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The Story of Noah's Ark
For 30 years, Noah’s Ark has been involved in the care, rehabilitation and housing of orphaned, neglected, abused and abandoned wild animals. On 19th January 2001, the family’s beloved father and husband died of a sudden illness. His wife, their children and their spouses have since been intimately involved with the managing and development of this project.
Recent publicity given to Noah’s Ark has however resulted in such an escalation of animals presented there that the initial “hobby” has now changed into a full-time occupation for nearly 60 local people. In addition to this, these animals are occupying a progressively larger section of Namibia’s traditional farming land.
Namibia has an unemployment rate of 40% and a very low-income rate for most for the population and so survival of humans will always come first. When farmers have to protect a small group of livestock against predators in the hope of making a living, their choices become very limited. Conservation therefore suffers severely.
A weak economy creates social problems for humans and subsequently affects their relationship with the wild animals. The people from this project find it difficult to turn away requests to take animals, where the alternative would lead to the death of the animals involved. Poor local economic circumstances, combined with inadequate law enforcement, have further resulted in the indiscriminate poaching of wild animals, mostly for their meat and hides. The international trade in animal hides and trophy hunting certainly plays its part in the decimation of wild animals.
This project is fully dedicated to preserving the animals and supplying them with their natural habitat in a large reserve area. At first, the family used their own earnings to carry the project expenses, but due to a dramatic increase in both the number of rescued animals and the running costs of the wildlife foundation, the need for a wildlife trust fund was born. Hence, in 1997, the Noah’s Ark Project was founded.
Having never received any government funds or grants, the family has still managed to win international acclaim for their success in rescuing and caring for the Namibian wildlife, which in March 2000 led to the registration of the project in Germany. The project is a non-profit organisation that obtains its funding from sponsors, donations and adoptions. The project is now a registered welfare organisation.
Conservation and Ethos
Noah’s Ark believes in life and takes its role in conservation and the protection of the
Namibian wildlife, land and people very seriously. It should be remembered that this project would not be necessary if people had left the wild animals alone in their natural habitat. From hunting, poaching and the buying and selling of wild animals, it is becoming increasingly hard to prevent or improve on the given situation and without the help of places like Noah’s Ark, the eventual extinction of wild animals in Africa will be difficult to prevent.
In principle, Noah’s Ark is against the confinement of wild animals, however there are times when this is inevitable. When released in to the wild, there is a very high mortality rate in previously captive animals. There is also a shortage of safe and hospitable release sites for large carnivores and all wild animal species in Namibia. It takes a great deal of manpower, effort and money to successfully monitor a newly released animal and ensure its survival.
The project provides animals that have nowhere else to go with the opportunity to live in semi wild, safe, roaming areas. This is the safest place for those animals that cannot be successfully released. Noah’s Ark does everything possible to avoid resettled animals from being used for hunting or commercial purposes.
Noah’s Ark also has a clear policy of employing people from the local community for as many jobs as possible, hereby supporting the social and economic growth of the community and the sense of conservation it creates among the local people.
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