Namibia: 24 Rhinos Fall to Poachers

Namibia has recorded 24 rhinos poached so far this year, indicating a significant decline in rhino poaching in recent years, environment, forestry and tourism minister Indileni Daniel says.

Daniel says the country recorded 43 rhinos poached in 2025, down from 91 in 2024, making it the lowest level recorded in more than a decade.

Speaking at the third National Stakeholder Forum on Wildlife and Environmental Protection in Windhoek on Monday, Daniel warned that poachers and international criminal syndicates continue to adapt faster than the systems designed to stop them.

"Criminals threatening our wildlife and natural resources have also learned to adapt and sometimes they adapt faster than our systems do," she said.

Daniel said the decline demonstrates Namibia's strategies are yielding results, but warned that the country is "not yet out of the woods".

She called for stronger cross-border cooperation and international partnerships to disrupt the global demand driving wildlife trafficking.

"To address poaching and trafficking, we need to cut the demand by making sure we cut the line to the underworld market," Daniel said.

She also identified corruption as a major threat to wildlife protection, saying stronger internal controls are needed to prevent officials and others from compromising protected resources for personal gain.

Daniel said illegal plant trafficking had also rapidly grown into a lucrative criminal enterprise, prompting the need for stronger measures against flora and forestry crimes.

The ministry expanded the stakeholder forum's focus from wildlife crime to include flora and forestry crimes following the inaugural forum in 2022.

Daniel said Namibia spends hundreds of millions of dollars through the government, the private sector and international partners to combat environmental crime, resources which could otherwise support other national development priorities.

She said Namibia has strengthened legislation and penalties and established specialised structures, including the wildlife protection services division and the environmental crime unit in the Office of the Prosecutor General.

Daniel also welcomed progress in finalising the long-awaited wildlife and protected areas management bill, which she said would further strengthen wildlife conservation and protection once enacted.

She said protecting Namibia's natural resources was not only an environmental responsibility, but also a legal and development imperative.

Director of wildlife and national parks Benette Kahuure says the newly launched 19-year strategic plan will focus on environmental crimes and indigenous plants, timber trafficking, marine species and focus on combating corruption.

"It indicates illegal harvesting of timber and plant trafficking we picked up of late have become targets by syndicates.

And environmental governments concentrate on stamping out corruption and risks associated with that and habit degradation," Kahuure says.

Read the original article on Namibian.