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PLANETA

Crossing the Atlantic:
Game Parks, Reserves and Communities
by Gerhard Buttner

AFRICA FORUM
MEXICO FORUM

PHOTO GALLERY: Africa

South Africa has an obvious advantage over Mexico as game-viewing destination with the more visible large African mammals. The lack of spectacular game viewing does not mean that Mexican parks cannot compare aspects of park management with South Africa, particularly regarding the interaction with adjacent communities.

SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL PARKS

Most South African conservation originated from hunting grounds of white farmers who own large tracts of land. Another example is the famous Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park, originally the Zulu King Shaka's exclusive hunting area.

Yet South Africa was an early leader in setting government land aside purely for protection and tourism. It has a proud history of diverse national parks ranging from the huge Kruger Park declared in the 1920s to parks primarily designed for the protection of a specific species in a certain habitat like the Bontebok National Park (that rescued an antelope species from probable extinction) and the Addo Elephant Park (protecting a diminishing isolated elephant population).

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Yet this "proud" record receives a serious knock if the social effects are considered. Many African communities were displaced or lost their traditional rights to use nearby resources as parks were declared in contrast with Mexico where reserves often include local communities within the park borders. It is quite a shocking contrast to leave the serenity of for example Umfolozi-Hluhluwe and suddenly be surrounded by rural overpopulation and squalor.

This park is now a leader in the changing South African conservation situation. In the past these communities were basically ignored apart from being a labor source. With tourism growth there is more secure employment in the park, wildlife surplus is shared with communities and since 1998 a levy is added to all park fees for community development projects.

In 1999 the communities made a remarkable landmark decision: avoiding disagreements on the division of the money and following recently visible job growth, they decided to re-invest this money in park accommodation. For the first time in history they were part of
decision-making they had been denied before, and the communities decided to invest in conservation for new jobs and future sustainability, thereby also creating harmony among themselves (for a Mexican example of community disharmony of who earns the rural tourist dollar see the feature on Hierve el Agua).

Full marks to the Umfolozi-Hluhluwe communities for an ecotouristic approach! (Source: Africa Insight Vol 33 Nos 1 and 2)

LAND RIGHTS

Beyond government parks, private land rights as conservation tool is an increasingly discussed topic in Mexican conservation circles. The main targets are private undeveloped land adjacent to reserves. Unrestrained and often uncoordinated development threatens the long-term success of park conservation.

For some, including ejido members, the purchase of community land for conservation may be attractive. Community members, for example, receive a cash payment. But does this have long-term benefits, if the community is not incorporated in a sustainable way?

In South Africa the land distribution question is different than in Mexico, with far more land in the hands of wealthy landowners, a few of whom have real conservation awareness. Others see tourism as a better source of income than agriculture, yet with questionable conservation ethics.

There is an interesting difference with Mexico which has the complex ejido system, where communities share their land, yet with far less large-scale single owners. Mexico's new private nature reserves and ecolodges certainly have many examples of private nature reserve lodges to study. The 9,000-odd private game farms and nature reserves in South Africa cover more area than state-run national and provincial parks.

WHO IS THE COMMUNITY?

In much of ecotourism literature the community is regarded as a more or less homogenous group with a long tradition of living near to a nature resource with tourism potential.

Can this include a rich (or even an absentee) landowner, who regards this as his home because of a long-term connection with the land? Or what if it is an owner in the seventh generation on the farm, with large tracts of land yet struggling to survive from it, and tourism offers an income and conservation opportunity, with the help of outside investors. Is such a landowner part of "the community" in the ecotourism definition?

If this then creates jobs for farm workers, who have traditionally lived in the area yet at times semi-nomadically moving between farms for different seasons. They are closer to the "community" concept in the ecotourism debate, yet in a subservient role as farm workers.

In reality, Mexican ejido communities are also less homogenous than portrayed, with some families having noticeably more wealth than others, often with the economic and political power to push others into a subservient position. Perhaps the immediate ownership difference is less relevant than it appears on the surface.

If this is not sufficiently convincing there are still enough South African communal land areas with ecotourism potential, like in rural KwaZulu or the Eastern Cape Coastal regions that are quite comparable to the poorer communities in Mexican ejidos, like in Chiapas, Oaxaca or the Yucatan Peninsula's Calakmul region.

AUTHOR

Gerhard Buttner has worked as geographer, tourist guide and ecotourism consultant and occasional freelance writer in South Africa, England and Mexico. He tries to be an ecotourist (in various countries) as often as possible and lives in Oaxaca, Mexico.