Farmers in the game-hunting territory north of Pretoria are refusing to take down their fences to make way for the creation of one vast nature conservancy between Rus de Winter in the north and Cullinan in the south an initiative of the Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Land Affairs.
And poor cattle farmers in the 50 000ha core area chalked out for the project known as the North Eastern Gauteng Initiative say they’re not interested in a development that will benefit game farmers. The department says it is still negotiating with the farmers about the fences but has not worked out how to involve the cattle farmers. However, last week it placed an advertisement announcing that the initiative had entered its operational phase and invited tenders for a master plan, three years after its launch.
Trish Hanekom, the department’s director general, calls the initiative an integrated tourism project. The idea is to sell the area, which will eventually cover 100 000ha, as a one-stop tourism destination. A natural habitat for wildlife such as kudu, impala, small buck and warthog, it currently boasts five private nature conservancies, a number of game farms and two government-run nature reserves.
The department intends to throw in a bit of cultural exposure, township tours, stone and iron age sites, World War II monuments and Cullinan’s diamond mining history. The package will be marketed as an “All-of- Africa-in-one-day” experience just 45 minutes from Johannesburg International airport. The initiative was one of the 10 strategic projects announced in 1997 by then Gauteng premier Tokyo Sexwale in a bid to boost the province’s economic growth. R100-million was sanctioned to the projects.
In the two-year period, from the launch in 1997 to the appointment last year of a five-member team to run the project, the department has been conducting feasibility studies. The department says it expects the project to boost the local economy through job creation and to do its bit for the green cause by appropriately utilising marginal land for conservation-based activities.
But with cattle farm owners, many of whom are black, reluctant to participate in the project, concerns have been raised that the department might end up marketing a tourism initiative where rich, white game farmers are the only beneficiaries. “We don’t have the money that the big game farmers in the area have,” says one cattle farmer in Leeuwdraai.
Graham Curtis, a small game farm owner in the same area, concedes that the project has little to offer the cattle farmers. However, he also points out that the bigger game farmers who have invested thousands and even millions into their farms will be unwilling to remove their fences to release their animals.
But initiative programme manager Fana Jiyane says they have managed to convince some of the bigger game farms, such as Amakhulu, to take their fences down. He says the department is currently negotiating with millionaire Bill Venter, who operates a 13 000ha game reserve in Rhenosterfontein, below the Rus de Winter dam, to remove his fences.
Game farming involves big money. Most of the farms in the area offer commercial and bow hunting, which attracts numerous visitors from overseas. Curtis says he has invested at least R12000 each on the more than 100 animals on his game farm. Bigger game farmers such as Hans Sittel, who runs a 1 600ha game farm in Springfontein with more than 1000 animals, have invested more than 10 times that amount.
Sittel’s farm has grown from 123ha when he first arrived there in 1979. If he is to be believed when he says he receives at least 35 foreign visitors every week, then game farms run for hunters are clearly a lucrative business.
However, Sittel, who is also quite unclear about what the department wants of the farmers, pooh-poohs concerns that the initiative does not hold any promise for the poorer sections of the community. “We will create plenty of jobs; open curio shops that will employ people and sell products made by the community living here; start restaurants and more lodges.”
The underlying concern expressed by both game and cattle farmers is how the department will deal with landownership. Is it going to create one common area? Will the landowners and residents, inclu- ding farmworkers, be entitled to any benefits if the project is marketed as one initiative? Do they become shareholders? How will the profits filter down to the poorer communities that work on the land?
Hanekom says the department is seeking answers to these questions in its invitation for a master plan. It has been speculated that the launch of the initiative is an attempt to bring the mainly white-owned, privately owned conservancies in line with the national government’s concept of conservation. A conservancy status is granted when the landowners enter into a voluntary agreement with the government to maintain the land within proper environment and conservation criteria.
In responding to this speculation, department officials indicate they intend to go about it diplomatically by taking the owners along with them. Hanekom says the department is currently working on drafting legislation to provide incentives for those involved in nature conservation projects to take cognisance of economic empowerment and follow eco-friendly practices which minimise waste and recycle non- biodegradable materials.
The incentives will include awarding points to conservancies that observe the criteria, which will enhance their status in the hospitality industry. For most of this year, Jiyane points out, the North Eastern Gauteng Initiative will be interacting with the community through advisory centres at Leeuwfontein and Roodeplaat. Community benefit schemes will be designed and implemented.
The project, if it does get over the hurdles, is expected to become fully operational in the next three years. Then it could involve Mpumalanga as well and expand substantially.