Ephraim Mteka, chairperson of the Bhangazi Trust, smiles as he walks along the shores of Lake Bhangazi in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park.
“The past few years have been good for us,” says Mteka. “We settled our land claim and we are reaping the benefits of ecotourism. Things can only get better.”
The Bhangazi community is only one of many inside the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) that has benefited from ecotourism development inside the Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park.
With new multimillion-rand investments on the horizon for the SDI, including a R432-million ecotourism investment inside the Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park, Mteka’s community might be able to realise their dream of sending their children to university.
But about 500km down the coast in Transkei, the Wild Coast SDI is not doing so well. It is torn apart by squabbles between environmentalists and government officials and whole communities are split over development issues. In Pondoland, one of South Africa’s four biodiversity “hot spots”, a planned new toll road has exposed deep rifts within the communities.
Both Lubombo and the Wild Coast are beautiful biological areas that have seen little development in the past. The idea behind SDIs is to foster sustainable development in areas where poverty and unemployment are at their highest.
When the Wild Coast SDI came into being in 1997 it looked to ecotourism as a means of facilitating development. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism was set to declare Pondoland a national park, and a R100-million investment from the European Union in ecotourism promised a golden future.
But today the picture looks bleak. The area was never declared a national park and, apart from sporadic tourism developments, it remains dirt poor, with no major development forthcoming. The government hopes a new toll road, which will link Umtata with KwaZulu-Natal, will change this.
Development workers and activists say the road will mean the end of ecotourism for Pondoland.
An investor like the EU might also be frightened away by this development, said Simon Sperring, a development worker involved in community tourism in the region.
“The area in Pondoland that the road passes through is widely regarded as having unprecedented potential for nature-based tourism. It is expected that the road would impact on the Pondoland’s unique sense of place.”
“In building this road they are killing off the golden goose that is the key to sustainable development in the area,” said Cathy Kay, conservation director of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa.
But Crispian Olver, Director General of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, says the road will boost ecotourism because it will provide access to the region.
“It is vital that ecotourism is able to offer more jobs and benefits than competing land use options. This depends on the ability of the area to attract large-scale private investment. The single greatest obstacle to attracting such investment is access.”
He says the welfare of the Pondo people and protection of the environment are inextricably linked. “If eco-tourism is not able to prove its economic viability, the imperative to protect and conserve the supporting natural assets will be gone.”
Olver says the opponents of the road tend to place the environment above the interests of people and fail to address the most pressing challenge: poverty.
The controversial high-speed toll road has also created fears that the government would rather look to titanium mining of the sand dunes to develop this poor region. The proposed mining operation is dependent on a major road to facilitate transport of ore and equipment. An Australian company already holds a licence to prospect in the area, on land that would be included in the proposed Pondoland national park. It is understood that the Eastern Cape government is pro-mining because it believes it will boost job creation.
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Valli Moosa said in an interview with the Mail & Guardian last week that he hoped the Pondoland national park would be established and he believes ecotourism to be one of the best forms of sustainable development for the Wild Coast SDI. “It is something that we all wanted to happen earlier — and it could have happened.”
Moosa encountered stiff opposition from the Eastern Cape provincial government, which thwarted his efforts to declare the area a national park.
The titanium-rich dunes at St Lucia were also once earmarked for mining by the apartheid regime, but after an epic environmental battle the democratic government ruled in 1994 that mining be prohibited and “the area’s fragile beauty and sense of place be protected for future generations”.
Sheila Dutton, a socio-ecologist who has studied both cases, believes the biggest difference between St Lucia and Pondoland is that a dedicated authority in St Lucia organises and attracts investment to ensure that ecotourism is viable. “The Wild Coast simply has not had the benefit of the same organisation.”
But even at St Lucia the ecotourism alternative has encountered problems. The promise of jobs and development for the impoverished locals has taken a long time to be realised. The mid-1990s saw a negative growth rate in regional tourism around the Wetland Park. The park created less than 350 direct jobs in tourism between 1994 and 1998.
But in 1998 the area became part of the Lubombo SDI and the government committed itself to creating the investment paradise St Lucia could be.
When the site was declared a World Heritage Site in 2000, a dedicated Wetland Park Authority took over the running of the park. This authority is committed to developing tourism and attracting investment to the region.
But Andrew Zaloumis, CEO of the authority, says the park has not been making money or creating the opportunities the government envisaged.
Currently the park depends heavily on grants and donations from benefactors. Zaloumis is against plunging the park into debt and has been at the forefront of fundraising efforts.
A big investment in ecotourism announced last year has the potential to make the park self-sufficient. The investment involves a total capital expenditure of R432-million. Eight winning bidders were given concessions to develop lodges, self-catering resorts, camping facilities and adventure travel activities at eight sites. The concessions are expected to generate R300-million a year. Zaloumis says the running of the park currently costs about R54-million a year.
Concession periods vary between 15 and 30 years and the concessionaires will have to re-apply after their period expires.
The investment will provide a major financial injection for the impoverished communities in the park. Up to 50% of the construction work for the concessionaires’ new resorts will be conducted by local businesses. The investment will create 900 permanent jobs and the concessionaires will have to train locals in the art of hospitality.
The new developments will have to comply with strict environmental measures, Zaloumis says. “Unfortunately it is not possible to operate this park in a vacuum without some development.” If ecotourism does not deliver the expected benefits to communities within the park, those communities may put pressure on the government to reconsider mining the area.