Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and direction. The community's Nduna (headman) had recently passed away and
there does not seem to have been a strong executive at the time and neither an
immediate replacement at Nduna level nor a willingness to become quickly
involved in the negotiations taking place. At the same time certain members of the
Mqobela community were strongly in favour of reaching an agreement as quickly
as possible and were involved in pressing for a resolution and hence for one
reason and another ownership arrangements were made solely with the Mqobela
community.
In recent times the Mpukane and Mqobela communities have found
themselves in growing conflict and disagreement. The Mpukane community have
gradually been feeling more isolated from what they see as the benefits, predomi-
nantly economic, flowing from the lodge to Mqobela for a range of reasons: from
an individual employment perspective, from their lack of involvement from an
ownership point of view and also from seeing lodge guests visiting Mqobela
community on Community Tours approximately twice a week, bringing with
them the potential for philanthropic donations.These key issues and the perceived
potential livelihood benefits have created tensions both between the two commu-
nities and between the individual communities and the lodge management and
staff. Given the proximity of the Mpukane community to the tourism initiative
and knowing that despite the disagreements and tensions between the two
communities some members of the Mpukane community were employed at the
lodge, a further study was conducted incorporating the analysis of both the
Mpukane and the Mqobela communities, the results of this study are examined in
Simpson (forthcoming). The focus of this chapter is on the Mathenjwa commu-
nity adjacent to Ndumo Wilderness Camp and the Mqobela community adjacent
to Rocktail Bay Lodge.
In following the first stage of the protocol; the collection of baseline data and
the literature review, considerable relevant data were gathered concerning both
study sites by making contact with stakeholders such as the KwaZulu-Natal
(KZN) Tourist Board, the local police, health and education officials and obtain-
ing archive materials, in both electronic and paper format. In order to collect as
much data as possible in this phase, informal interviews were held with represen-
tatives of the tourism operator; Wilderness Safaris, and also with the KZNNCS
officials, the Inkosis and Ndunas (community leaders) and the elders in each
relevant community.
This initial profile was significantly augmented by stages two, three and four
of the protocol. These three stages of the approach were conducted simultane-
ously in the field. In stage two, following the further identification of key
informants, semi-structured interviews were held with all of those identified at
each study site. The interviewees included those working in local government,
tourism and conservation authorities, health, education, police, local business,
religious leaders, community members and tourism enterprises.
In stage three a structured household questionnaire was developed. The
questionnaire was split into several thematic sections: house and household;
health; education; food security; savings, borrowings, household budget and
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