Would you like to share with us the origins of Naankuse and its name?

In 2003, my wife Marlice, who speaks San language, we were on their farm in the east of Namibia, the first wildlife sanctuary in Namibia called Harnas. And the San people in that area knew that I was a doctor. And a San woman brought her child to the farmhouse that morning. The child was sick. And Marlice called me and she asked me if I could have a look at this child, because he was sick. I had a look at the child, and I looked in the health passport, and I saw that this child had been seen twice in the previous months, where they first diagnosed that the child had an insect bite, and secondly diagnosed that the child was swollen.

But the child I saw in front of me had a severe form of what we call kwashiorkor, which is a malnourishment disease, literally saying this child is dying of hunger. And the child was critically ill, we needed to get him to a hospital.

We then drove the child 110 kilometres to the closest hospital, and as we got to the hospital and walked into the hospital, he stopped breathing. We tried to resuscitate the child, but we were literally months too late, and the child died.

As we walked out of the hospital, two things happened. Marlice had to give this child back to his mother, and the mother then, in the San language, said “thank you for trying. Keep doing what you’re doing. God will look after you”. And that is the meaning of the word Naankuse, in San Bushman language. It means God will look after you.

As we walked, one of the nurses said to me “don’t worry, doctor. It’s just another one”. And to me this is not right. This shouldn’t happen. A child shouldn’t die of hunger. Not in today’s world. In 2024 in Omaheke region, where that child is from, 800 people died of hunger. In a continent where food just grows everywhere.

That’s where Naankuse started, because on the drive back to Harnas, we knew this is not right. Then Marlice said to me that there was a clinic in the town close to them, which was standing there, and we were interested in helping them. So, I went to look at the clinic. It was a brand-new building, that was in a bankrupt trust, because the company that owned it went bankrupt.

I started asking around and they said that if I could give them NAD 200,000, I could use this clinic. Everything was in that clinic. Some of it was still wrapped in plastic. So, I knew I must make a plan.

That was the year I played in the Rugby and Cricket World Cups. And we put the article in the newspaper, to say that for every point we scored in the World Cup, or every run we made, or every wicket we took, people could donate. This was the project we wanted to start. And one of my friends, Dr. Jannes Brandt, who is an eye surgeon, saw the article. He phoned me, and he said “Rudie, my father-in-law is in contact with a Dutch philanthropist. Could you write a proposal?”. So, I wrote a proposal for this clinic. I didn’t know how to do it, but I just wrote that we wanted to help these people and we needed NAD 200,000 , which at that time was €20,000.

After that Jan Verburg came to Namibia from the Netherlands. We went there, and he asked what I wanted to do. I explained that my idea was to go to the clinic on weekends when I wasn’t working. Marlice could translate and I’d see patients free of charge, and then find a way to get the medicine. So, Jan donated the €20,000, and we started.

On weekends we would drive there for 4 hours, see the patients, around 100-150 people, then drive back on Sunday evenings. After a year Jan came back and asked if I needed anything else. I told him I needed a nurse. He gave me the money to pay for 2 years of a nurse’s salary, and that nurse started in 2006. She finally retired this year at the age of 82, after serving there for 20 years. So, that’s how the clinic started. And today that clinic sees about 4,500 people, 40% of them being children, still for free.

We try and get funding from everywhere. We have volunteers that pay for their own accommodation. Jan is still involved; Angelina Jolie was involved. So, we’ve got people on board. It’s still hard work to raise the funds, but year after year the clinic gets the funding, and year after year it goes on.

My wife’s mother started the first wildlife sanctuary in Namibia. So, she was very attached to the animals. Now, when we married, I realised that that was not going to work. If the neighbours complained about a lion roaring in the morning, I could get in trouble. I started looking for a place close enough to Windhoek so I could still work as a doctor, but big enough so she could have her animals. That’s how we found the land at Naankuse.

And it coincided with Jan’s third visit. He saw that we had the clinic running, we were helping people. Then he asked what else could be done.

We figured we could help these people in the surrounding community with employment, and we had a plan. we wanted to find a find a way to make the clinic sustainable. So, I suggested that we could build a lodge and have it registered as a charitable organization. Someday it might make money. And that money could pay for the clinic. So, Jan asked how much and he gave us 300,000 euros. We registered the lodge as a charitable organization, and today a big part of that income goes to the clinic and helps with its funding.

With the lodge, and having animals around, it became a tourist destination. And later on, people started phoning us every single day about animals. So, we started looking at the research site to reduce human-wildlife conflict. That’s how our research department started. And it went on looking at landscape conservation, because we knew we needed to secure land for conservation. We started, through Jan and other investors, to acquire land for conservation. So, we started creating employment, and then the schools came. And also, the need to train these people for the jobs. Because you are giving someone an opportunity for which they haven’t applied, but the guests that come to the lodge expect a level of service.

We have also opened very recently an eco-village for the employees, we have built 40 houses for them.

Ensuite bathrooms, kitchen, solar electricity, recycled water, everything.

Naankuse’s origins in the Lifeline Clinic and its continued work in healthcare, education and community development reflect the idea that conservation and human wellbeing are closely connected. How important is this integrated approach to achieving lasting conservation outcomes?

In 2013 we started a course on extreme medicine called Conservation Medicine, and the UK sends doctors to Namibia three times a year. That has evolved into what we call One Health. And that course teaches that we as humans cannot understand our own health if we don’t understand the health of your ecosystem, if we don’t understand the health of the animals in that ecosystem. That’s how closely related that is.

What’s the most important lesson we learned from that? Covid. And we have been calling that since 2013. So, communities, wildlife, health of those communities and the ecosystems are like this. You cannot see them separately, because they cannot survive without each other.

Naankuse now works across more than 100,000 hectares of protected habitat, with programmes spanning wildlife rehabilitation, research and landscape conservation. What are the greatest pressures facing Namibia’s biodiversity today, and where are the most important opportunities for conservation?

I see unsustainable development as a big threat. This happens sometimes because development is seen in one government ministry, conservation is seen in another government ministry, finance is seen in another government ministry, and the communication between them is sometimes absent.

Namibia is a country that for ecotourism, it is not suited to mass tourism. Our infrastructure doesn’t really allow it. Those are the things I think for conservation.

And then climate change. A big part of Namibia is dependent on agriculture. And with climate change, I think that is going to shrink. We have to adapt the land use, and that land use is conservation.

Through initiatives such as the Shiloh Wildlife Sanctuary, Naankuse works with government and private conservation partners to rehabilitate animals affected by poaching. What more can Namibia do to strengthen its approach to wildlife protection and ensure that conservation gains are sustained?

Modernize laws. Our laws in terms of animal welfare and conservation date from 1962 and 1975. In 1962 we still believed that smoking was good. So, you can imagine what the laws from 1962 say about animal welfare. That needs to change.

Modernizing laws in terms of conservation and animal welfare, that’s number one for me. Number two would be strengthening bigger protected areas legislation, so that there’s real benefits from protected areas. And thirdly, making it possible for philanthropic investors to invest in Namibia. Make it easy for them. We’ve managed more than a billion Namibian dollars of philanthropic investment in the last 20 years, and I see what a difference it makes.

There’s a guy called Albert ten Brinke, one of Jan’s friends, who has invested 23 million euros in Namibia, buying up an old hunting farm, partnering with us, and we converted it into a nature reserve. When he bought the land there were 8 people employed, today there’s 80 people employed. We have a school there, and we’ve reintroduced all the species back there. Black rhino, white rhino, elephants, lions, leopards, everything. So, I see the impact that philanthropic investment can make. And we must make it easy for them to come. 

Naankuse has developed a model that connects wildlife protection, landscape conservation, tourism and community development. How do you see conservation contributing to Namibia’s broader economy and international reputation?

We need to reverse engineer it. We can’t say we have to build the tourism industry. We have to build conservation infrastructure first. People come here to see cultures, to see wildlife, to see landscapes. So, if you build that conservation infrastructure, if you protect large areas, the wildlife, then you create those opportunities organically. Then more people will want to see that. And that creates jobs, and it makes the tourism industry flourish.

I see it that way, and that’s how we have always developed. We started from conservation and finding a plan to fund it. And it’s still what we do, and how we build businesses around that conservation to fund it. I don’t like begging for money. We have people who write funding proposals because I refuse to do it. I would rather inspire people to become involved with us than to beg them to become involved with us. It becomes more sustainable as well, because you’re having a different kind of impact. When people come and spend time with us, we inspire people through that.

Namibia is internationally recognised for its approach to conservation and community-based natural resource management. Looking ahead, what role can Namibia play in developing innovative conservation solutions, and what would you like Naankuse to contribute to that future?

Innovation for me is always making a plan. What can we do? How can we fix it? How can we make a plan? I think in terms of Namibia’s role, and looking at what we’ve done to look at a holistic approach, conservation without funding is just a conversation.

Namibia, being stable and a true democracy, having good leadership, can be almost the leader in Africa in terms of conservation. In terms of innovation, we have collars now that we put on problematic animals, carnivores especially, and we have reduced 80% of that human-wildlife conflict.

If we have the right technology employed here, technology that obviously sits in the first world, Namibia can reduce human-wildlife conflict, we can increase security around species like rhinos, which is a big thing for us. Our anti-poaching is probably the biggest cost driver in our organisation.

We work with government on the anti-poaching initiatives. We collaborate closely with other people who also have rhinos. We share information, planning techniques. We often have a very strong canine unit, probably the strongest canine unit in the country, available to the police if they need them.

There’s close collaboration. That’s a good thing about Namibia, having few people you can closely collaborate. And the country is very focused on conservation.

Would you like to share a final message to encourage our readers to come to Namibia, invest in conservation, even engage directly with Naankuse?

For people who want to do something in Namibia, to do something good in Africa, we are your partners. If you want to get rich from your investment, we are not your partner.

The richness or the wealth we create is in a different form. It’s in a form that you cannot buy with money. You cannot swipe your credit card to feel incredibly fulfilled. With us, you’re being enriched in a very different form. It might not be your pocket, but your heart is certainly getting very enriched.