Evaluating outcomes at Madikwe and Makuleke by Peter John Massyn

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TABLE OF CONTENTS1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 42. The Madikwe Experience........................................................................................... 62.1 Background .................................................................................................................. 62.2 Objective ...................................................................................................................... 82.3 Structural and legal arrangements................................................................................ 82.4 Capital funding ........................................................................................................... 102.5 Financial arrangements .............................................................................................. 112.6 Economic returns ....................................................................................................... 122.7 The community-level process ..................................................................................... 152.8 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 173. The Makuleke Experience ....................................................................................... 193.1 Background ................................................................................................................ 193.2 Lodge development .................................................................................................... 203.3 Structural and legal arrangements.............................................................................. 213.4 Capital funding ........................................................................................................... 233.5 Financial arrangements .............................................................................................. 233.6 Economic returns ....................................................................................................... 233.7 Other developments ................................................................................................... 243.8 The community-level process ..................................................................................... 253.9 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 274. Concluding thoughts................................................................................................ 285. Works Cited............................................................................................................. 29/2
ABSTRACTTourism enterprises based on natural attractions are today regarded as important driversof development, particularly in remote areas with rich resource endowments but few otherformal economic opportunities. In these settings, however, the local poor typically provideonly unskilled labour with external interests supplying other factor inputs in the form ofland, capital and skilled labour as well as other goods and services. This results in askewed distribution of returns that does little to advance local economic development.Several interventions have attempted to improve the integration of the poor into thetourism market. One widely advocated option is for the poor to make land available fortourism development. The ability of the poor to trade in land has however been widelyconstrained by a variety of factors, including insecure tenure and the lack of institutionalcapacity. This has often led to suboptimal outcomes in which communal resources areeffectively privatised with little common gain. Part of the solution to this problem is locatedin tenure reform that devolves resource rights to those denied them under colonialism.This has, in some cases, led to promising results, with rural residents acquiring tradablerights over one of the principal factors (land) of the ecotourism market.These programmes have however rarely targeted Africa’s core protected areas, moreoften focusing on adjacent lands where the rural poor are resident. Typically, ownership ofpublic conservation assets remains vested in the state and commercial development isoutsourced to the private sector. However, in a few recent cases, poor rural communitieshave acquired formal land rights in core protected areas and used these rights to achievehigh levels of participation in the tourism industry.The paper considers two such examples from the north of South Africa. In the first case,the Balete and Batlokwa communities obtained lease rights to a prime tourismconcessions in the Madikwe Game Reserve. In the second, the Makuleke communityacquired ownership of a portion of the Kruger National Park through post-apartheid landrestitution. The paper critically examines the terms on which these communities integratedtheir newly acquired assets into the market. In both instances, a clear rights framework,strong commercial orientation, competent technical advice and responsiveness to localinstitutional conditions contributed to strong outcomes. And, in both cases, broaderstructural reform created conditions seemingly conducive to an application of theapproach at scale.The paper notes these successes but also questions whether the outcomes have beenoptimal from a community perspective. There are indications that, while the communitieshave benefited considerably from their ownership of valuable resource rights, especiallythe Makulekes may not have optimised the integration of their land into the market.Much has been written about the two cases. The paper draws on this wide-rangingliterature but also on the author’s extensive personal experience as a facilitator intimatelyinvolved in both cases over a period of more than a decade.
Page 1: TOURISM ASSETS AND THE MARKET:EVALU
Page 5 and 6: These programmes hold great promise
Page 7 and 8: on the expropriated land and began
Page 9 and 10: NWP&TBLandlord45-yearleaseFair rent
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Page 13 and 14: enefit than Buffalo Ridge to its lo
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Page 19 and 20: emains open to question but the par
Page 21 and 22: of the land claim, i.e. the descend
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Page 27 and 28: 3.9 ConclusionMany of the factors c
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Evaluating outcomes at Madikwe and Makuleke by Peter John Massyn

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