Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the most important pro-poor impact of lodge tourism in the Okavango - like
elsewhere in southern Africa - results principally from local employment rather
than secondary business linkages (Mitchell, 2006; Massyn and Koch, 2004).
There is a small but high quality basket weaving sector in the Okavango Delta,
which accounts for most local sales to the lodges. But overall, the very low level of
secondary enterprise associated with the surveyed lodges probably reflects the
fact that local settlements are generally geographically distant from the operations.
In addition, low levels of local economic capacity in the hinterland of the lodges
and the sophisticated needs of operations aimed at the upper end of the interna-
tional tourism market combine to discourage the purchase of goods and services
from so-called remote area dwellers. There is an inherent asymmetry between the
consumption needs of high value tourism lodges and the supply capacity of the
local rural economy, which hampers greater local integration and small business
stimulation. This means that virtually all supplies and services are purchased
outside the local economy, mainly from the district capital (Maun), which, in
turn, is supplied mainly from Gaborone and South Africa.
Lease fees
Two lodges in the sample are located in areas held by community trusts under an
arrangement whereby the state leases land at nominal rents to local communities
who then sublease the land to private partners on conditions set by the state. This
arrangement is a variation of the widespread practice of 'rent-collecting' partner-
ships in the Okavango: it gives certain communities - like their elite compatriots -
the opportunity to obtain valuable land leases at relatively low prices which they
then sublease at market rates earning them substantial incomes.
The resource rental paid to the community trusts for the rights to operate the
photographic lodges on their land amounted to more than P555,000 per year for
each of the two subleases. At these operations, lease income represented about
one-third of the total local financial benefit generated by the lodges, employment
about two-thirds and secondary enterprise an almost insignificant proportion
(Figure 10.6).
34%
Employment benefits
Contracts
Concession fees
1%
65%
Figure 10.6
Local benefits by category
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