Lynda Gilfillan
Hunters from all over the world are increasingly setting their sights on the Eastern Cape as a game-hunting destination.
The game and wildlife industry is claimed to be the only growth point in the beleaguered South African livestock industry – up 40% last season – and the Eastern Cape is cashing in.
It is an industry worth R77-million a year, according to figures released by the Eastern Cape Game Management Association (Ecgma). South Africa has already captured 85% of Africa’s trophy export market.
Hunters are turning to the Eastern Cape because it is malaria-free, its climate is good, its prices are competitive, the crime rate – at least on the game farms – is low and there are more than 30 species of local game. The landscape helps – the moody beauty of the Karoo is particularly attractive.
More than 4 000 of the 7 018 trophy hunters that arrived in the Eastern Cape from 30 countries last year were American; Spain came second at 1 626, then Germany at 215.
Hunters return home with trophies ranging from aardvark to zebra. While antelope, such as springbok and kudu, account for the highest number of trophies, hunters target lions, wildebeest and even smaller creatures, such as the African wildcat, vervet monkeys and even the Cape cobra.
One enthusiastic American tourist remarked on arrival last season: “My shopping list includes five different antelope. They’d sure look good next to the iguana, alligator and tiger in my trophy room back home.”
In a province beset with economic difficulties, the growth of this industry is encouraging farmers to change from stock farming to game farming. Besides the yield – up to R1 500 a hectare, says Tony Palmer of the Agricultural Research Council in Grahamstown – there are other reasons farmers give for this shift in land use: the deregulation of the farming sector since the 1990s, a succession of dry seasons, the effects of new labour legislation and increased rates of stock theft.
Robin Halse, who headed Ecgma for 20 years, changed to game farming 25 years ago because “normal forms of agriculture have failed altogether. This is a viable alternative to an industry that cannot compete with subsidised farming in other countries.”
Halse has built up a “complete game utilisation ecotourism operation” near Queenstown that includes the selling of live game. Denying that saturation point in the industry is looming, Halse says: “This will happen when only dead game is sold – and prices for live game are still very good. We haven’t even begun to market seriously.”
There are still vast unutilised tracts of land in the old Transkei that are, says Halse, suitable for industry development: “This area could be a breadbasket rather than a begging bowl. The Eastern Cape government should take the game industry more seriously.”
Significant market potential exists for the sale of venison, for example, which should become a local table meat, says Mike Birch of Double Drift Game Reserve near Grahamstown. He says that “only 8% of animals are used for trophies – we need to find market outlets for the other 92%”. Females and smaller males can be used for venison and biltong.
Game industry start-up costs are high: returns can be expected only after five years, and breeding stock is expensive: an eland, for example, will cost R3E000. But a foreign trophy hunter will pay R11E000 to take home its horns and cape or head and shoulders.
But the benefits of the boom are not being extended in large numbers to the local population from Grahamstown to Graaff-Reinet. Rural towns rely on the custom of local farmers, and in Graaff- Reinet, where 36 farms have recently been consolidated and converted into a few game farms, businesses are steadily shutting up shop.
And already-crowded informal settlements are absorbing a steady stream of laid-off farm workers who have little hope of sharing in the benefits of the newly established game lodges and farms, which require staff with specialist skills.
Palmer comments on the situation in the Grahamstown area, where many farms have recently been converted: “The shift to game farming offers job opportunities to skilled workers employed in converted game lodges owned by Americans and Scandinavians. But what has happened to the farm workers, especially those who had land tenure? Rini township is bursting. There is an urgent need for a survey to assess the social impact of ecotourism.”
In the long term, the land itself may be the greatest beneficiary of the shift to game farming, particularly in the more marginal farming areas with their poor soils and arid conditions. When domestic animals, such as sheep and cattle, are replaced with game that is properly managed, the degradation and desertification of more arid areas may be halted.