Wild Coast communities who own one of the world’s most important conservation ”hot spots” are signing a multimillion-rand ecotourism deal, effectively edging out mining interests in the region.
The Mkambati Land Trust, a coalition of seven communities which own the Mkambati nature reserve on the Eastern Cape coast, has approved the development of lodges by top-end ecotourism operators. The communities are also adding more of their land to Mkambati, extending the 8 000ha reserve by 40%.
At the World Parks Congress (WPC) in Durban this week, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa said he will proclaim the Pondoland National Park later this year. Mkambati, presently managed as a provincial reserve, will be the heart of the new national park.
When the area is proclaimed a national park, mining will no longer be an option. An Australian-based mining group, Minerals Commodity, has been prospecting for ilmenite in the dunes of the Wild Coast.
”Mining would produce about 100 local jobs. Our ecotourism model will create 220 full-time, well-paid jobs, as well as transferring skills and providing training,” says Colin Bell, CEO of Wilderness Safaris, one of the ecotourism outfits awarded a tender by the Mkambati Land Trust.
Sustainable financing of protected areas is a key issue being discussed by the 2 500 delegates attending the 10-day congress. Conservation in the 21st century has moved away from government and taxpayer funding to parks supporting themselves through ecotourism and other private-public economic activities.
There are nearly 4 390 protected areas in Eastern and Southern Africa, and a further 2 600 in Western and Central Africa. Many are little more than ”paper parks”, formally declared but with few or no resources to operate.
Under these circumstances, the ecotourism models Wilderness Safaris and other private investors are developing in Southern Africa are under scrutiny at the WPC. Bell delivered two lectures at the congress this week on how to make conservation pay by working with neighbours.
Pondoland has been identified as a global conservation ”hot spot” because it has a high concentration of rare, endemic species. It also includes some of South Africa’s most dramatic landscapes, combining land-based and marine wildlife.
Wilderness Safaris joined forces with Mantis Collection, owners of the Shamwari Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape, in the tender at Mkambati. The Mkambati Land Trust and the Eastern Cape government announced last week that the tender was successful.
The two ecotourism groups plan to invest R50-million in developing low-volume, high-revenue lodges that will provide 108 tourist beds in the Mkambati reserve. They plan to cater for both the high-paying international market and the cash-strapped South African tourist.
Bell says the deal is that the Mkambati Land Trust gets a percentage of every tourism cent spent, regardless of whether the operators make a profit or a loss. Wilderness Safaris has also undertaken to assist the communities in developing small businesses, schools and clinics.
”The model makes business sense,” says Bell. ”We bring in top-end tourists, the communities are proper partners and you engage with local SMMEs in an empowerment forum.” National or provincial park management authorities also get a share of the turnover.
”Community conservation is not just about money. Communities want upliftment through jobs and training; they want land ownership and they want to restore their spiritual control of the land.”
The seven Mkambati communities, some of whom were thrown off the land to make way for the reserve, joined forces to form the Mkambati Land Trust and won title to the reserve last August. They chose not to move back on to the land, in favour of ecotourism development.
The proof of the model lies in the successful Wilderness Safaris ecotourism concessions already operating in six countries in Southern Africa. The outfit also signed a deal last month with the Makuleke Communal Property Association, which owns land in the northern region of the Kruger National Park.
Wilderness Safaris has received worldwide praise for its non-consumptive ecotourism model and for its environmentally and socially responsible practices. In January Conservation International and National Geographic awarded it the World Legacy Award for nature-based tourism.