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Environmental conservation is presented as a success story in Namibia's Zambezi Region where conservation measures have led to an enormous increase in many wildlife populations. Complementary to historically exclusive fortress-conservation strategies, inclusive projects have gained prominence in the past few decades aiming to integrate local populations into conservation projects. Perhaps the most salient approach is community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), which sets ambitious goals of more participation, empowerment, and stewardship of local residents in the process of conservation. Despite its popularity in southern Africa, the CBNRM concept has met with criticism, especially with regard to the situations of many conservancy members. We aim to show that the idea of conservation, and the concept of CBNRM in particular, are in some respects detached from the lives of the conservancy members who are confronted with the effects and regulations of conservation measures. We therefore employ the notion of ‘dissonance’ to describe the inconsistencies between the intended effects of the CBNRM concept and how it is perceived by conservancy members. Three aspects of dissonance are identified here. First, we draw attention to the limited opportunities conservancy members have to benefit from the thriving safari- and hunting-tourism industry. Second, despite successful conservation leading to increased wildlife populations, impacts of human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) and their repercussions for farming and livestock husbandry aggravate the dissonant relationship between conservancy members and the CBNRM concept. Third, we illustrate the discrepancies between the notion of the ‘community’ in conservancies and the actual social organisation. Altogether, the inconsistencies between the travelling idea of conservation and its impact on local livelihoods will be demonstrated.

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It is trite that most Indigenous food resources in former politically colonised nations have been given English or some other Western common or trivial names. The oppressed people especially in southern Africa were not spared from derogatory and/or racist names such as Kaffir or Kafir, a derogatory reference name equivalent to Nigga or Negro that was used in America. Over time and as political freedom and independence were gained through liberation struggles between the colonisers and the colonised, the use of derogatory and/or racist names against the formerly oppressed people became legally actionable. It is almost forgotten that the offensive, derogatory and/or racist names were not limited to the oppressed people. The natural environments, land and other resources such as Indigenous plants, fruits, rivers, serene spaces and animals were also apparently named by the colonisers and Western botanists or those who allegedly discovered these resources, even though the Indigenous names for such resources existed before the arrival of different agents of colonialisation.Although, human society in general has learnt to no longer use racist and/or derogatory words such as Negro, Nigga, Kaffir or Kafir as common names or nouns, the scientific community seems to lag behind. Some questions arise such as has the scientific community learnt this lesson? Have scientific communications and their related communication platforms such as editors and publishers learnt this lesson?

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