A cockfight over endangered birds is jeopardising an R8-million ecotourism project that offers a lifeline to an impoverished community in the Free State.
Up to 80% of the 18 000-odd people living in Memel and Zamani, tiny sister towns serving farming communities in the north-eastern Free State, are unemployed. So when plans to generate a birding tourism mecca in the local nature reserve were announced in 2000, hopes were raised.
The national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism allocated R8-million in poverty relief funds to upgrade the reserve and develop infrastructure. The idea was to compete with Wakkerstroom, a once-moribund farming town in Mpumalanga that is now booming as thousands of birding enthusiasts from around the world flock there each year.
“This is the lifeline that can give Memel and Zamani a second lease of life. Without it, they will become ghost towns,” says Pieter de Kock, chairperson of a trust set up to manage the tourism development. Most of the profits are supposed to go to previously disadvantaged communities.
The project has stalled for the past 18 months because of a dispute between the Memel-Zamani Wetlands Trust and the Free State department of tourism, environmental and economic affairs. The national department is now threatening to withdraw the R8-million it has allocated if the money is not spent by March 31 2004.
The feathers are flying over the siting of nine tourist chalets, a small restaurant and an educational centre the trust wants to develop in the reserve, called Seekoeivlei Nature Reserve. It is a provincial reserve and has been declared a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.
Among the reasons for protecting Seekoeivlei are that it is a crucial catchment area for the Vaal river system and a breeding site for endangered birds like wattled and blue cranes. The Free State department says the chosen site will disturb the birds, defeating the purpose of the development.
“The only wetland in the Free State that is protected and listed is under threat from this development,” says Nomazizi Mdi, provincial director of environmental affairs. “We are not against the project, but it is imperative they look at alternative sites.”
The trust counters that it has done its homework, that the development will have little to no impact on the birdlife and that the site was chosen because it has the best view.
Zamani local councillor Buti Madonsela says the delays and possible collapse of the project are causing huge frustrations in the communities, who expected the project to take off early last year.
“The people here are looking for jobs from ecotourism,” he says. “If this project does not go ahead, the people will have to leave or they will have to starve.”