National Policy on Prospecting and Mining in Protected Areas

Namibia’s Cabinet has recently approved the  National Policy on Prospecting and Mining in Protected Areas. This is an important achievement because, prior to this, there were no “no-go” areas in Namibia for prospecting and mining. Please look at Annexes 2-4 to get an overview of the no-go parks and the no-go areas within other parks. We warmly congratulate the two Ministries of Environment & Tourism and Mines & Energy, and Hon Members of Cabinet, for this very significant and progressive policy.

With this in place, we need to start thinking more broadly about other high-priority areas which don’t fall under the Ministry of Environment & Tourism, which would also quality as no-go areas for prospecting and mining. Please see Section 6.1 (starting on page 22) which outlines the characteristics of areas that may qualify for exclusion from prospecting and mining. Areas which immediately come to mind are the offshore islands in the Marine Protected Area which support globally important breeding populations of seabirds, some sinkholes in the Karst system that have endemic fish species, the string of islands in the Okavango River near Andara that support the only true “forest” in Namibia and chief’s burial grounds, Nyae-Nyae pans in Bushmanland, etc.