‘INVESTMENT in the eco-tourism and related ‘green’ industries holds profitable potential for thousands of hectares of community-owned landholdings throughout KZN.’
Greg Martindale is a leading expert in Biodiversity Stewardship, a burgeoning profession specialising in identifying such land and motivating its protection and transformation into viable and sustainable community-run businesses.
His recent focus centres on the outrage that has greeted the possibility that a coal mine could be established on the boundary of KZN’s largest and most historic protected ‘Big 5’ area, Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park (HiP).
Aside from the damaging, satellite impact this mine will have on HiP, the 32 000ha Wilderness section of the iMfolozi game reserve would be destroyed, whilst the 16 000-strong Fuleni community will have to be relocated.
‘The physical location of this mining venture is utterly inappropriate and at the same time goes to the heart of government’s neglect of alternative local economies.
‘Here’s a perfect example where they can act responsibly and intelligently by looking at empowering various Amakhosi to use nearby land for alternative purposes.’
Such purposes, he said, lay with the wildlife sector, which has huge employment potential.
It has proven to provide a multitude of opportunities for the development of small, medium and micro enterprises for rural communities, thereby addressing rural poverty and issues like food security and climate change.
Notable amongst these are tourism, hunting, and the development of the venison market, production of game meat, curing and tanning of hides, taxidermy and other associated enterprises.
Other examples
Before establishing his own NGO, Conservation Outcomes, Martindale also identified a further 175 000ha in KZN that holds similar promise for the future.
Proving lack of planning, he highlighted the imminent establishment of what is termed the ‘Big 5 Reserve’ where three Amakhosi have agreed to donate some 7 000ha of their land and fuse it with HiP in the interests of following the principles of this green economy.
‘It is one of the most progressive community orientated developments in KZN’s history where HiP could, in time, very well expand right up and beyond Opathe Game Reserve outside Ulundi, providing sustainable, long-term benefits to communities.
‘Instead, I see prospecting for this Fuleni coal mine being allowed slap bang where this reserve is proposed. It appears that government departments are not talking to one another.’
One of many examples of partnerships between private enterprise and communities is Nambiti Private Game Reserve outside Ladysmith which was established as part of the land restitution process.
‘The original livestock farms employed 19 people. Today, more than 220 people are employed, all at considerably higher salaries than agricultural minimum wages.
‘The reserve’s turnover exceeds R4-million a month, a huge source of sustainable economic growth and development in a particularly poor rural area.
Another example lay with the 12 000ha Somkhanda Game Reserve, near Mkhuze, which was also land claimed back in 2006 by the Gumbi community.
It has since been developed for tourism, trophy hunting and the live capture and sale of game and employs more than 100 people.
Phinda Game Reserve was another example where two-thirds of the land was successfully claimed in the 2000’s and is now run as a partnership between communities and private owners, AndBeyond.
Ezemvelo recently paid some R300 000 to the resident land claimants of Ithala Game Reserve as part of a co-management agreement, which has been operating for the past two years – the proceeds garnered from a hunting concession on the reserve.
Martindale last year publicised similar potential for a largely neglected 19 000ha community-owned farm in Babanango, a ‘perfect, overriding opportunity’ for government to become involved in realising the land’s potential, especially by introducing wildlife and developing a local economy around hunting, hospitality and the venison industry.
Written by: Richard Crompton
