Steady ground: how the PDM plans to settle grazing disputes

Across Namibia's vast communal farmland, where livestock herders move their cattle and goats through seasonal pastures, conflicts over grazing rights have shaped rural life for generations. The Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) has placed the resolution of these disputes at the centre of its rural development agenda, arguing that uncertainty over who can graze where, and under what conditions, undermines food security, investment, and social cohesion. The party's leadership has framed the issue as a question of justice for small-scale farmers who have historically been pushed to the margins of land policy debates in Windhoek.

Drawing on customary tenure systems, constitutional protections, and practical mediation tools, the PDM is preparing a comprehensive framework that it says will be rolled out in partnership with traditional authorities, regional councils, and farming unions. The plan is designed to be portable across Namibia's fourteen regions, scalable from the densely settled north-central areas to the more arid southern plains, and adaptable as climate patterns shift. It is also part of a wider party commitment to inclusive economic growth, which the party intends to pursue through investment in rural courts, mediation training, and digital land records.

Roots of the communal land dispute

Communal land in Namibia covers roughly 41 percent of the country's surface area and supports the livelihoods of the majority of its rural population. Since independence in 1990, the legal framework has recognised customary land rights through the Communal Land Reform Act, but implementation has been uneven. Farmers in constituencies such as Omusati, Ohangwena, Kavango West, and Zambezi frequently report overlapping claims between villages, unresolved inheritance questions following the passing of senior family members, and confusion about the boundaries of grazing zones set aside by traditional authorities decades ago. When drought pushes herders to seek pasture further afield, these ambiguities can quickly turn into confrontation.

The PDM argues that the existing system places too heavy a burden on headmen and senior councillors, who mediate disputes with limited administrative support and no standardised record of previous rulings. Without a recognised archive of decisions, conflicting parties often arrive at a hearing with different understandings of what was agreed years earlier. Younger farmers, in particular, say they feel excluded from processes that rely on oral memory and the standing of older relatives. Women, who legally hold land in their own right under the Married Persons Equality Act but often struggle to have their names entered in customary registers, face additional friction when seeking to defend grazing allocations.

Compounding these pressures is the rapid growth of small-stock and poultry enterprises around emerging towns such as Outapi, Eenhana, and Rundu. As new entrants seek land close to markets, the competition for established water points and dry-season grazing intensifies. The PDM insists that the resolution of these disputes cannot wait for a single national solution; it requires a structured process that respects local autonomy while ensuring consistency across regions.

A tiered mediation framework backed by customary law

At the heart of the PDM's proposal is a three-tiered mediation structure that begins at the village level and escalates only when local consensus cannot be reached. The first tier relies on customary courts presided over by traditional leaders, with the addition of trained paralegals who can help document agreements in a format that survives changes in personnel. These paralegals would be drawn from the communities they serve, ensuring linguistic and cultural fluency in languages ranging from Oshiwambo to Otjiherero and Rukwangali.

The second tier involves regional land committees, composed of elected councillors, representatives of the Namibia National Farmers Union, and independent observers nominated by civil society. These committees would maintain a digital registry of grazing allocations and dispute outcomes, replacing the patchwork of paper ledgers currently held in traditional offices. The PDM believes that this registry will give farmers the same kind of certainty that urban property owners in cities like Sydney or Melbourne already enjoy when they register title to a house or a commercial unit. While the analogy is imperfect, the principle of transparent, searchable records is identical.

The third tier, reserved for the most contested cases, would be a dedicated Land Dispute Tribunal with the power to issue binding rulings grounded in both statutory and customary law. Members would be appointed for fixed terms to insulate them from political pressure, and their decisions would be subject to appeal in the High Court. The PDM has signalled that it will seek parliamentary support for the tribunal's establishment during the next legislative term, arguing that Namibia's reputation as a stable democracy depends on showing that the rule of law reaches the paddock as much as the parliament in Windhoek.

Strengthening traditional authorities and local tribunals

The PDM is careful to stress that its plan does not seek to undermine the authority of traditional leaders, who remain the first point of contact for most rural households. Instead, the party wants to equip those leaders with the administrative tools, training, and modest remuneration that the role demands. Under the current arrangement, headmen and senior councillors receive limited allowances and are expected to mediate complex disputes involving dozens of families without legal counsel or translation services. The PDM proposes a capacity-building fund, financed jointly by the state and development agencies, that would support annual training workshops in Oshakati, Rundu, Katima Mulilo, and Keetmanshoop.

The party also wants to clarify the legal standing of customary rulings. At present, a decision by a traditional court can be challenged in the Magistrate's Court, but the grounds for challenge are not always clear, leading to delays that frustrate both disputants and traditional leaders. The PDM's draft legislation would define the circumstances under which a customary decision may be reviewed, the evidence that must be presented, and the timelines that magistrates must follow. This, the party argues, will restore confidence in local processes and reduce the number of disputes that migrate to overburdened urban courts.

For the Youth League, this question is particularly urgent. Young Namibians who wish to remain in their home regions often cite land disputes as a reason for considering migration to Walvis Bay, Windhoek, or even further afield. By making the mediation system more predictable, the PDM hopes to keep young farmers on the land, where their energy and education can modernise pastoral practices without severing them from the cultural roots that give those practices meaning.

Lessons from Australian land tenure and native title

Australia offers a useful reference point, not because its history mirrors Namibia's, but because both countries have grappled with the legal recognition of customary claims over vast rural landscapes. Under the Native Title Act 1993, determined groups hold rights that can be confirmed, extinguished, or coexisted with pastoral leases that cover much of the outback. The National Native Title Tribunal, based in Perth with registries in Sydney, Melbourne, and Cairns, has spent decades adjudicating overlapping interests and producing outcomes that, while often criticised, at least provide a paper trail. Queensland's experience with Indigenous Land Use Agreements shows how neighbouring claimants can negotiate shared access to grazing and water resources, an approach the party intends to adapt for the Kunene and Hardap regions.

Australian pastoralists, many of whom hold long-term leases over tracts in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, have themselves had to adjust to new coexistence arrangements. Their representative body, Cattle Australia, has acknowledged that clear boundaries and shared watering points benefit everyone, a finding echoed in research funded by the Australian government's Regional Land Partnerships programme. The PDM points to these developments as evidence that tenure reform need not pit traditional users against commercial interests; with the right scaffolding, the two can share the same range.

Still, the party is wary of transplanting models wholesale. Australian everyday habits of governance, from the local-government shire system to the state-based Land and Environment Courts, evolved over more than a century of common-law development. Namibia will need to chart its own course, informed by these examples but grounded in its own constitutional commitments to equality, dignity, and the protection of cultural identity.

Economic renewal and a path forward for rural Namibia

The economic case for resolving grazing disputes is straightforward. Herders who feel secure in their access to pasture are more likely to invest in better breeding, supplementary feeding, and rotational grazing, which in turn lifts productivity and reduces the environmental pressure that leads to overgrazing. The Meat Corporation of Namibia, which processes exports to Europe, the United Kingdom, and the European Union's preferential markets, would benefit from a more predictable supply chain rooted in stable rural communities. So would the small butcheries and vendors that anchor towns like Ongwediva, Otjiwarongo, and Mariental.

Beyond livestock, the PDM sees an opportunity to weave tourism, conservation, and small-scale agro-processing into the same rural landscape. Resolving grazing disputes makes it easier to negotiate conservancy agreements with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, allowing communities to earn income from photographic safaris while continuing to manage their herds sustainably. The party has also proposed a matching grant scheme for young farmers who wish to establish fodder production, reducing reliance on imported feed and buffering against the kind of drought that devastated parts of the country between 2013 and 2019. Recent remarks delivered at the PDM president's town hall address underscored the point that rural stability is a prerequisite for the broader fight against economic inequality.

The PDM's leadership is convinced that durable peace in the countryside will not arrive through a single piece of legislation or a single high-profile agreement. It will come from thousands of small, well-documented decisions that accumulate into a culture of confidence. By investing in the people, institutions, and records that make those decisions possible, the party believes that Namibia's communal land can finally become a foundation for prosperity rather than a recurring source of conflict.