Whether or not somebody is willing to do something usually depends on his or her perception of the need to do it and the benefits to be expected. Nobody will dispute that if you are sick you need medicine and from buying and taking it you expect the benefit of a speedy recovery.
To apply this principle to CBNRM, however, requires awareness and understanding of the problem, for example the destructive nature of frequent bush fires, but also clear incentives to do something about it. One may ask: Why should I fight fires, report illegal logging activities, control my cattle to prevent over-grazing and so on, if others caused the problems and others are not willing to do it the same way.

Here it is where we find the biggest challenge of community-based management approaches, not only to be aware of, but also to be willing to act on obvious problems that may not affect you in an immediate, direct and personal way as is the case with a disease mentioned earlier on. This is not only a problem specific to Namibia or even African countries, this is known to be a problem of common property worldwide and has been labelled by social scientists as the “Tragedy of the Commons”.

The only solution to this dilemma is usually seen in rewarding individuals for their contribution to the common cause. Financial support of management activities through projects can provide such incentives and is usually in high demand. But the level of such incentives has to be sustainable. If money is needed to mobilize a communal labour force, then eventually this money has to be generated through management. Where resources and marketing options are limited, so will be the money that can be generated. Accordingly projects have to balance the need for financial support of local people against the income potential of the current resource basis. While higher initial investments are needed to establish effective management sytems, such investments have to be gradually adjusted to sustainable levels at later stages.
When discussing money issues, other CBNRM benefits are often overlooked.
What about the power to control resource use, the power to sustain the availability of important natural resources for a particular community? With community forests communities cannot only generate money, they can protect grazing areas from over-utilization, allow or restrict resource access to ‘outsiders’, enhance availability and productivity of wood and non-wood resources, protect habitats for valuable game and wildlife species and can obtain skills and capacities that are valuable far beyond forest management practises.