From: barnhart@netcom.com (Aaron Barnhart)
Subject: IPS:SOUTH AFRICA: TOURISM BOOSTING ENVI
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 22:52:36 GMT
Organization: Netcom
Reply-To: barnhart@netcom.com

Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Reference: Africa, southern; Science & Industry; Agriculture
Title: SOUTH AFRICA: TOURISM BOOSTING ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION


an inter press sevice feature

by eddie koch

johannesburg, aug 15 (ips) -- south african environmentalists
and politicians, are looking to the tourism industry as ally in
their quest to ensure a ''sustainable'' balance between rural
development and environmental protection.

the white-led government of the day is already pumping
considerable amounts of money into rural conservation schemes in
an effort to stimulate tourism in the countryside.

this year the department of trade and industry announced it
was making some 200 million dollars available for the
development of projects that would promote ''ecotourism'' --
safaris, lodges, game reserves and rural chalets that combine
business with the protection of the environment.

the result is that wildlife ranching is now the fastest
growing and most dynamic livestock industry in south africa
and is fast becoming the most dynamic force for conserving
the country's indigenous plant and animal species.

south africa's official tourist body, satour, reports 1.7
million foreign visitors come to this country every year and
eight out of ten say they are here to appreciate the country's
wildlife and natural beauty.

''commercial wildlife management and the attendant tourism
development provide a land-use option that is not only
profitable but also has the capability to heal the scars of
earlier degradation,'' says a recent report by consulting
ecologist david grossman and tony ferrar, executive director of
the wildlife society.

''with the imminent redress of former political problems, the
region is preparing for a growth in eco-tourism. the existing
state-run parks are stretched to capacity and private sector
conservation-based developments are emerging to cater for the
game-viewing market,'' says the report.

new game parks are springing up all over the place. there are
now 800 reserves in the country ranging from those owned by the
national parks board to small tribal resource areas in the
country's nominally independent ethnic homelands.

conservation authorities in tiny ethnic homelands like
kangwane and in bophutatswana report that - whereas they
struggled to sell the notion of conservation to rural people
in the past - they are now receiving spontaneous applications
for reserves to be established in parts of these homelands.
(more/ips)


south africa: tourism (2)

''perceptions in the rural areas are changing. people used to
see wildlife as a nuisance and a threat to their traditional way
of farming. there is now a growing awareness of the potential
for rural development through game farming,'' says grossman.

but grossman and ferrar point out that ecotourism should not
be seen as a magical panacea that will automatically solve the
problems of rural development.

''game ranching should not be seen as a quick-fix solution to
poverty in the white and black rural areas. a lot of people put
up a fence and call the place a game lodge and think they will
make megabucks overnight,'' says grossman.

''but it doesn't work like this. these projects need care and
planning. they have to be carefully marketed so that they can
become financially viable and most of all they have to have
popular support,'' he adds.

''but in south africa revenue derived from the wildlife trade
does not reach the rural poor as well as it does in certain
projects in neighbouring countries and there is not sufficient
participation by local people in decisions about these
conservation activities.''

the experts say these inadequacies have to be addressed for
wildlife conservation to achieve the full potential it has to
help reconstruct south africa's rural economy.

however, it is not only wildlife tourism that is encouraging
farmers and peasants to preserve the rural environment.
alternative accommodation schemes are springing up in many parts
of the country as the demand for tourist accomodation grows.

game reserves in the country had been finding it increasingly
difficult to accomodate the demand. every year, during the peak
holiday season, they turned away one out of every two visitors.

now, in the transvaal and parts of the eastern orange free
state, farmers are converting their old stone buildings into
guest houses for sensitive visitors.

''farmers, hard hit by economic depression and the drought,
are selling their cattle, erecting game fences, stocking the
land with wild animals and building lodges or chalets and
holding thumbs that this will save them from going under,'' says
grossman. (end/ips/ec/tvh/oa/92)

-- 
Aaron (Barnhart@netcom.com) -- posting from Evanston, Illinois
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african