Factional politics in the Eastern Cape appear to have scuppered a multimillion-rand ecotourism project on the Wild Coast, and in the process chased a leading private tourism company out of South Africa.
After years of haggling with politicians and bureaucrats, Wilderness Safaris says it has had enough. The outfit had budgeted R150-million for rural ecotourism development and spent more than R14-million on marketing its plans.
The final straw was the collapse of an ambitious community ecotourism venture in the Mkambati provincial reserve on the Wild Coast. The venture combined development and environmental protection in an area so poor that 3% of children are mentally retarded by the time they are 10 due to malnutrition, and where mining interests are threatening one of the world’s top biodiversity ”hotspots”.
Three years ago, Wilderness Safaris won a government tender to develop the Mkambati reserve and reached hard-won agreement with the Pondo communities who own the land. The deal was torpedoed by recently fired Eastern Cape tourism and economic affairs minister, André de Wet, who said it was invalid and must return to the drawing board.
Conflict between factions of the provincial African National Congress is seen as the underlying cause.
”It’s just too difficult to get anything done here,” said the company’s CEO, Malcolm McCulloch. ”I’m not interested in starting talks again. The horse has bolted.”
Wilderness has built up a formidable reputation for its low-impact, high-value lodges partnered with rural communities. It has nearly 50 lodges in seven Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries and its awards include the ”Oscar” of global nature-based tourism, National Geographic’s ”World Legacy Award”.
Its other safari lodges in South Africa are Rocktail Bay in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park and Pafuri in the Makuleke region of Kruger National Park.
McCulloch said Wilderness would continue running these lodges, but would start new enterprises only in SADC countries with ”more welcoming attitudes and processes. Even Zimbabwe is a better bet”.
Obstacles in South Africa included concession periods that were too short and expensive, legal processes that took ”10 times as long as elsewhere”, and drawn-out environmental impact assessments conducted by ”vested interests”.
McCulloch’s predecessor at Wilderness, Colin Bell, was the driving force behind the Mkambati venture. He ”retired”, aged 51, when the company decided to pull out of South Africa.
Bell said the Mkambati collapse was ”a symptom of a greater malaise. There are delays, bureaucratic bungling, politics, legal problems, set rules … The private sector can’t afford to wait”.
Both men ascribed the collapse of the Mkambati venture to Eastern Cape Premier Nosimo Balindlela’s controversial sacking of former finance minister Enoch Godongwana in 2004 just as the first Wilderness lodges at Mkambati were to be built. Godongwana’s replacement, De Wet, systematically stymied projects introduced during his predecessor’s tenure.
De Wet informed Wilderness and its partners at Mkambati — Mantis Collection, a well-known Eastern Cape ecotourism developer, and the Mkambati Land Trust — that the contract they were awarded was ”fatally flawed”. Mantis CEO Adrian Gardiner said this week the ”flaw” was never explained.
Godongwana was widely seen as a victim of Balindlela’s purge of elements sympathetic to Eastern Cape ANC chairperson, Makhenkesi Stofile. De Wet, whose term was mired in controversy, was in turn fired by Balindlela in April.
This week, he denied that his rejection of the Mkambati deal was political. ”It was a legal matter. The Eastern Cape Parks Board got a legal opinion during the time of my predecessor and I got a second legal opinion, which was unchanged,” he said.
Mail & Guardian questions to the new MEC, Mbulelo Sogoni, were referred to the parks board and went unanswered.
Members of the Mkambati Land Trust, representing about 40 000 villagers, are furious about the failure. After they won their restitution claim in 2004, the villagers pledged an extra 14 000ha of old agricultural land to extend the 7 200ha Mkambati reserve.
Trust spokesperson Faku Maxwell Maraqana said the collapse of the Wilderness project had cost communities a R50-million investment in their land, a 46% share of net profits from the planned lodges, the construction of a new clinic and a children’s educational camp. They had also expected hundreds of jobs, a vegetable growing project, charcoal making and various other enterprises.
”Now we have to start afresh. We won’t tolerate this,” Maraqana said. ”After we got our land back, we expected to use it as we wanted and we found a developer. Now the government is holding us to ransom.”
Maraqana received a letter this week from members of the trust asking him to set up a meeting with the new MEC and Balindlela ”to find out what their intention is in respect of Mkambati”.