The Environment and Tourism Ministry says although it recognizes human/wildlife conflicts in many parts of Namibia, such conflicts will always be there as long as people and animals co-exist. The Ministry says in a statement this co-existence makes it virtually impossible to eradicate such conflicts. It says contrary to claims that the ministry is not doing enough to assist affected communities, it continues to invest resources and time to mitigate the impacts of human/wildlife conflicts. In this respect, ministry officials are engaged in discussions with community members in the Kunene Region, where the majority of concerns were recorded, for the review of the Human-Wildlife Conflict policy. The first consultative meeting was held at Kamanjab last week, to be followed by another meeting at Opuwo on Friday. Furthermore, the ministry has collared four elephants in the Kamanjab-Fransfontein area with the help of the private sector. Another two collars, made available by farmers in the area, will soon be placed on elephants to monitor the movement of main herds. The ministry will soon conduct an elephant census in the Kunene, Omusati and Erongo regions to understand their distribution and density for the elephant management plan. Regarding conflicts involving lion predation on livestock, especially in the Kunene region, concerted efforts between the ministry, NGOs and tourism companies are being made to avoid the killing of lions. The ministry further plans to erect predator-proof enclosures where livestock can be kept at night, depending on available resources. It recognizes the need for new innovative ideas on how to address human-wildlife conflicts and has initiated the process to review the National Policy on Human Wildlife Conflict Management. A national workshop on this initiative is scheduled for November and will be preceded by consultations with communities in regions most affected.