For 29 years, EcoTraining has supported this theme by not only being the pioneer and leader in safari and wildlife training in South Africa but through empowering communities around their camps. Since its inception, EcoTraining has worked closely with the Makuleke community in the northern section of the Kruger National Park’s Pafuri region.
Situated between the Limpopo and the Luvuvhu Rivers, it is an area spanning 24 000ha (59 305 acres). Within the Pafuri area is the Makuleke Concession, the ancestral home of the Makuleke people and the most diverse and scenically attractive area in the Kruger National Park.
“As the only training provider in the Kruger National Park, EcoTraining is looking forward to working more closely with the community of Makuleke this year. For years, this special partnership has allowed us to work with the local people, help them preserve wilderness ecosystems, and lease a venue from the community in the Kruger National Park.
“This has benefited the area’s conservation efforts, the people of Makuleke, and the students who have come to learn more about the area, its wildlife, and its people,” said managing director Anton Lategan. The Makuleke area is considered to be the wildest and most remote part of the Kruger National Park, offers varied vegetation, great wildlife viewing, and the best birding in all of the park.
It is filled with the folklore of early explorers and ancient civilisations. “We understand the importance of empowering the Makuleke community and we believe that a healthy relationship with the community will ultimately lead to a healthy relationship with nature. Annually EcoTraining has the opportunity to train members from the Makuleke community to become qualified guides and in 2022, we know this will help a community that has felt the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Lategan.
Also read: Patience and persistence rewarded in northern Kruger
On World Wildlife Day, EcoTraining will also be celebrating a longstanding relationship with WildEarth TV, a channel that allows the public to watch and engage with expert hosted live interactive safaris from multiple wildlife hotspots throughout Africa. EcoTraining shares content of their own safaris with the channel, which can be watched through DStv, the WildEarth website as well as social media.
EcoTraining believes that sharing this incredible content educates the greater public and empowers them to make better choices within the environment they live and play their own part in the conservation of wildlife.
“We are very happy to learn that we will be trained as qualified guides, it is really a great opportunity for the people of our village, a lot of young people are interested in wildlife but because they do not know much about it, they cannot do anything, but with EcoTraining coming to train us, it will also help us pass the experience to our next generations, and in that way, the tourism industry will keep on growing,” said Godfrey Maluleke, one of the villagers.
Credits: Photo and information: Visit www.ecotraining.co.za/camps/krugernational-park.
BACKGROUND ON MAKULEKE COMMUNITY AND THE ‘WORLD CLASS’ AGREEMENT THAT GAVE WAYTO NORTHERN KRUGER PARK
In 1930, National Parks put forward a proposal to include the area between the Limpopo and the Levuvhu into the Kruger National Park. In 1933, the district was declared the Pafuri Game Reserve and was given to the National Parks Board to administer.
The area proposed by the Parks Board for the relocation of the Makuleke seemed so unsuitable that even a National Parks Board secretary, Van Graan, pleaded with board members, ‘Is it wise to take this step in view of the reputation of the alleged suppression of native races? It is obvious that Pafuri is better agriculturally than a dry piece of grazing land that we offer in exchange frankly, I foresee in this gain of today if we acquire the Pafuri, the future germ of the destruction of the whole Park.’
In 1952, the Parks Board returned the Pafuri Game Reserve to provincial control, stating that the park was unworkable (as parts of the reserve surrounded the Makuleke, who still have not been moved). Unfortunately, in 1969, the Makuleke were removed to the Ntlavi area. At this time, the Pafuri Game Reserve was incorporated into the Kruger National Park.
Under the Restitution of Land Rights Act, in 1997, the Makuleke community demanded their rights to the Pafuri area. After 18 months of intensive negotiations, a settlement was reached. It was described by the South African National Parks Board and the claimants as ‘a world-class agreement’ and a ‘breakthrough’ for conservation in South Africa.
In essence, the agreement provides for the following: The land generally known as the Pafuri area has been returned to the community in future no mining, farming, or permanent residence may take place without the permission of SA National Parks should the land ever be put up for sale, Sanparks will have a right of first refusal.
A contractual park has been established for a period of 50 years, provided that the parties can review the agreement after 25 years. A joint management body will be responsible for the overall management of the area. All tourism and income-generating activities are subject to the management plan and will be monitored by Sanparks.
Sanparks will be responsible for the day-to-day conservation activities while the community will be responsible for all tourism activities. Community members will be trained in conservation and tourism matters. Sanparks will initially manage the area at its own cost, but once income is derived from tourist activities the community will share the costs the area will be known as the Makuleke region within the larger Kruger National Park.
The agreement also provides that some 5 000 hectares outside of the KNP which will be returned to the community, will also be included in the park. History In the 1820s, the ancestors of the Tsonga-speaking Maluleke clan – of which the Makulekes are a sub-group – left their home in modern-day Mozambique to press on into the ivory-rich lands further north.
The leader of a Maluleke army sent his son, Makuleke or Hlekane, to settle the confluence of the Limpopo and Luvuvhu rivers where an ancient trade route passed to the Mozambican coast. Over the next 150 years, his followers and their descendants lived in scattered settlements throughout the Pafuri Triangle.
The Makulekes remained on the land until their forced removal by the apartheid authorities in 1969. The ejection of the people allowed the northern extension of the KNP to incorporate the important biodiversity of the Pafuri Triangle, but it also caused a severe crisis for the Makuleke people. At a stroke, they were impoverished, losing the land that sustained them.
They were dumped some 70 kilometres to the southwest where there was no chance of re-establishing their subsistence economy. After the end of apartheid, the Makulekes reclaimed their ancestral land. In landmark restitution in 1998, they regained ownership of the land but, remarkably, decided to keep it within the KNP and to use it responsibly for the benefit of the people and the wildlife it sustains.
