Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The Makuleke were among the first claimants to win back their land under
the post apartheid dispensation (Steenkamp and Uhr, 2000, p2). Their case has
become one of the success stories of land restitution in South Africa and TRANS-
FORM has been privileged to be part of it. For both parties the relationships have
brought good mutual learning curves on how to deal with similar issues. TRANS-
FORM has helped the Makuleke people engage in negotiations, planning,
institutional and capacity building after they acquired the rights over their land,
developed a co-management arrangement with SANParks, secured a range of
donor and private sector funding and designed and launched a variety of
ecotourism enterprises (Turner et al, 2001).
The settlement agreement sets out the framework within which TRANS-
FORM worked. The essence of this project was to try to make the agreement
work through capacity building, funding consultants and making strategic inter-
ventions. The Makuleke CPA Executive committee, its implementation office and
the grouping of consultants known as the Friends of Makuleke have been the key
partners in this process.
It must be mentioned that one of the success factors for the Makuleke
community has been their ability to work closely with outside advisors. There has
been a constant commitment of a variety of organizations and civil society sectors
towards the Makuleke's cause (Spenceley, 2003, p86; Steenkamp and Uhr, 2000,
pp5-9). A variety of institutions have assisted the Makuleke during the initial
stages of their land claim and have invested heavily in capacity building in the
community. This has certainly allowed for a stronger empowering and enabling
environment for the community as a whole as they have been given the capacity to
enable them to deal with the private sector, with natural resource management
and with business and administration in general.
The CPPP model
When the settlement agreement was discussed, it became clear that the way the
Makuleke CPA would exercise their commercial rights was to enter into contrac-
tual partnerships with private sector partners. Currently there are a number of
tourism businesses operating in the Makuleke Region of the KNP. Commercial
hunting took place while the tourism businesses were being set up and has now
ceased (Grossman and Holden, 2007, state that the first hunt of two elephants
and two buffalo generated some US$33,072 for the community).
The contracts between the CPA and the private partners created a
Build-Operate-Transfer agreement where the private tourism company invest
the capital to build the lodge, operate it for an agreed period of time and then
transfer the tourism business and facility to the CPA at the end of the contract
period. It has proven crucial to have correct agreements in place with the private
partners in order to ensure that they do not exploit their partner communities.
By 2004 over R60 million had been mobilized and invested by top of the
range tourism lodge companies: Matswani safaris, Eco villages and Wilderness
safaris. The private sector partners lease concessions for their tourism operations
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