According to an ancient Bushman legend, Giraffe was given the task of helping Sun find his way around the heavens. Giraffe took his job so seriously that the Creator rearranged a few stars in the sky to resemble a giraffe, in Giraffe’s honour. The Bushmen called the pattern Tutwa and they navigate by it. We call it the Southern Cross.
The legend sprang to mind when South African National Parks (SANParks) recently began restocking the Makuleke region of the Kruger National Park with wildlife –and started the project with giraffe.
Giraffe (and lion, rhino, wildebeest and even impala) disappeared from the area after the Makuleke community were forcibly removed from their land in 1969. This strip of land, which lies on the border between South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, was used as a buffer zone by the former South African Defence Force.
In 1998 the Makulekes became the first community in post-apartheid South Africa to get their land back in a formally protected reserve. They decided not to resettle on their ancestral land, but rather to let it remain part of the Kruger park so they could earn benefits from commercial safari operators.
In 2003 the community signed an agreement with private company Wilderness Safaris to develop a series of lodges. This contract means that 24 000ha in the Pafuri sector in the north of the Kruger will be commercially developed over the next three years.
The gross income earned by the community will be approximately 50% of profits. Although there is a guaranteed minimum, ‘rental†will be linked to turnover. The Makulekes could earn some R44-million over the next 20 years, which will be administered by a trust.
Members of the Makuleke community are receiving training to fill positions in the camps, ranging from guides to cooks and management roles. Some 120 jobs are expected to be created in the lodges, anti-poaching and associated small businesses. About 70 local people are building the lodges.
Twenty community members have completed the most advanced field-ranger training course on offer in South Africa and a number of these candidates graduated recently. Wilderness Safaris is providing training for community members through an ecotraining camp set up in the Makuleke region.
The wildlife relocation is a joint project of SANParks and Wilderness Safaris. As the giraffes put their hooves on the Makuleke land, they also marked the first initiative within a contractual national park in South Africa where SANParks supports the establishment of a community-based field-ranging and anti-poaching unit.