Communities in southern Mozambique are fighting to keep their land, which has been earmarked for an exclusive coastal resort
Fiona Macleod
While delegates debate environmental racism at the Durban racism conference, a few kilometres north a row is brewing over a classic case of poor communities being displaced to make way for an elitist wildlife playground.
A group of rich South Africans has bought into the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary, a multimillion-rand development planned for Que-wene in southern Mozambique. It will see about 18 long-established communities with at least 1 000 members removed, and deprive a larger community of access to their natural resources.
Environmentalists working in the area say the development is going ahead without a proper environmental impact assessment (EIA), which in terms of Mozambican law should place social impacts at the top of the agenda. They argue that it appears the project is being fast-tracked because Mozambican Minister of Environment John Kachamila is a 23% shareholder in the development.
“According to current legislation all developmental projects have to be preceded by an EIA, with prime consideration being the concerns of the populace living in the vicinity. This social scoping exercise is paramount in establishing what social and financial benefits will be derived in terms of poverty alleviation, especially in a country described by the World Bank as the poorest in the world,” says environmental consultant Paul Dutton.
“The fact that the minister is a declared shareholder raises the obvious question of who are the actual perpetrators or supporters of environmental racism worldwide.”
The term “environmental racism” was developed in the United States 21 years ago to describe discrimination suffered by the poor, black or ethnic groups by corporate polluters, military regimes and governments.
At Quewene the people who will be moved are mostly illiterate subsistence fishermen and small farmers eking an existence in an area with no jobs. Because of the rich natural habitat and tropical climate, Dutton describes them as “some of the healthiest people I have come across in Mozambique”.
The project they are making way for is being sold to selected investors who will own 50 private residential sites in a 35 000ha wildlife and marine reserve. At least 27 of these $100 000 sites have already been sold and the developers expect to sell the rest by the end of the year.
Hotels and lodges with 100 beds have been allocated. The plan is to introduce a wide spectrum of wildlife, which will be enclosed by a game fence isolating about 70km of the coastline.
Antonio Reina, director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust in Mozambique, sent a memo to the developers a month ago raising concerns about equity in access to natural resources. He supports tourism development in the country, but it must have huge social development benefits.
“The biggest problem is the exclusivity of this project,” Reina says. “The main owners are going to be rich whites, against poor blacks. That is something we don’t want.”
Chiefs and other community representatives recently informed the regional administrator they would not move to make way for the project. Provincial authorities are dismayed that the government in Maputo is allowing it to proceed without the necessary EIA being carried out.
But the developers, who include South African wildlife and leisure development veterans, say they are not aware of any unhappiness among the Quewene communities. They ascribe the “shocking” criticisms to jealousy from environmental organisations.
The Vilanculos sanctuary was initiated by Trevor Jordan, who has developed high-profile private ecotourism destinations in South Africa in the past 25 years, and a former director of JCI Projects, Hugh Brown. “Lampies” Lamprecht, retired director of nature conservation in the former Transvaal, is the natural resources adviser.
The developers argue they will introduce infrastructure, a school, clinic, training and hundreds of jobs to an area in a state of decline. They are setting up a trust for the Quewene community in which all the proceeds from the wildlife utilisation and donations will be pooled.
The area is a biodiversity treasure land, with rare cycads and endangered marine species like dugongs and leatherback turtles. The developers say it needs to be protected against commercial fishing operators and unsustainable slash-and-burn agriculture.
“We are setting up a low-impact, high-value conservation project,” says Lamprecht. “This is one of the top biodiversity hot spots in Africa.”
A social impact survey is being conducted and a detailed document outlining impacts of the project will be submitted to the Mozambican government “within weeks”.
He says sites have already been sold on the basis that the project has been approved in principle by the government. The government has given the developers a 99-year leasehold on the land and accepted their written agreement with the communities.
“Any suggestion that minister Kachamila would bend the rules is totally wrong. We brought him on board because he already had a concession in the area, and his interest is openly declared.
“Whenever the project is discussed in Parliament, he excuses himself,” says Lamprecht.
The Mozambican Ministry of Environment had not replied to inquiries by the time the Mail & Guardian went to press.