Promoting human–carnivore coexistence through outreach in Namibia’s eastern communal conservancies

Education and community outreach are fundamental to raising conservation awareness in rural communities for alleviating human–wildlife conflict (HWC). Evaluating the impacts of programs aimed at reducing HWC is necessary to justify the effectiveness of mitigation strategies, and to provide feedback for designing sustainable conservation initiatives at the community level. We examined the impacts of an outreach program in four eastern communal conservancies in Namibia using questionnaire surveys administered to outreach workshop participants. Most participants experienced livestock losses (91.7%), which were caused primarily by predators and droughts. Following workshop attendance, significant declines in livestock losses were observed and perceptions regarding the abundances of predators in the area reflected the reality on the ground more accurately. These results suggest that workshops can be effective in teaching communities about predator ecology and mitigating depredation losses of livestock. Therefore, workshops can be used as an important strategy to promote conservation and sustainable livelihoods.