Justin Arenstein
AUTOCRATIC management and a failure to consult with affected rural communities is threatening Mpumalanga’s revolutionary attempts to make its conservation areas pay for themselves.
It was with the future of its conservation areas in mind that the Mpumalanga Parks Board granted commercial management of its reserves, which are largely undeveloped and which cost millions to run, to the controversial Dubai-based Dolphin Group for 50 years – in return for an estimated R12,2-billion contribution to the Mpumalanga Parks Board’s budget.
The purpose of the move was to make the board self-sufficient within 10 years and to relieve the government of its current R55-million a year subsidy.
But the deal with Dolphin, and the failure of the parks board to consult, has outraged land claim activists, conservation organisations and affected communities.
A large media briefing, held this week in an attempt by the board and Dolphin to assuage their critics, only worsened the situation when a number of officials, including the land commissioner-elect of Mpumalanga, Durkje Gilfillian, were “disinvited” from the event by the board’s public relations consultants.
Lucky Ngwenya, spokesman for the Sangeco Forum, lambasted critics and the press for threatening his community’s chance at jobs and development opportunities.
But Sam Mashego, chairman of a land development committee in the Blyde River region, and the only other community representative present, said that he had been completely unaware of the deal until the previous day, when he was invited to attend the conference.
The three villages represented by Mashego have laid claim to land on and near the Bourke’s Luck Pot Holes.
Dolphin reportedly has targeted the pot holes as one of its lead development projects.
“I cannot tell you where we stand on this whole issue because the meeting today was my first introduction to the idea,” Mashego said.
“But our communities are desperately in need of roads, clinics and other infrastructure and if a foreign company wants to lease some of our land from us, then we would be prepared to at least listen to them.”
When the Mail & Guardian visited the Blyde River Canyon on Sunday, many in the affected communities knew nothing of the deal..
Those who did likened it to their forced evictions under the apartheid regime.
Moletele induna and elected community leader, Enos Chyloane, stressed that any attempt to cede commercial rights without consultation would be resisted.
“It is widely known that we want our land back,” he said. “In 1965, when the government bulldozed our homes and destroyed our community by scattering our people as far away as Pretoria and Grobblersdal, we had no voice.
“Today, things have changed and if anyone tries to steal our heritage again, they will hear our anger.”
He rejected the notion of anyone enjoying 50 years of exclusive commercial control over the Blyde River Reserve or the nearby Blyde River Dam.
Winus Mashile, regional chairman of the Land Access Movement of South Africa, a land-reform committee co-ordinating land claims in the Blyde area by the Moletele, Mashilane and Siklari communities, says that the board’s greatest blunder was its failure to consult.
“People are giving our rights away without first speaking to us,” he said.
Both Chyloane and Mashile insist that the proceeds of any leases be paid directly to their communities. The parks board, they said, should be paid only for environmental management of the reserves.
Tourism operators, although critical of the board and Dolphin, still support commercialisation of the board’s reserves.
“Economic sustainability is the only chance our reserves and conservation in general has,” says Alan Johnston, owner of Zambesi Spectacular, the only tour group that is operating in the Blyde River Canyon itself.
“This type of deal goes a long way to promoting that sustainability and also to increasing tourist numbers to the region.”