Government authorities in drought-ravaged Limpopo province are casting an acquisitive eye on nature reserves in a desperate attempt to avoid livestock deaths.
At least three provincial reserves have been earmarked for temporary cattle grazing and the decommissioning of a number of reserves for alternative long-term land use is being investigated.
Conservationists were alarmed when the province’s agriculture minister Aaron Motsoaledi and Finance and Economic Development Minister Thaba Mufamadi announced on SABC shows late last week that cattle would be allowed to graze in reserves.
Of particular concern was the mention of Blouberg reserve, the country’s largest breeding site of the highly endangered Cape vulture and an important water catchment area for millions of rural people living around Vivo.
Contacted for comment this week, acting CEO of the Limpopo Tourism and Parks Board (LTPB) Charles Maluleke said decommissioning reserves would not solve drought-related problems. ”Mixing livestock with wild animals leads to diseases in livestock, which could have a worse effect than the drought,” he said.
Other concerns raised by conservationists were that relocating the wildlife would cost huge amounts that could be better used to buy feed for livestock, and that most of the reserves only have a few months’ worth of grazing and water. Many farmers have turned to wildlife precisely because large parts of Limpopo cannot sustain agriculture.
The row over the reserves broke on the eve of the first provincial tourism conference, dubbed the ”Limpopo Tourism Lekgotla”, to be hosted by the LTPB on March 1 and 2. It comes at a time when tourism is booming in the province — according to the LTPB accommodation facilities experienced an unprecedented surge in occupancy, ranging from 65% to 100%, during the 2003 festive season.
After consultation between the three provincial departments this week, the LTPB issued a statement saying it had conducted a scoping exercise in November last year to determine the ecological and socio-economical viability of the 54 reserves it manages. ”The scoping exercise revealed there are reserves that should retain their current status, while a certain few are earmarked as possible candidates for alternative land use option.”
An independent ecological firm had been engaged to evaluate land use options and the LTPB was investigating the feasibility of using the Machaka, Bulwer and Langjan reserves for temporary cattle grazing, the statement said.
Langjan reserve, also near Vivo, provides sanctuary for the last remaining naturally occurring herd of gemsbok in Limpopo. It comprises typical Kalahari veld and red sand dunes, and has little grass for grazing.
Machaka and Bulwer are situated close to Polokwane, and Bulwer is already a combined game-cattle project. A number of the reserves inherited by the Limpopo government appear to have been set up by the former Lebowa homeland government with not much more in mind than to serve as private hunting areas.
”This is a disaster intervention,” Morare Mphahlele, head of Limpopo’s Department of Finance and Economic Development, told the M&G on Thursday. ”We are not decommissioning reserves and we want to emphasise that we won’t do anything reckless.”