. Data collection methods included participant observation, semi-structured and conversational interviews, and document analysis.

Intersections: HWC, cheetahs’ ecology, private land ownership, and settler colonialism

A growing body of scholarship in HWC literature seeks to understand the proximate and structural drivers of HWC (Margulies and Karanth 2018). As a term, HWC has received criticism for obscuring context that may be pivotal in these conflicts (Margulies and Karanth 2018; see also Peterson et al., 2010; Redpath et al., 2015). In Namibia, cheetah conservation NGOs portray HWC as one of the main threats to cheetahs’ survival. What is considered historic declines in cheetah populations are attributed to HWC and unabated retaliatory killing by commercial farmers over the past century (Nowell 1996). HWC is characterized by conflicts between predators and, in this case, commercial farming communities, communities that often retaliate by eradicating predators from their land (Hodgson et al. 2020). Consequently, cheetahs’ territory on commercial farms is not solely an ecological phenomenon. Cheetahs’ range and adaptations to territorial threats reflect historic changes in land ownership in Namibia during German colonial rule and South African apartheid that has influenced cheetahs’ territory today. The racialized policies of apartheid not only impacted the people of South West Africa (now Namibia), they also affected predator populations and their distributions as well (Heydinger 2020). Subsequently, Namibia's history of apartheid-era land policies, private property, private livestock ownership, and settler colonialism are important contexts regarding the nature and character of cheetah conservation by the NGOs in Namibia.

Cheetahs’ territory was shaped through the privatization of land that, as Melber (2019) explains, is a “leftover of colonial-era dispossession and appropriation” (74). In Namibia, the inequitable division of land between Indigenous communities and white settlers is rooted in the history of cattle and livestock ownership (Heydinger 2020). Heydinger (2020) discussed how “this was primarily achieved through land policies privileging white farmers and the contributions they could make to the South West African and South African economies through intensive livestock husbandry” (92). These land policies, however, were challenged by an inhospitable environment proving livestock husbandry difficult using the traditional practices by the white settlers (Heydinger 2020). Even with government support, settlers in South West Africa struggled to keep afloat (Heydinger 2020). The presence of predators made an already inhospitable environment even worse. As a consequence, “the colonial administration empowered rural white settlers to eradicate so-called ‘vermin’ on settler land” (Heydinger 2020:92). Cheetahs’ territory is the result of the colonial administrations’ policies that supported retaliatory practices against predator species on settler farms. Predators such as lions, wild dogs, and hyenas, among others, were seen by officials and settlers as threats to the socio-economic prospects of commercial farming (Heydinger 2020). Because of these apartheid era land policies, competing predator species were eradicated in central and southern Namibia, land that remains mostly private/freehold commercial land today (Melber 2019). Policies supporting the eradication of predators on settler farms, however, were prohibited in African communities that suffer the same financial and physical impacts of HWC. The eradication of predators, however, did not resolve issues of HWC on commercial farms. The reduction of predators and less competition for prey on commercial farmland now opened up a space for cheetahs to fill (Nowell 1996). In other words, when settler farms eradicated lions, hyenas, and wild dogs from their land, cheetahs moved right on in.

In so far as cheetah conservation NGOs have created a private service-based conservation industry based on mitigating HWC, it was made possible by Namibia's land tenure system. The history of land dispossession and appropriation in Namibia is also “the history of capital accumulation…” (Lenggenhager et al. 2021:1). Land, as Melber (2019) noted, was and continues to be the backbone of Namibia's economy. Land and wealth are interconnected and the links between land ownership and wealth accumulation are well established (Lenggenhager et al. 2021). The interconnection of land and wealth is particularly important in this context. Through private land ownership, cheetah conservation NGOs are, for all intents and purposes, the owners of the means of production and part of the conservation capitalist class. The NGOs could be considered as part of what Büscher and Fletcher (2020) categorize as, the “land-owning capitalist class” (182). Except, not all NGOs fully fit within what Büscher and Fletcher (2020) categorize as — “capitalist farmers and/or land holders…” (182). While some cheetah conservation NGOs still remain as working commercial farms, many were not successful and refocused their commercial endeavors on conservation and tourism respectively. In Namibia, the agricultural sector is one of the main economic sectors, tourism another (Ruppel and Ruppel-Schlichting 2016). The cheetah conservation NGOs are part of Namibia's tourism sector which has included tourism, broadly construed, into their conservation model. Tourism, as Jafari et al. (2000) noted, is a global service-industry, one that exerts significant economic, cultural, and political importance across the world. Cheetah conservation NGOs have all converted some portion of their land into private reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, luxury lodges, tourist accommodations, research centers, and/or voluntourism operations. All of these are economic activities within the service industry and all contribute directly to the conservation work of the NGOs. The NGOs studied have focused on cheetah conservation threats in both tourism and voluntourism activities, institutionalizing HWC in the NGOs’ conservation model. While cheetahs do cause HWC, the conflict here is between two private sector industries—commercial farming and cheetah conservation.

Bixler et al. (2015) argued that “participatory forms of nature conservation must be understood as [a] political project in the context of a neoliberal accumulation regime” (165; Khan and Lynch 2013). HWC is a political project within such a regime. Cheetah conservation by the NGOs is not, however, participatory. To underscore, these NGOs are self-contained entities as both the NGOs and their work in cheetah conservation is independent of state-led and Namibian NGO-led conservation. In the field of political ecology, conservation is considered relational in that it typically requires “constant responses to and engagement with changing social, political, and economic boundaries” (Larson and Brockington 2018:4). Inevitably, conservation NGOs then “entail interactions with a wide range of actors” (Larson and Brockington 2018:4). Larson and Brockington (2018) argued that, in conservation, NGOs are not monolithic; rather, “evolve through boundary interaction with a variety of networks, multiple sectors, and institutional contexts” (4). This is not the case for the NGOs under study here. The NGOs did not evolve through boundary interactions and/or diverse networks of actors and relationships but were already established commercial endeavors that diversified to focus on both conservation and tourism. This diversification was not through collaborative approaches to conservation but through private land ownership as well as through developing their own specialized conservation model based on mitigating HWC conflicts.

Cheetahs’ territory, HWC conflicts, and the cheetah conservation service industry is inextricably linked to Namibia's history of private land ownership. Namibia's history of apartheid era land policies, private property, cattle and livestock ownership, and settler colonialism are underlying structural drivers of HWC as well as important context regarding the nature and character of cheetah conservation by the NGOs in Namibia today. HWC from cheetah predation is an ongoing problem and cheetahs do cause conflicts in all areas of Namibia's system of land tenure. While cheetahs’ territory is predominantly on private commercial farms, cheetahs can still be found in public, communal, and CBNRM areas as well. HWC with cheetahs does impact the livelihoods of commercial/freehold farming communities as well as communal and CBNRM areas. The difference is that commercial farmers own the land. While cheetahs’ territory on commercial farms is a unique adaptation, it is also a consequence of the large-scale dispossession and appropriation of land in Namibia that continued until the 1960s (Melber 2019). Cheetahs’ territory, HWC on commercial farms, and cheetah conservation by the NGOs is part and parcel to Namibia's history of private land ownership. For the NGOs in this study, private land ownership evolved into commercial farming units and, in turn, businesses. What cannot be ignored is how issues of land, land rights, and private ownership underlie HWC and cheetah conservation by the NGOs that were the focus of this research. The question of land and land rights is, fundamentally, a question about equity. And equity, a Namibian official explained in an interview, is missing in conservation discussions and debates in the country. To do justice to these important conversations and debates is beyond the scope of this paper, however.

Cheetah HWC in Namibia

Cheetahs’ ecological, biological, and behavioral adaptation(s) in Namibia point to the need for a fuller picture of the permutations of conservation and conservation NGOs in Africa. Cheetahs and efforts to conserve the species, Brandon (2021) explained, are a huge draw for tourism, voluntourism, and for “global audiences afraid of ‘losing the species forever’” (196). The NGOs studied are known globally for their work mitigating HWC. HWC narratives and conservation interventions are circulated widely and attract global support and funding for the NGOs in Namibia. Conservation policy and practice, as Campbell (2007) argued, is not “simply a matter of biological or ecological necessity but serves the political interests of particular groups” (313). Because they are self-contained entities, the cheetah conservation NGOs studied can construct their own conservation agenda and generate income through the services they themselves provide. As discussed in the introduction, the NGOs’ HWC intervention policy and practice is not tied to state-sanctioned conservation efforts but is on offer to commercial farmers, the Namibian government, and Namibia's farming community writ large. HWC mitigation strategies detailed in the following sections highlight solutions and interventions that focus on awareness, education, toolkits, and, importantly, on changing the perspectives of those impacted by HWC. Conservation interventions that are examples of the tangible services provided by the NGOs in their service-based approach. These conservation services contribute to the ultimate goal to ‘save’ cheetahs (from extinction). For global audiences ‘afraid of losing the species forever’, the NGOs are providing an important and intangible service through their conservation intervention policy and practice. In Namibia, as the following sections will show, the impact of the NGOs’ conservation services remains an abstraction.

The following sections will look at data collected on 1) the role of cheetah conservation NGOs in conservation in Namibia, 2) illustrate the struggle over resources between commercial farming communities and the NGOs, and 3) contextualize HWC mitigation efforts by the cheetah conservation NGOs in Namibia.

The role of cheetah conservation NGOs

Cheetah conservation work defined by the NGOs in this study is done mainly on-site at the NGOs’ private facilities across Namibia. Conservation work at the NGOs includes research activities such as testing out HWC mitigation strategies, livestock guarding dogs, and farmer updates. All of which are activities for voluntourists and interns alike. Cheetah conservation and work to mitigate HWC are essential to the voluntourism programs and tourism at the NGOs. With few exceptions, cheetahs at the NGOs are generally in captivity. Cheetahs in captivity at the NGOs are cared for by volunteers and part of tourist activities at the centers. While there are many reasons for cheetahs being in captivity at the NGOs, HWC between cheetahs and farming communities was discussed as one of them. Cheetahs are also not the only species ‘persecuted’ by local farming communities, the NGOs have many species ranging from lions, leopards, and wild dogs to aardvarks, meerkats, baboons, and a rather pesky porcupine. The Namibian government does acknowledge that captivity, to some extent, is necessary. The government also recognizes the need to regulate the keeping of captive wildlife as the government does not want this to become an industry in Namibia. Per a Namibian official:

Some people argue that the animals that they have in captivity are the ambassadors for the animals in the wild. Somebody would come and see the cheetah and say, oh, these animals need protection. If I go home, I have to go and fundraise and send money, or even send more people to come in this country to volunteer with this organization⁵.

The Namibian government's viewpoint in conservation is to keep cheetahs and wildlife as a whole, wild. While recognizing that captivity, to some extent, is necessary, it is not considered conservation. The policy explains in terms of the “keeping of large carnivores, which cannot be rehabilitated or are not suitable for release in wild, or which cannot survive on their own in the wild, does not contribute to wild populations and conservation but may provide other conservation benefits (e.g., awareness and education)” (MET 2016). This is not in opposition to conservation NGO narratives and focus ‘in theory’; however, in practice, the contradiction lies where most cheetahs on-site at the NGOs are captive and used for tourism and voluntourism programs. What has resulted is that one side of Namibia has free roaming wildlife and the other side there are animals in enclosures. This contradiction highlights the issue of property rights. The NGOs in this study are on their own private property and in Namibia's private sector. The NGOs are also considered by the government to be income-generating sources (see Brandon 2021). Therefore, the NGOs do not have political power in Namibian conservation governance (Brandon 2021). When it comes to decisions, particularly regarding conservation policy, cheetah conservation NGOs, as Brandon (2021) found, are “consulted by the MET, but, at the end of the day most of the laws are meant to regulate them” (196). Cheetah conservation NGOs do not have a seat at the table and are not policymakers in Namibian conservation governance. This is attributed to both captive cheetahs on-site and the NGOs as private sector actors. Regarding captive wildlife, several Namibian officials all agreed that “Namibia is not a zoo and we don’t want to have zoos.”

It is a fundamental principle and basis for government policies that “the State shall promote the conservation of large carnivores in the wild and within their natural environment” (MET 2016). The National Policy on Conservation and Management of Large Carnivores in Namibia (MET 2016) states in the policy framework, the objective(s) of the policy is “to prevent unsustainable, illegal, and unregulated utilization of large carnivores and their products” (MET 2016). As well as “to identify and put in place mechanisms to regulate, control, and sanction the large carnivore utilization practices that are unethical and unsustainable” (MET 2016). At the time of this fieldwork, a new wildlife bill was in the works. A Namibian official explained the basis for the new bill:

The idea from the regulated perspective is to try and clamp down on potential mass roaming of these facilities. Because it's an economic activity. For some people it works so it may be an attractive business enterprise… We don’t want to see this to be a purely business thing. One purpose of the regulation is to have checks and controls on the numbers. Secondly, is to prevent taking of the animals from the wild to feed these markets. There are species that are in hiding and species like the lion, especially the lion, is in high demand. Everybody wants to have a lion in the facility. If we don’t have this regulatory framework, people would do anything to get their hands on the lions. Because it pays to see a lion.

Explaining the intentions of the new bill, the Namibian official continued:

This regulation is getting to a mutual ground to say, okay, we don’t want to see this, but you want this as your industry. The constitution of the country provides for capitalism, not really capitalism, but for free entrepreneurship. You can do whatever business you think is good for you. You’ve got that liberty and a constitutional provision or a right to do any type of business you want in Namibia. That is within the framework of the law, not illegal business… In meeting at the middle ground, you want to regulate things. You try to keep the numbers in check by coming up with regulations.

In an interview, a researcher spoke about cheetah conservation NGOs and how cheetah conservation is not through keeping individual cheetahs. The researcher continued, adding that “organizations that just take in cheetahs, and cheetahs, and cheetahs…. do in the sense that people expect you to conserve a valuable animal”⁶. This is evident at the NGOs where cheetahs are kept as ambassador animals. Cheetahs in captivity are not often released back into the ‘wild’ but typically kept in enclosures separated from other carnivores in private protected areas. The researcher said how a lot of people in Namibia consider the removal of problem species and keeping them as a solution. As government officials stated, captive wildlife is not viewed by the government to serve conservation value. Noting the difficulties in cheetah conservation as it is currently practiced by the NGOs in Namibia, a researcher described how cheetah conservation cannot work if conservation does not focus on cheetahs’ habitat and whole surrounding areas. The role of the cheetah is important to see as the whole picture, the researcher stated that “you can’t just take, conserve a cheetah alone”⁷. What this means is that conservation needs to account for the whole habitat, consider the whole attitudes, and the whole farming methods, etc. in order for cheetahs to have a chance. Both the researcher and the government officials described that in some cases keeping cheetahs in captivity is necessary, but both agreed that it is not a solution.

Struggle over resources

Tourism is a big part of Namibia's economy, and, as a Namibian official stated, is “the only sector in Namibia that is doing well”⁸⁹. People come from all over the world to see Namibia's wildlife. Therefore, a big portion of Namibia's tourism sector is nature-based tourism. And, a Namibian official explained, “a lot of that happens on free land”. A member of the commercial farming community explained that changes in land practices on commercial farms have moved to incorporate and/or switch to focus on tourism. The commercial farmer discussed how tourism in Namibia is centered around the national parks and reserves, however, visitors tended to stay outside, rather than inside, the national parks. This has brought opportunities for the surrounding commercial/private farms to “diversify and to develop some other income, additional income, [through] tourist accommodation”¹⁰. And tourism has exploded, the commercial farmer continued, in this instance, on private/freehold commercial farms bordering Etosha national park. The change in land use to tourism on commercial farms is also affecting wildlife populations; in particular, increasing predator/carnivore populations. While the tourism sector benefits from these increases, growing populations pose a risk for livestock/game farming communities nearby. Land change in Namibia, a commercial farmer explained, has “made it more viable for predators¹¹”. Changes in land use towards tourism, the commercial farmer continued, “made it a big problem, predator problem, in Namibia¹²”. For commercial farmers, cheetahs are one of the main culprits.

In Namibia, tourism is not specifically for cheetahs but Namibia's prolific wildlife according to a Namibian official. People are not coming to Namibia just to see cheetahs. The official described how there is a small subsection of the tourism market around endemics, particularly birds, only “a very small number of people are coming just to see a cheetah¹³”. As a result, the NGOs are all competing for the same funding sources as well as with conservation and tourism in Namibia writ large. As a commercial farmer explained in an interview, the cheetah conservation organizations are all “fighting for the same piece of cake¹⁴”. The ‘cake’ is only so big, the commercial farmer discussed how they need to “get this donor money for their own survival and they are now competing against each other for favoritism of the species¹⁵”. And to do that, the farmer stated, the NGOs draw on emotional responses, asking commercial farmers’ “why do you kill it?”—‘it’ meaning cheetahs. The emotional responses the commercial farmer was referring to draw from cheetah conservation NGOs construction of HWC that is described as an impossible situation for cheetahs. HWC from cheetah predation is a problem. Subsequently, the cheetah conservation NGOs have framed this conflict as one of the main threats to cheetahs’ survival. In so doing, cheetah conservation efforts have conducted and distributed a great body of work describing the problem and offering their solutions.

Cheetahs, a Namibian official explained, are a ‘good draw card,’ for generating money in tourism. This is illustrated by billboards lining the B1, the main highway leading to Etosha National Park. Along the highway, billboards can be seen advertising cheetahs on-site at local guest farms and lodges as well as signs directing tourists to several cheetah conservation NGOs in this study. Cheetahs’ ecological adaptations and tensions with commercial farming communities mean that cheetah conservation work is done mostly on-site at the NGOs at their various properties across Namibia. The NGOs locations all include luxury lodges and most host voluntourism programs for international voluntourists. Voluntourism at the NGOs ranges in price starting at $1200 US dollars for two weeks and up depending on the program, location(s), and other amenities¹⁶. To stay at the NGOs as a guest ranges from $384 US dollars per person per night to $576 US dollars per person per night depending on the season and the location¹⁷. Conservation activities are not included but taking part in the activities and staying at the lodge does contribute to the conservation work of the NGOs. Cheetah conservation activities and experiences are available to tourists and voluntourists alike and are intended for educational purposes as well as to raise awareness and funding for the NGOs. And these experiences can carry a steep price. One private reserve offered a cheetah walk for N$3000 Namibian dollars (roughly US $218)¹⁸. Cheetahs and HWC problems and solutions are also situated as a global issue. Cheetahs and conservation issues are featured in merchandise, celebrity and corporate sponsorships, online symbolic adoptions, and as ambassador animals at local zoos and even at a theme park in Florida. Global fundraising campaigns that raise money, awareness, and support for the cheetah conservation NGOs and their work in Namibia.

How and where cheetahs are valued depends on conservation and the onus of conserving cheetahs rests largely on commercial farming communities. Conflicts with cheetahs do negatively impact the livelihoods of commercial/freehold farming communities. Consequently, commercial farmers generally have little to no tolerance for cheetahs on their property. Changes in land ownership, use, and management, both in the past and in the current move towards tourism over commercial farming, have led to increasing problems with cheetahs on commercial farms. Cheetahs’ behavior and ecology is especially important to consider when discussing HWC situations. Cheetahs like to hunt. A commercial farmer explained how cheetahs “just kill animals”¹⁹. On small livestock farms, losses incurred from cheetah predations are generally larger than from other species. The financial costs of predation on game farms are substantially more expensive than livestock, many are exotic breeds. Game is also cheetahs’ natural prey. A commercial farmer described how a cheetahs taught their young ones to hunt, by killing the farmer's livestock. Cheetahs will often kill multiple animals and only consume one, if one is consumed.

Understandably, this is an economic liability and a cause of frustration on commercial livestock farms. The financial responsibility for predator control is on commercial farmers. The commercial farmer discussed how it is up to the farmers to carry the loss, that to “a certain extent you can tolerate if you are being paid”. The commercial farmer stated that, for farmers, there was no donor money. The farmer suggested a solution for the NGOs was to pay farmers for the losses “instead of buying farmland, and instead of driving the best land cruisers on the market, and instead of… living extravagant²⁰”. For the farmer, there is no mutual ground, this is where the conflict starts. When it comes to cheetah conservation in Namibia, the burden and responsibility for conservation remains largely on the shoulders of private/freehold commercial farming communities. Not on the cheetah conservation NGOs in Namibia. According to a commercial farmer, “at the end of the day, we the farmer is [the] ones who struggle”. The farmer explained the problem and referenced that ‘we’ as a farming community “don’t want to kill them”²¹, but there's “animals left, right or center nobody cares about that”²². Interviews with commercial farmers tended to frame HWC with cheetahs as an impossible situation. During fieldwork I was warned of the difficulty to find commercial farmers willing to talk about cheetah conservation. Most commercial farmers statements reflected what was already known about the conflict. Commercial farmers are not blind to conservation work at the NGOs that includes voluntourism, luxury lodges, and cheetah activities. The commercial farmers all recognized the disparity in conservation, particularly, that commercial farmers do not benefit financially from cheetah conservation. The only solution for the commercial farming community was to let commercial farmers ‘value’ cheetahs because, as one farmer noted, “if it pays, it stays”²³²⁴.

HWC mitigation

To date, there is little collaboration between the commercial farming community and cheetah conservation NGOs. Solutions for cheetah predation are offered by the cheetah conservation NGOs in the form of education, trainings, livestock guard dogs²⁵, and toolkits, not, however, financial compensation by the NGOs for loss. What compensation there is available is provided through the government and CBNRM and directed through public, state-sanctioned conservation. A commercial farmer explained that the NGOs like to be seen as working with farmers but couldn’t say that the NGOs were working with the commercial farming community. The farmer continued, describing how the NGOs would like to claim they are working with farmers, “because it's to their benefit, but it's not the truth”²⁶. Describing doubts about the NGOs, the commercial farmer described their interactions below:

They do give these booklets out. They do discussions at farmer's association meetings. But they do not adapt their policies. They do not adapt their strategies. They do not adapt their way of thinking. They accuse us of not doing it. But as I’ve said we’ve got to pay each and everything from livestock that we are selling, which is not the case with them²⁷.

In an interview with a Namibian official, we discussed how conservationists understand how dynamic ecosystems are always in flux yet assume communities and people are static. The Namibian official noted:

We make an assumption; you’ll be happy with this we’ll carry on this conservation. We don’t go back and revisit, in relation to the change in conservation, and in relation to your changing circumstances, where do we stand now? We constantly just rely on assumptions from ten, fifteen years ago. We go and we interview a community. We carryout doing the conservation work, and just assume it's all the same. Because hey, people are people. They stay the same. They don’t²⁸.

Frustration with losses and no financial compensation has led to tensions between cheetah conservation NGOs and the commercial farming communities. These tensions are at the root of HWC and center around who can derive value from cheetahs, in particular, their conservation. Commercial livestock farmers see cheetah conservation NGOs as profiting from cheetahs’ conservation but government policies and no compensation from the NGOs leave commercial farmers with few options to recoup from such losses. A commercial farmer described their experience of HWC:

The conflict is just too big because there's no real practical solutions from this. They’ve got, they try to give solutions. They’ve got handbooks on cheetah control, and cheetah management, but it's not really practical. In the end, the losses are still incurred by me²⁹.

The farmer mentioned that the NGOs do attend farmer meetings, however, the farmer discussed how the NGOs are not always welcome or treated well, because people just can’t afford it (predation) anymore and “people are fed up”³⁰. The commercial farmer mentioned that, as part of a livestock organization, they were part of LCMAN³¹ but removed themselves because they “we’re one voice in the desert, calling in the desert”³². Another commercial farmer refused to work with the NGOs, explaining “that's the problem… these people just getting money from overseas and things like that and not using [it] in the right way”³³. In an interview a commercial farmer explained how they have to deal with the people from the NGOs that the farmer didn’t view as necessarily responsible or trustworthy. Explaining why, the commercial farmer asked a rhetorical question quoted below:

We ask, why are you doing it? Why are you so absolutely frenetic about protecting the cheetahs while they are not on the brink of extinction? Is it because of your own sustained, your own being? Why are you doing it?³⁴

The cheetah conservation NGOs in this study do have various HWC mitigation strategies that include a farmer hotline, daily updates on radio-collared cheetahs, and translocations of problem animals alongside toolkits, farmer trainings³⁵, raising awareness, and education. The cheetah conservation NGOs, however, do not compensate commercial farming communities, nor communal, resettled, and CBNRM farmers for losses. A researcher at an NGO explained that “people don’t like predators, but they do like money”³⁶. The researcher continued, discussing how “money is going to have to probably be what's going to dangle in front of everybody to make this change”³⁷. What was important for the researcher was to say “it can be done if we have the will power and obviously the money and a way forward”³⁸. Again, it is important to reiterate that the cheetah conservation NGOs do not compensate commercial, communal, resettled, or CBNRM farmers for economic losses due to cheetah predation. Despite what the researcher said about money, the cheetah conservation NGOs have yet to develop compensation plans or other economic benefits for any of the farming communities in Namibia³⁹.

From market-based conservation to a service-based cheetah conservation approach

In Namibia, conservation is the role of the state and enacted through state-sanctioned conservation that includes Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), national parks, and reserves. Namibia is known globally for its conservation; specifically, through national environmental policy and legislation, national parks and reserves, and the CBNRM model (Dressler et al. 2010; Mufune 2015). In Namibia, national conservation policy and practice does protect cheetahs on all areas of land tenure (Nowell 1996). Cheetahs are also a protected species in Namibian conservation policy and practice (Nowell 1996). National conservation efforts are implemented to benefit local communities on public land, particularly communities that coexist with dangerous wildlife. National conservation strategies work to promote conservation through wildlife utilization based on the devolution of rights over wildlife (Hewitson and Sullivan 2021). The program relies on tourism to provide economic benefits to the communities living in communal and CBNRM areas (Mufune 2015). Namibia's national park and reserve system also generates money from conservation to benefit communities through park fees and accommodation inside the park (Barnes et. al. 1999). The cheetah conservation NGOs studied do have projects working with local communities in CBNRM and communal areas that provide public services, though the programs are not generally focused on cheetahs. Outside of providing these services, cheetah conservation by the NGOs is not structured to provide the same economic benefits to local communities⁴⁰ as those provided through national environmental legislation; specifically, through CBNRM, national parks, and reserves (Mosimane and Silva 2015). As opposed to a market-based approach providing ‘livelihood opportunities,’ particularly, in HWC situations, cheetah conservation NGOs highlight mitigation efforts focused on coexistence, awareness, education, and changing the perspectives of those affected by HWC. These differences in conservation practices and agendas mean that cheetah conservation by the NGOs and conservation in Namibia are a difference of kind.

Currently, there is no working theory or concept in political ecology that can address the full nature and character of cheetah conservation by the NGOs in Namibia. The dilemma of representing cheetah conservation by these NGOs stems from a curious mix of conservation interventions that contribute to Namibian conservation but not through the Namibian conservation model. The NGOs’ contributions to conservation in Namibia are not through mainstream conservation models or market-based approaches that are typical in political ecology theorizing. While the NGOs in this study do provide (service-based) support that is directed towards CBNRM and communal areas, they are not located within CBNRM, communal areas, national parks, and reserves⁴¹. Conservation in Namibia, through CBNRM, national parks and reserves, does fit within an analytical framework in political ecology. Cheetah conservation by the NGOs in Namibia does not. The difference between cheetah conservation by the NGOs and the Namibian conservation model is the difference between a service-based approach and market-based approaches to conservation. Cheetah conservation by the NGOs is not engaged in participatory approaches (Bixler et al. 2015) or economic development (Fletcher 2010; Sullivan 2006) to conserve cheetahs, nor is cheetah conservation ‘conservation-as-development’ (Büscher and Fletcher 2020). The NGOs in this study are considered “income generating sources and part of Namibia's private sector, not state-sanctioned conservation” (Brandon 2021:196). Assumptions about conservation and conservation NGOs in the field of political ecology make it difficult to see cheetah conservation by the NGOs for what, in essence, is a business. The curious mix of conservation interventions sets cheetah conservation by the NGOs apart from normative conservation models critiqued in political ecology.

Where the service-based approach diverges from market-based conservation is rooted in the definition of the service industry. For this analysis, the definition of a service industry refers to “all those firms and employers whose major final output is some intangible or ephemeral commodity or, alternatively, that residual set of productive institutions in the formal economy whose final output is not a material good” (Gershuny and Miles 1983:3 quoted in Karaomerlioglu and Carlsson 1999:177). While Karaomerlioglu and Carlsson (1999) did not define the service industry with cheetah conservation in mind, their definition is still relevant here. What is important in the service-based approach for cheetah conservation by the NGOs is the attributes of the services they provide—they are intangible. Intangible services are foundational for how the service-based approach diverges from market-based approaches in political ecology. In market-based approaches, land and nature cannot be valued as they are not produced through human labor (Büscher 2013). Büscher (2013) argued that services, derived from land and nature, are valued through fictitious capital, defined by Harvey (2006) as “capital without any material basis in commodities or productive activity” (95). The opposite is true here. Cheetah conservation intervention policy and practice has a material basis as it is produced through research, global fundraising campaigns, and the production of knowledge centered on HWC by researchers and staff at the NGOs. ‘Saving cheetahs (from extinction)’ is the intangible service and goal of the NGOs’ labor. In this case, cheetahs are not the source of value. Therefore, value is not derived through fictitious capital and/or natural capital but through the NGOs’ tangible and intangible conservation services.

Not ‘business as usual’ conservation: the anomaly of cheetah conservation NGOs in Namibia

Conservation, Heise (2016) argued, has become an “arena of contention in the struggle over resources” (91). In the struggle over resources, the NGOs are competing for expertise, attention, and specialization in constructing cheetah conservation intervention policy and practice at local, national, and global scales. Cheetah conservation NGOs, according to Brandon (2021), compete “with each other and with larger, more well-known NGOs, other globally valued and threatened charismatic species as well as the continuous flow of information online” (190). Brandon (2021) described how cheetah conservation NGOs in Namibia funded conservation efforts globally by selling extinction over social media platforms and how such fundraising campaign tactics to raise awareness for cheetahs did not “work in isolation from broader structures of global capitalism” (190). Global campaigns to #SaveTheCheetahs were not only intended to raise awareness about extinction but also communicated threats facing cheetahs and the proposed solution(s) by the NGOs in Namibia (Brandon 2021). In other words, cheetah conservation NGOs use the same global fundraising strategies to sell extinction that they use to promote their work in conservation in Namibia, including their work to mitigate HWC conflicts described in this paper. Because of their work mitigating HWC in Namibia, the cheetah conservation NGOs in this study have positioned themselves as institutions of global academic, economic, and social power in cheetah conservation. By institutionalizing conservation threats, such as HWC, generating value through conflict becomes necessary in order to maintain the business of saving cheetahs.

In Namibia, the NGOs service-based approach is an anomaly and illustrative of a new phenomenon outside the normative construction of conservation in the field of political ecology. As a conservation service industry, cheetah conservation by the NGOs studied does not conform to long-standing traditions and practices that Brockington et. al. (2010) considered typical of ‘mainstream conservation’. In the field of political ecology, theoretical and conceptual contributions tend to focus on conservation that is in situ and/or territorially-based (Vaccaro et al. 2013) whether it be through national parks, private reserves, or in collaboration with local communities. Vaccaro et al. (2013) observed that political ecology from its inception “devoted analytical attention to the socio-ecological context of conservation policies” (255; Neumann 1992). Conservation policy and practice that in most political ecology literature links conservation with nature and protected areas, both public (Peet et al. 2011) and private (Holmes 2015) and to the state (Margulies and Karanth 2018). Mainstream conservation, Büscher and Fletcher (2020) most recently wrote, is part of a broad mix of approaches but can be broken down into two key characteristics: one that maintains a capitalist character and those that still revolve around protected areas. Mentioned in the introduction, cheetahs’ ecological adaptations mean free-roaming cheetahs are predominantly found outside of both public and private protected areas, including the NGOs’ private facilities. Therefore, fortress conservation models and scholarship on both public and private protected areas is not addressed in this analysis. Cheetah conservation does, however, maintain a capitalist character. In Büscher and Fletcher's (2020) argument, the capitalist character of mainstream conservation, is focused on natural capital so that the “pursuit of profit can effectively and efficiently be linked to the protection of nature and the ‘environmental services’ it provides” (Büscher and Fletcher 2020:3). Environmental services in this context are services intrinsic to nature and a means to support human development through conservation. Büscher and Fletcher (2020) consider ‘conservation-as-development’ through natural capital as the “quintessential form of accumulation by conservation” (109). Because the NGOs are the owners of the means of production and are part of the conservation capitalist class, cheetah conservation is divorced from both development and nature as it is only the NGOs that are structured to benefit from the service-based approach.

Cheetahs’ ecology is not inconsequential here. The entwined history of cheetah ecology, predator control, HWC, private livestock and land ownership, and settler colonialism have shaped both cheetahs’ territory and their conservation. Cheetahs’ ecological, biological, and behavioral adaptations to interspecies threats and competition has moved conservation efforts to private property and into the private sector. While there is a great deal of scholarship on private conservation (Thakholi 2021; Thakholi 2021; Marijnen 2018; Büscher et. al. 2022), this impressive work does not apply to this particular context. The NGOs studied are not organized through private sector partnerships in public conservation (Sullivan 2006; Vaccaro et al. 2013) but are established commercial entities. What this means is there is no public/private partnership to market conservation commodities in private cheetah conservation. As self-contained private entities, the NGOs can construct their own conservation agenda and market it themselves through their own private business practices. Typically, it is the state that is the market facilitator for trade in alienated conservation commodities (Hewittson and Sullivan 2021). In political ecology theorizing, following Hewittson and Sullivan (2021), the state provides regulatory and supportive structures for the transfer of public goods to private sector actors (Hewittson and Sullivan 2021; Castree and Henderson 2014; Fletcher 2010; Büscher et al. 2013). Because the NGOs are private self-contained entities working independently from both state– and Namibian NGO-led conservation, cheetah conservation by these NGOs is not privatized, market-based conservation. The NGOs are not a medium in assisting buyers and sellers of their products/services to come together through market exchange. Instead, the cheetah conservation NGOs are the producers specializing in cheetah conservation intervention policy and practice. A service they themselves provide and market to global audiences. In this way, the NGOs studied are competing for expertise and specialization in constructing cheetah conservation intervention policy and practice at local, national, and global scales.

Cheetah conservation by these NGOs is not ‘business as usual’ (Sullivan 2006). In this case, ‘saving’ cheetahs simply does not square with ‘saving nature.’ What is markedly different in the NGOs’ service-based approach to cheetah conservation is that they are not reliant on deriving value from nature (Hewitson and Sullivan 2021). In other words, to derive benefits from conservation, cheetah conservation NGOs do not rely on ‘selling nature to save it’ (McAfee 1999), payments for ecosystem services (Kull 2015), and/or natural capital (Büscher and Fletcher 2020). Roth and Dressler (2012) explained, market-based conservation “emerged under the mantra that assigning a monetary value to nature was the most efficient and effective way of saving it” (363; McAfee 1999). What is significantly different between the two approaches is the difference in value creation and in their services. In market-based approaches to conservation, Büscher (2013) argued that nature-to-be-conserved functions as “a peculiar kind of fixed capital whose value circulates through the capital embodied in and implied by its environmental services” (22). Büscher (2013) described how “nature is actively produced and transformed through its conservation” (21; Brockington and Duffy 2010; Dressler 2011). In this particular case, value is not derived through cheetahs and the environmental services they provide but through the NGOs’ conservation intervention policy and practice that is marketed by the NGOs to global audiences afraid of ‘losing the species forever’. Through the service-based approach, cheetah conservation does not require value to be embodied in cheetahs and the environmental services they intrinsically provide. Rather, value is created by the NGOs through their conservation services to reach the ultimate intangible goal—‘saving’ cheetahs (from extinction).

What this means is that cheetahs are not, in this case, natural capital in which value can be derived. Rather, the NGOs use their expertise in cheetah conservation intervention policies and practices to gain a competitive advantage. As a result, the NGOs in this study have constructed a private service-based industry around conflict mitigation, transforming the ‘value of conflict’ in conservation into capital. In so doing, the approaches to mitigate HWC by the NGOs in this study are an accumulation strategy (Ekers and Prudham 2017). The value derived from conflict, however, is not shared. Market-based approaches are usually premised on “the additional benefit of being able to provide livelihood opportunities for those most affected by conservation practice” (Roth and Dressler 2012:363). As the data showed, the NGOs’ global fundraising campaigns and income derived through tourism/voluntourism programs did not reach communities affected by HWC conflicts with cheetahs. In fact, cheetah conservation NGOs did not offer any financial compensation for loss to any of the farming communities in Namibia writ large. The service-based approach to cheetah conservation by the NGOs studied does not incentivize communities to conserve cheetahs. Because cheetah conservation by the NGOs is not market-based conservation and cheetahs are not a form of natural capital, commercial farmers cannot derive the same value from cheetahs as the NGOs studied, making cheetah conservation a wedge in the struggle over resources between two private sector industries. This marks a pivotal example of the need for widening out political ecology lenses to focus more analytical attention to conservation NGOs’ business practices.

Conclusion

In biodiversity conservation, Heise (2016) highlighted the importance of looking at “who is in charge of designing and implementing conservation” (91). This becomes necessary as individual and/or charismatic species are perceived to be nearing extinction and conservation NGOs’ role in intervention policies have been legitimized (Brandon 2021). For example, when the emotive power of extinction is used to “engage global audiences in local conservation crises and fund conservation NGOs, narratives of fear around losing a species are increasingly overriding narratives of social and ecological justice” (Brandon 2021:197). Global fundraising and awareness campaigns by the NGOs in support of their cheetah conservation efforts in Namibia brings into question the flows of money, information, and power and its influence. Because the NGOs are self-contained entities, they can construct their own conservation agenda and, through a service-based approach, that agenda can be focused on the intangible needs and concerns of global audiences afraid of ‘losing the species forever,’ not those economically impacted by HWC. Cheetah conservation by the NGOs studied is an anomaly because cheetah conservation is not only detached from both nature and from development, it also does not provide an incentive for communities to conserve cheetahs. In analyzing cheetah conservation by the NGOs, there is the hope that this research will occasion a birth of a more socially equitable and environmentally benign cheetah conservation policy and practice by the NGOs in Namibia.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Notes

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