The Kruger Park and a local community are locking horns over an extraordinary deal that allows commercial hunting in the country’s top game reserve. Fiona Macleod reports
Barely a year after the Makuleke community regained ownership of 24E000ha in the Kruger National Park, it has signed an agreement with a Northern Province hunting outfit to hunt elephant and buffalo in the world-famous game reserve.
South African National Parks (SANP) representatives are adamant that hunting in the Kruger Park is forbidden by law.
But the Makuleke community counter that they own the 24E000ha in the north of the park, that they have a special legal arrangement with the Kruger and that they desperately need the money that will be raised by hunting – nearly R450E000 – to develop ecotourism infrastructure.
Critics are concerned that if hunting is allowed in the Kruger, it will set a precedent for the country’s other 18 national parks and for the government’s envisaged extension of the Kruger to link up with national parks in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
They are also worried that similar demands could be made by the private lodge owners to the west of the park who have taken down their fences and joined their game ranches with the Kruger.
“The public may react negatively to the introduction of hunting, so it could also have an impact on tourism in the park,” says the SANP’s legal adviser, Marinda van Graan.
Lambson Makuleke, a member of the Makuleke Communal Property Association, says it signed an agreement this week with a hunting outfit called Wayne Wagner Safaris. In return for the shooting of two elephants and two buffaloes between April and October, the association will receive close to R450E000.
“We are talking about hunting in a contractual park, not in the Kruger National Park per se,” he says.
“In order for this cutting-edge arrangement to work, the Makuleke people must be able to benefit from all possible conservation uses of their land. If they don’t allow hunting, then it gives the lie to sustainable utilisation of our resources.”
When the Makulekes got back their land in an agreement with the SANP in late 1998, they were given the right to develop it commercially, so long as this did not undermine the conservation objectives of the park. A joint management board comprising representatives of the SANP and the community was set up to chart the way forward.
In addition to the 24E000ha in the Pafuri Triangle in the north of the park from which the community had been removed in 1969, they added 5E000ha of their land to the park. They undertook not to move on to the land, or farm or mine it.
The Makulekes have identified six sites for the development of lodges, amid some of the best tourist attractions the park has to offer.
A number of ecotourism outfits have indicated they are keen to enter partnerships to develop their tourist lodges.
“Photo-ll graphicll tourism willll generate thel most sustainable revenues in the long run,” says the Makuleke Communal Property Association.
“However, it could take between five and 10 years for tourism lodges to begin generating significant revenues. Trophy hunting is being considered because it has the ability to generate revenues in the short term.
“There are high levels of poverty in the Makuleke villages and the leadership of this community is under intense pressure to demonstrate that its agreement [to keep the land within the Kruger] can deliver benefits to ordinary residents.”
The association maintains the Makuleke region of the Kruger is a contract park, which exempts it from provisions in the National Parks Act prohibiting hunting in national reserves.
“In principle that may be correct, but how will they do it in practice?” asks Kruger Park representative William Mabasa.
“The animals move on and off their land all the time. The Makulekes own the land, and if they fenced it off they could hunt there. But we’ve never had any talks about fencing their land.”
Adds Van Graan: “The Act does allow for exemptions, but the objectives of a national park must always be the overriding criteria.”
She points out that an exemption to the rules was made in the Richtersveld National Park in the Northern Cape, where communities are allowed to graze their livestock in the reserve.
These issues will be dealt with at a meeting of the joint management board this Friday, January 21.
The Makuleke association says although the hunting deal has already been signed, it is open to negotiation: “Our leaders are mature and flexible …
“They are willing to debate this matter with all parties willing to suggest short- term ways of ensuring the conservation of wildlife provides benefits to our people.”