As SA eases lockdown, eco-tourism community fears for its future
For the Makuleke people of SA’s far northeast, the country’s lockdown has brought back memories of the poverty and hunger they thought they had overcome decades ago.
The once-landless Makuleke have made a sustainable living running eco-tourism activities in the famous Kruger National Park since the early 2000s, on land the community reclaimed in a historic legal case.
But much of that progress could be laid to waste by the coronavirus pandemic, they warned.
“Before we won the land and tourism started, life was not easy,” said Godfrey Baloyi, a Makuleke member and general manager of RETURN Africa, which runs accommodation and safaris in the park.
After more than two months of strict lockdown, SANParks, announced last month it would soon start reopening some facilities, in line with new government rules.
But much of the damage had been done, the Makuleke people said.
“I don’t think anybody could have expected these circumstances,” Lamson Maluleke, a community leader and member of the Makuleke Communal Property Association (CPA), said.
The Makuleke were forcibly evicted from their land in the late 1960s, when the thenapartheid regime decided to expand Kruger all the way to the border with Zimbabwe.
The families were relocated to villages outside the park, where they survived through subsistence farming and selling corn and groundnut crops, or left for Johannesburg to find work, Sydney Shibambu, administration officer for the CPA, said.
In 1998, the Makuleke won a legal battle to reclaim 24,000 hectares of their land, becoming one of the few indigenous communities to successfully take back land in Kruger.
Instead of moving back into the protected area, they entered a landmark agreement with the government to develop eco-tourism in what is now called the Makuleke Concession, with the revenue feeding back into the community.
Under the agreement, the Makuleke received the sole right to operate hotels, lodges and game drives within their territory, which is only open to a select few companies.
“Since then, things economically have changed for us,” said Baloyi of RETURN Africa, one of the three concessionaires that operate in the area.
But the lockdown has cut off the Makuleke community’s source of income.
Usually in June, RETURN Africa would have hired more than 60 people to run its guesthouse, tented camps and walking safaris, Baloyi said.
But this year, only about 10 staff had been brought on to maintain the facilities.
It had also had to temporarily stop using the local Makuleke service providers it relied on for uniforms, linen, upholstery and transport, Baloyi said.
These financial cuts were far- reaching in a community where one income often supported three or four families, he said.
In April and May, SANParks distributed food and water to communities bordering the country’s national parks.
The Makuleke were not included in the first round of aid, and SANParks’ acting head of communications Rey Thakhuli said the money had now been depleted.
“We are trying our level best but the need is huge.”