ABSTRACT
Namibia's national community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programme aims to link democracy and social and economic development to the conservation and management of natural resources. The focus of the Namibian programme on both participatory development and democracy-building promotes the economic upliftment of the majority of residents, and seeks to avoid the usual skewed pattern whereby a minority elite captures rights over, and benefits from, common property resources, so common in Africa (Adams and Hulme, 2001). Namibia's CBNRM philosophy also attempts to weave together best practices from free enterprise and common property management to support the long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability of rural Namibia. Two of the key features of the Namibian experience have thus been the growth of grassroots democracy and new opportunities for biodiversity conservation.
