Squinting into his binoculars, William Fowlds scans a vast, grassy plane where a busy dairy once stood.
The cattle and sheep have given way to herds of grazing antelope. Out of a knot of thorny bushes, a family of elephants emerges.
For more than two centuries, farmers like Fowlds — a storyteller of note known to everyone as Uncle Bill — have forged a living from the rugged and arid land of South Africa’s Eastern Cape. But years of drought, stock theft and low prices for their produce have taken a toll.
Now, a growing number are trading in their livestock for wildlife, hoping to cash in on the country’s latest boom: tourists eager to experience Africa’s legendary safaris.
Fowlds’s forefathers used to hunt elephants, cheetah and hyena to protect their farms. Today, only viewing is allowed on his land.
”Even the rabbits look at us like we are bloody mad,” he said with a chuckle, as he poured himself a whisky and took a seat by the camp fire.
The amount of private land dedicated to wildlife ventures has increased steadily across South Africa — up to 25% a year in this region alone, according to research conducted by the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth.
Bit by bit a land subjected to decades of bush clearing, overgrazing and invasion by alien vegetation is returning to its natural state. Wild grasses and bushes are moving into dusty, eroded pastures, and animals that were nearly shot out of existence are making a comeback.
Environmentalists worry, however, that the spread of private wildlife parks has gone largely unregulated, guided by economic rather than conservation concerns.
”I think it is a very positive trend if we are moving away from agriculture … which is very destructive for soil and habitats,” said Jason Bell-Leask, regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. ”But are we conserving wildlife … or are we actually starting to farm these animals?”
Agriculture is tough in South Africa. Rainfall is erratic. The price of diesel is increasing. Stock theft is up. And new laws to protect farm workers from the abuses of apartheid have made cheap labour a thing of the past.
But sheep farmers are getting about the same price for their wool as they did nearly 20 years ago. Many have been forced to sell up.
After farming at a loss in 1995, Fowlds stood one morning before the framed family tree in a hallway lined with black-and-white photographs and decided he would not be ”the idiot who lost the farm”. Like his forebears from Britain who landed in 1857, he had to ”adapt or die”.
Down the road, local businessman Adrian Gardiner had been buying up rundown farms, and in 1992 opened Shamwari Game Reserve. The five-star, 20 000ha reserve has helped put the Eastern Cape on the map as a wildlife destination.
Fowlds and his son, also called William, decided this was the way to go.
At first, they said, their neighbours thought they were mad. But within a year, three other families joined forces with them.
In 1999, they opened Amakhala Game Reserve, halfway between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown. The 7 000ha reserve boasts zebra, buffalo, giraffe, rhino, cheetah and elephants.
The end of white-minority rule in 1994 brought a tourism boom in South Africa. With nearby Cape Town a popular destination, farmers-turned-conservationists hope visitors will cap a drive west along the scenic Garden Route with a safari in the malaria-free Eastern Cape.
What many don’t bargain for is the heavy cost of turning a farm into a reserve. A single black rhino costs R500 000. The old farm structures must be torn down, electrified fencing put in, accommodation built and marketing done.
Amakhala’s first game drives were conducted by farmers in the back of pick-up trucks.
”You had to drive through the cows and sheep to get to the zebras,” laughed Rod Weeks, Fowlds’s partner and neighbour.
Amakhala now has open Land Rovers driven by professional rangers, river cruises and an environmental research centre.
Accommodation ranges from colonial farmhouses to thatch and stone lodges.
But the families are still paying off huge loans, and bookings have been slow to take off.
Weeks kept part of his land out of the reserve and continued farming as a back-up. But the Fowlds put everything they had into the new project.
They estimate they have nearly quadrupled the value of their land. But they don’t intend to sell.
Despite fears such ventures are putting farm labourers out of work, the Fowldses say they have doubled their workforce and improved salaries at a time of mounting joblessness.
Nomonde Mayinje was raised on their farm, where her father was a sheep shearer. She tried to find work in Port Elizabeth, but returned when the reserve opened to work in the kitchen.
”It is a future for me and my child,” said the single mother. Her 18-year-old son is now thinking of becoming a game ranger.
”One day, he could be manager,” she said proudly.
Environmentalists welcome the spread of ecotourism ventures like Amakhala, but note there is more money in hunting. Trophy hunters from Europe and the United States will pay more than $2 000 to shoot a single waterbuck.
Bell-Leask worries the rapid spread of hunting lodges in the Eastern Cape could be fuelling unsavoury practices, including the release of captive animals to be shot — known here as canned hunting.
While new legislation provides for the eventual registration of private game parks, so far their proliferation has gone unregulated.
Most owners concede they stock the animals tourists want to see or hunt and have introduced alien species.
Amakhala has impala and springbok. There is also debate over whether its giraffes are native to the area.
Bill Fowlds insists an ancient rock painting near Grahamstown is proof the animal is indigenous. Experts say there is no other evidence to support the claim.
Most private reserves are also small and won’t be able to sustain breeding herds in the long term, environmentalists say.
Ultimately, the success of private conservation initiatives will depend on the tourists.
”We still wake up in the night and wonder if we did the right thing,” Weeks said. — Sapa-AP