Hector Magome is a man with a mission. The books and journals stacked on every surface in his office suggest a man who takes his job seriously. He has written some of them himself, during 18 years spent working through the ranks in all key aspects of the management of protected areas. Now, as executive director of conservation services for South African National Parks (SANParks), he is putting into practice his passion for conserving the fauna and flora that inhabit its 20 national parks and the sea of humanity that surrounds them.
It is a balacing act that requires no small amount of sensitivity.
How does Magome see the role of national parks developing?
‘We are moving forward in three key areas,” he explains. ‘Firstly, we are maintaining our leadership role in conservation and development in South Africa and the rest of the continent. SANParks is the leading conservation agency in Africa. It generates between 80% and 85% of its own funding and has an operating budget of R400-million.
‘In addition to this, SANParks has a role to play in tourism and is the largest trader of bed nights in South Africa. In the Kruger National Park alone we offer 4 500 beds, excluding the private concessions, of which there are now seven. In our other parks we offer an additional 1 300 beds. The majority of these are booked in advance.”
SANParks is also heavily involved in pushing forward with transfrontier parks, such as the Kgalagadi, and is key to the Peace Parks project.
‘Secondly, we are continuing to be a major contributor to socio-economics in South Africa. For example, the Kruger National Park is a major drawcard in tourism, so we are gearing our park management to stay on top of the game,” says Magome.
‘And thirdly, we are playing a key role in long-term environmental observation. We need to make predictions with regards to our environment. We are part of the South African Environmental Observation Network, which links the whole of Africa via satellite, observing and predicting environmental trends. When one considers tragedies such as the Asian tsunami, we can see that the world pays dearly for not investing sufficiently in science and technology.”
Staying relevant is a challenge, with the socio- political demographics of the country changing so rapidly. An estimated 1,2-million people visit the Kruger National Park annually, but only 4% of these are black South Africans. Kruger Park in particular, has been regarded by the black middle-class as a playground for wealthy whites.
‘We need to adopt a two-pronged approach,” says Magome.
‘We want to retain the middle-class white South Africans. Concepts such as our Wild Card loyalty system were part and parcel of this need to say thank you to our bread and butter trade. But on the other hand, we need to appeal to the emerging sector, the touted six million or so middle-class blacks who have a huge disposable income and no culture of travelling or visiting parks for leisure.
‘To help us, we have introduced programmes such as our Kids in Parks campaign. Children tend to dictate the activities of a family.”
Magome says that the government needs to regard our national parks as a portfolio of assets. Currently there are four million hectares under management, and an additional three million hectares under protection. And yet the state budget for these is only R18-million.
‘In any portfolio there will always be milk-cows, middle of the road areas and low impact areas. For us, Kruger is our milk-, or cash-cow. It is overdeveloped but still generates the bulk of our income. Newer parks like the Addo Elephant Park and Wilderness are our low impact areas.
‘Our key challenge is to decide on a set of norms and standards which dictate what exactly it is that makes a national park a national park. We are working on a computer model. We will then take that concept and try it out with a ‘pilot’ park in which the core value will be to leave it alone.”
Magome calls the new approach ‘touch the Earth lightly” and explains that accommodation in the pilot park would be on stilts and made with natural materials.
It’s a model already in place at new parks like Mapungubwe. Indeed, this park has become a model for a much more humanistic approach to conservation. Is this a deliberate policy?
‘Ownership is an issue,” says Magome. ‘But it’s a moving target. You cannot rewind culture. To increase a sense of ownership among communities takes more than environmental education, you need a shotgun approach and hope that some of the shot hits home.
‘So we are going to the various constituencies and asking them ‘what are your expectations of a national park?’ We are also asking them what their idea of managing a national park is.”
How does Magome see eco-tourism impacting on national parks?
‘That’s a million-dollar question,” he says. ‘We need to re-evaluate objectives. It’s a continual battle — maximising income versus limiting impact. We need to spend more time on limiting impact, more time convincing our principals to increase funding to sustain the goose that laid the golden egg, because that’s what our parks are — golden eggs.”
And finally, to another million- dollar question — the elephant question. What is SANParks’s stance on the question of metapopulation and managing numbers of elephants?
‘The elephant debate is a key one. How do we take elephants as a flagship species selling issues of biodiversity? We need to adopt an attitude of acceptance here. Elephants are regarded as Africa’s symbol of power. I believe that the metapopulation approach is the future. And if elephants can help us to achieve our goals, then more power to them.”
Dr Hector Magome will be giving a lecture at the Monument Olive Schreiner Hall at 3.30pm on March 17, entitled: Managing National Parks for multiple objectives. He will be discussing elephant management on March 18 at 2pm at the Monument Guy Butler Theatre