A billion-rand Wild Coast tourism development project must benefit the local communities while being eco-friendly, reports Craig Bishop
JUST 30km of coastline separate Port Edward from Mkambati, but as holiday destinations they are oceans apart.
Port Edward is linked to Durban by 200km of flat coastal road allowing easy access for hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers bound for South Coast resorts every summer. Mkambati Nature Reserve lies on one of the world’s most dramatic stretches of coastline, but is visited by a just a sprinkling of motorists willing to brave the appalling road from Flagstaff (over 100km inland) and the difficulty of getting a permit from Umtata bureaucrats.
As a result, tourism has never brought significant benefits to communities living on the Wild Coast. Worse, in the policy vacuum created by the dismantling of the former Transkei, these communities looked on helplessly as chiefs and headmen sold off chunks of priceless communal coastline to commercial developers for as little as R50 (a “registration fee”), a bottle of brandy and a few sheep.
In a watershed case last June, the Wildlife Society won a supreme court action over 300 illegal holiday cottages and shacks on the Transkei coast. Justice DJ Pickering ruled that the chiefs had no authority to allocate sites and that this had caused “considerable and irreversible damage” to the Transkei coastline.
Meanwhile, some poor communities are fighting for increased access to coastal resources denied them by the creation of nature reserves in the Bantustan era. In the recent past, communities at Cwebe and Dwesa stripped shellfish from 14km of protected coastline in protest against their lack of access to ancestral graves, trees, shellfish, ritual sea water, sand and sea-grass.
Enter the R3-billion Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) – launched last November by the Eastern Cape Department of Economic and Environmental Affairs – which could be the second most significant of its kind after the Maputo Corridor.
Government is inviting the private sector to put forward proposals for the construction of key projects, which will anchor eco-tourism development on four main nodes of the inaccessible coastline between Port Edward and East London: the Dwesa/Cwebe nature reserves, Coffee Bay/Hole in the Wall, Port St Johns and Mkambati.
Estimated SDI expenditure includes R1,8- billion for construction of the toll road from Port Edward to Port St Johns, R500- million to develop 1 222-bed accommodation in the Dwesa/Cwebe reserves and R400- million for electrification and communications. It is hoped a road will be built from the inland town of Idutywa to the coast at Nqabara-Dwesa and that a bridge and road will link Dwesa and Cwebe nature reserves. In addition, R60-million has been set aside for the construction of infrastructure to support private-sector developments.
But, says Eastern Cape nature conservation scientist Jim Feely, the SDI should not be allowed to “ride roughshod over locals”.
“Before development can take place, we need to ask who owns Wild Coast land.” According to Feely, the SDI is currently focused on areas where land claims are in dispute -10% of the coastline. “We need to find out the value of the land, the economic potential, the terrestrial resources and the marine life to prevent communities from selling their land to developers and then being alienated from their traditional homes.”
Wild Coast SDI project manager Vuyo Mahlati agrees, adding that before the SDI can fast-track development in the region and create an investor-friendly environment, serious issues need to be addressed.
“We need clear legislation to give guidance to relations between private sector investors and Wild Coast communities. Communities need to be well informed and need guidance so that they are on an equal footing with private investors.”
Research is being carried out by various universities and the Oceanographic Research Institute in the fields of botany, zoology, marine biology, sociology and social anthropology, and this will form a comprehensive database, accessible to SDI project facilitators.
Meanwhile, more than 70 representatives from government environmental agencies, community organisations, universities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) attended an SDI-linked CoastCare workshop in Umtata last week.
The workshop sought to create a workable programme for generating development research and focused on issues surrounding coastal management, including access to beaches, land-use planning, dune and estuary management, and limits for off-road vehicles.
Workshop facilitator, CoastCare’s Hugh Tyrrell, highlighted the importance of utilising already-existing community knowledge in the development process: “Indigenous people have over the years gathered a wealth of knowledge about living with their particular environments.
“Sharing and pooling this indigenous knowledge can lead to a richer understanding all round,” said Tyrrell.
However, fears about the potential negative impact of “eco-tourism” on local culture and environment have been raised by Professor Peggy Luzwazi of the University of the Transkei. She recently warned the Parliamentary Committee on Arts, Science, Culture and Technology about a tourist- induced culture of begging, bribery and tips, environmental destruction and the alienation of local communities from their land as they sell it to commercial developers.
In addition, some commentators are concerned about the SDI’s ability to balance the priorities of local communities with macro-economic development policy.
Community Resource Optimisation Programme director Eddy Russell argues that community involvement in SDI planning is not yet happening.
“The SDI have just fielded their team of facilitators, but I am concerned that no detailed assessment has yet been done. Research into issues like the capacity for accommodation in Mkambati should be ready before the Eastern Cape Investors Conference scheduled for October.” Highlighting the example of the Port St Johns-Port Edward road, Russell asks if the Department of Transport has the R1,8- billion necessary to construct the road, and whether the toll road will be able to generate the R1-million (30 000 cars a day) necessary to pay off the interest alone.
“Should the department not have the money, there is talk about creating concessions where anchor projects such as at Mkambati will be packaged into the road deal. This will severely lessen the bargaining power of these communities, as they will be part of a package deal, rather than retaining ownership over their own project. And besides, what about the communities outside the anchor projects that are not being focused on?”
SDI task teams have been set up to deal with these concerns. Four teams deal with environment, infrastructure, small businesses and land affairs, and all report to a fifth, the Community Participation Co- ordinating Committee, which aims to place community participation at the heart of the SDI policy.
Various parastatals and NGOs are represented on the task teams, including the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), the Industrial Development Corporation, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Mineral and Energy Policy Centre.
DBSA’s Dave Arkwright argues these task teams and parastatals all help to minimise state intervention and government expenditure, although a R200-million Capital Feed Fund has been set up for all eight SDIs across the country should the government decide that it needs to intervene.
“The whole principle of the SDI is to leverage interest from the private sector for underutilised areas with clear development potential. Initial state intervention will show the private sector that government is committed to the SDI, but this must be short-lived. This will leave behind the capacity to continue running the SDI as part of provincial and local government’s day-to-day business,” says Arkwright.