In three months’ time the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park will boast three of the Big Five and be well on its way to becoming an international tourist destination
Niki Moore
Andrew Zaloumis is an organisational whizz-kid. Only he would have been able to persuade a massive thunderstorm to hold its fire until his VIP guests had opened an elephant transit camp on the eastern shores of Lake St Lucia in Zululand on Monday afternoon. The transit camp, a 10 000m2 boma built near the shores of the lake at Catalina Bay, will soon hold 30 elephants acquired from Hluhluwe Game Reserve and Tembe Elephant Park on the Mozambique border, to be released into the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. In three months’ time the park that was recently granted World Heritage Site status will have three of the Big Five and will be on its way to becoming an international tourist attraction. A colourful feather for Zaloumis, coordinator for the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI), to put in his cap. But the rumbles about the work of the LSDI are not confined to the weather.
Launched amid huge fanfare in 1996, the LSDI then promptly went underground and for years it did not look as if anything was being achieved. Tourism operators were sceptical of the claims by Zaloumis and his colleagues, and sniffed that they did not see any progress. However, at a breakfast meeting on Monday just prior to the cutting of the ribbon at the elephant bomas, Zaloumis was able to confound critics by pointing to a full spectrum of results. “We have almost completed the spine road that will link Durban with Maputo,” he said, ticking off his points. “This will put the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park within a three-hour drive of Durban without breaking the speed limit.” Zaloumis said the upgrading of the N2 from the Umfolozi to Pongola is close to completion, and that border posts have been upgraded, ready to enable tourists to visit Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa without a visa.
To complement these developments, a significant drop in malaria levels to the lowest in seven years has come after a concerted effort to combat the disease.
According to the development plan, the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, which used to be made up of a plethora of little conservancies, “will soon be getting a global identity. We have consolidated 16 different authorities into one. We have also managed to incorporate an additional 10 000ha, which used to be a timber plantation, to be rehabilitated to wetland,” Zaloumis said.
Also in the bag is the dropping of fences with neighbouring game farmers, so that the area of the park can be increased and private farms can become part of the park.
However, the development bodes ill for illegal developments along the KwaZulu-Natal coast, which recently have become a scourge for the coastline. Notices to demolish unlawful structures have already been issued. The imposing park is now punctuated by mushrooming infrastructure, roads, fencing and animal stocking. The business lunch on Monday was specifi-cally planned to woo local business people and entrepreneurs to buy into the project. Most of the serious money in Zululand was gathered around tables in the Umfolozi Country Club to hear MEC for Tourism Mike Mabuyakhulu outline investment opportunities. For once black millionaires outnumbered white millionaires two to one. For a beaming Mabuyakhulu, this was a return to his roots. “When I was boy,” he began, “I used to herd the cattle in these hills.”
It appears that he had returned to herd the cash into the hills. “The government has already spent R630-million on infrastructure,” he said.
He said 14 development sites have been identified and the government is calling for investors to submit expressions of interest. These includes tourism jewels like Kosi Bay, Cape Vidal, Lake Sibaya and Ndlozi Peninsula. A guideline for development has already been laid down, stipulating the type of investment to be made in each area. “We will not sacrifice the environment,” said Mabuyakhulu. “The local people must not lose access and the immediate region must benefit.” Mabuyakhulu said the government will also embark on a global branding and marketing campaign for the region. Even more exciting for the business people present was an undertaking from Ben Nkosi of the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC): “The IDC has created a specialist unit for funding tourist development that does not fall under straightforward funding. Items like vehicles and houses are covered by ordinary bank loans. But we will look at funding entrepreneurial tourism projects.”
Nkosi indicated that last year the IDC funded about 80 projects worth R400-million countrywide, and an additional R500-million has already been pumped in to fund more than 70 projects this year.
Thereafter the entire meeting decamped to the wetland park for the opening of the elephant boma. The impressive enclosure will hold the 30 elephants while they acclimatise themselves before being released into the park.
Within six months the Greater St Lucia Wetland World Heritage Site will be marketed worldwide as a tourist attraction with unequalled wildlife, environmental and leisure possibilities. “A visitor will be able to go from the beach to a Big Five reserve in 40 minutes,” Zaloumis says. “Once the spine road is complete, the distance between Durban and Maputo will be five hours. For a man capable of telling a thunderstorm to hold off, perhaps compressing time and distance is just another of those things.