Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In 1996 TRANSFORM was asked to support an integrated programme
that focused on how the Richtersveld National Park could benefit the residents
of the area. The Richtersveld National Park is the first national protected area
that is wholly owned by a local rural community and managed by South African
National Parks through a joint management committee. In 1991 the
Richtersveld leadership signed a lease agreement with SANParks for a period of
24 years, wherein SANParks committed itself to paying a yearly lease fee to a
community trust which, in turn, uses the revenue for social and educational
purposes. The community did not have much to lose from the agreement, given
that they could continue grazing and that diamond mining continued unabated.
The national park covers 160,000 hectares of biodiversity rich landscape. It has
been identified as one of the world's biodiversity hotspots with extraordinary
rates of plant endemism as a result of the mountain desert receiving a cold mist
from the sea which deposits water on the succulent flora (Reid and Turner,
2004, p226). Recently the Ai-Ais Richtersveld transfrontier national park was
launched and the area has been nominated for world heritage site status. One of
the main tourism highlights of the region is the Namaqualand flower season,
during which the apparently dormant desert landscape transforms into a
colourful blanket of flowers extending to the horizon, attracting large numbers
of visitors.
The vision of the Richtersveld National Park as described in its management
plan is 'to manage a world-class park where the landscape diversity and biodiver-
sity are maintained in combination with the cultural and traditional practices of
the local population. Furthermore mining activities are to be allowed within the
framework of sustainable resource utilisation' (Richtersveld National Park
Management Plan, 2006). However, to date, there is fairly little tourism in the
park partly due to its remoteness and also due to they fact that up to 2004 there
was no tourism infrastructure to speak of, not even toilets at the campsites.
The Richtersveld 'community' is far from being homogeneous. However,
when facing outside threats, the community is able to create a unified front,
nonetheless internally many dynamics and politics divide the community (see also
discussions on what comprises a 'community' in, for example, Argwal and
Gibson, 1999 and Kumar, 2005). The smallness of the population and the intri-
cate family relations made the Richtersveld an interesting and exciting place to
work. As mentioned by Reid and Turner:
The nature of Richtersveld society and geography has influenced the
Richtersveld experience with co-management and contractual parks
...villages are small and far apart… The Richtersveld is not the simple
sort of 'community that outsiders often take for granted in constructing
models of CBNRM and co-management'.
(Reid and Turner, 2004, p227)
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