Lodge owners in a prime coastal resort are pitting the Danish and Mozambican governments against each other in a bitter legal row over who owns a piece of paradise.
Jørgen Nielsen, a Danish businessman, ran into trouble in paradise shortly after he bought rights to a piece of land in the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary from a South African developer in 2001. Nielsen built Nyati Beach Lodge in the sanctuary, which is situated in southern Mozambique and is a treasure trove of natural resources.
For the past five years the Dane has been fighting a ding-dong legal battle with a Mozambican lodge owner, Rex Potter, who won a court order saying he owned the land rights on the site. Potter also owns Casa Rex, another tourist lodge near Vilanculos.
Matters came to a head at the end of February, when the Danes ”invaded” the property, handcuffing Potter’s employees and chasing them away. The Danes have occupied Nyati lodge ever since and they claim they have a new court order that overrules Potter’s original order.
Potter and members of his company, Cabo do Mar, say the Danes’ new court order is fake and they are illegally occupying Nyati. They suggest high-level Danish government interests are putting pressure on the Mozambican government to overturn the original court order.
”A high-ranking Danish government official went to Maputo recently. Our understanding was that the visit was to do with aid. The story about pressure being put on the Mozambicans arose out of that visit,” said Barry Deacon, a Zimbabwean shareholder in Cabo do Mar.
Nielsen, the founder of Patrick Sport shoes in Denmark, said the Danish government had a 20% shareholding in Nyati. ”We all have an interest in getting the land rights,” he said.
Nielsen said Nyati was operating as an upmarket lodge for Scandinavian tourists when it was taken over by Potter. ”We were closed for more than a year, but everything seems settled now and we have a court order giving us back our rights.”
According to reports in Danish media, Nielsen paid up to $500 000 for the rights to use the 10ha site on which Nyati is built for 50 years. It is situated on one of the most scenic sites in the 35 000ha sanctuary.
The Vilanculos sanctuary was developed and sold by Mpumalanga businessman Trevor Jordan, who has developed a number of high-profile private ecotourism destinations in South Africa over the past 30 years. Nielsen’s son, Soren Nielsen, bought a game lodge in Hoedspruit from Jordan and the Danish family’s plan was to offer their Scandinavian clients a package tour that would include hunting, trips to the Kruger National Park and coastal activities at Nyati Beach Lodge.
The Vilanculos project has been a major national news story in Mozambique since its inception because 23% of the shares in the development belong to John Kachamila, who was environment minister at the time the project gained approval. As the Mail & Guardian reported in 2001, the sanctuary was set up without proper environmental impact assessments or social scoping reports, as required by Mozambican law.
Jordan has sold off rights to all the sites in the Vilanculos sanctuary and Kachamila is no longer a minister. Both the Mozambican and Danish governments have changed. But there is a long history of Danish influence in Mozambique: after considerable controversy over plans by the Danish International Development Agency to build an incinerator to burn stockpiled pesticides and toxic wastes in Motala the Mozambicans backed down in 2000 and announced that the wastes would be exported for safe destruction in a developed country, probably in Europe.