The Community Conservation Fund Namibia (CCFN) is expected to sign over a N$1 billion contract next month with international donors to fund community conservation projects.

The fund's Board Chairperson made the announcement during a courtesy visit to President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah at State House.

Advocate Andrew Corbett highlighted the fund's growth since Dr. Nandi-Ndwaitah assumed the patronage, noting an increase in funding mobilised to support community initiatives.

"So, we know that these issues are very close to Her Excellency's heart: issues of environment and linking environment to social development, particularly in our rural areas. So we're very proud to have her as our patron, and she's agreed to continue to be our patron. So it's a real creative organisation, and it also gives us the kind of exposure to raise funds internationally. And we've done that recently with agreements we're going to sign next month of 63 million US dollars, just over a billion NAM dollars, to fund community conservation and what we've been doing over the last few years."

The fund supports Namibia's Community-Based Natural Resources Management programme, which allows rural communities to manage wildlife and natural resources themselves, benefit financially from tourism, conservation and sustainable use, and protect biodiversity while improving livelihoods.

"So we've done, been able to support conservancies, which are groups of residents in both the northern parts of the country, to use wildlife as a basis for earning income for those communities and also help them with wildlife conflict. We hear a lot about conflict between animals and people living in those areas. And we've helped to fund lion ranges and elephant ranges that keep those animals apart from villages and also help them with their livelihoods in the sense of creating these predator-proof corrals where they put protective netting and fences around them so their livestock doesn't get taken by lions and other predators."

President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah emphasised the importance of conserving and protecting the country's environment for all.

"It is what is sustaining all of us. And as I say, if we are not protecting our environment, our environment will not protect us. And when we talk about an environment without biodiversity, both the fauna and the flora, then that's not an environment. So really, I'm always happy when I am having a meeting with the CCFN."

Corbett called the private sector to come on board and support the fund to foster environmental sustainability.