Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
which was signed in 2003. The management plan created a joint management
committee but in retrospect, given that the park representatives did not directly
come from the CPA, there were divisions between the CPA and the elected
community representatives.
It is important to note that adjacent to the national park there is another
150,000ha of land that the community claimed successfully and has set aside as a
conservancy. TRANSFORM's initial idea was that the community would lease
out a section of this area to a private tourism investor for a period of about 50
years under specific conditions. It was felt by TRANSFORM that it was time that
tourism in the area moved beyond community-based tourism, which had not
proven itself to be a great employment generator. TRANSFORM urged the
community to apply for R6 million of expanded public works money managed by
DEAT. The underlying idea was that R3 million could be used to improve the
infrastructure of the conservancy and the other R3 million could have been used
to purchase community equity in a private sector tourism operation.The commu-
nity rejected this idea and asked that all the money went into infrastructure and
management of the community conservation area. As a result no substantial effort
went into marketing the community-based tourism facilities.
From the very outset of this programme the community's decision was that
they wanted to improve the already existing community-based tourism facilities
including the small bed and breakfast that was in place. TRANSFORM got
involved in the capacity building, training and improving some infrastructure but
mainly on capacity issues. A lot of resources were spent at the institutional and
committee level with limited success. TRANSFORM argued against the idea put
forward by SANParks that they use 22 million South African Rand on improving
the community-based tourism products. Without the required marketing, these
facilities have remained underused and begun to deteriorate. In many ways it
would have been better to only improve the park facilities and get tourists to begin
using the park more. If this took place the community-based tourism facilities
might have seen some traffic. It is clear that at the outset of this venture the
community and SANParks and TRANSFORM did not all agree on the same
objectives. Nonetheless, TRANSFORM tried to assist the community in follow-
ing their vision. TRANSFORM gave the communities aspirations a chance but
the real intention was to start getting some real financial benefits for the CPA out
of their land. Throughout TRANSFORM's activities a total of 14 permanent and
67 temporary jobs were created for the Richtersveld community.
The community had a persistent idea that they would get lots of money from
the claim on Alexcor and that they did not need outside private tourism invest-
ment. In some ways one got the sense that the community perceived a partnership
with a private partner as something dangerous; they felt distrustful of outsiders
and considered themselves to have enough knowledge to think they could manage
a tourism enterprise themselves. On 12 October 2007 after 10 years of legal
negotiations, the Richtersveld communities finally heard the court settlement
granting their claim for 84,000ha of diamond rich soils and a compensation
payment of R190 million from Alexcor.
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