Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
in the communities' land. The agreements stipulate that they can lease the land
from the community for a period of 45 years and furthermore should engage in
capacity building partnerships with the community as they assist them financially,
through training, skills development, job creation and community development.
The projected income to the Makuleke CPA from the concession contracts and
related job creation has been estimated at US$4,837,260 for the first four years of
operation (Adams et al, 2004). By 2003 a total of 39 permanent and 146 tempo-
rary jobs had been created for the Makuleke community.
While these tourism businesses seem to be sustainable, the real challenge for
the Makuleke has proven to be in meeting the objective of having the community
at large benefit from their land. The communities' distance from their land in the
park means that, in effect, many community members have little to do with their
land. Most of them do not feel the benefit of land ownership until they feel a
change in their lives in the villages. Once the private partners have built the lodges
with community labourers and trained Makuleke staff to do the full-time jobs, the
operators get on with doing business and making money, some of which goes
towards community development. Critical in this is the ability of the lodges to get
'bums into beds' because the lease fees are linked to a percentage of turnover.
Community-based development
Up to now the money from the hunting, restitution grant and lease fees has been
spent on numerous community developments. These include electrifying two
villages, building school classrooms, building a cultural centre and tourist facility,
sponsoring community celebrations as well as a new house and car for the Chief.
A key challenge has been to try to stimulate community-based jobs and
economic activity. While it is clear that there is more money flowing into the
community from the tourism jobs and social welfare schemes, it seems like most
of the money is quickly spent outside the villages due to the lack of small
businesses. In an attempt to assist small businesses identify markets and get
started, TRANSFORM helped the CPA and Wilderness Safaris set up a Small
Business Support Company. The small business support company's objective is
to support and assist small emerging entrepreneurs to set up businesses that are
linked to the emerging tourism and other markets. A total of ZAR369,112 was
invested in the small business support company.
The small business support company has focused on building and operating
hydroponics fresh produce tunnels, a packaging station and purchasing a vehicle
to transport the products (total of ZAR715,557 invested) and finishing the
cultural centre and community tourism facilities (ZAR154,989 invested). It has
six traditional style rondavels which can house two tourists each. Furthermore the
area has a collective dining area, an area for arts and crafts and an area for tradi-
tional dance and play performances. The objective is for the community to run
this tourist enterprise with help from Wilderness Safaris who will market the facil-
ity and organize for tourists to spend nights in the village. The venue and trained
staff will allow tourists to experience the Makuleke culture and understand their
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