Richard Compton
The chief of a Maputaland community is engaged with Ezemvelo conservation bosses in fusing the Ndumo Game Reserve and Tembe Elephant Park into a mighty tourist attraction.
Nkosi Mabudu Tembe is presently involved in addressing a partial invasion of Ndumo’s eastern borders, and sees the joining of Ndumo and the elephant park in three years or so as part of the vision of a Transfrontier Park with southern Mozambique.
Tembe signalled, in an interview in the Tembe Tribal offices at KwaNgwanase in the far north-eastern region of KwaZulu-Natal, that this was not just a vision, but a reality waiting to happen.
Potential
“Maputaland will become one of the great tourist venues in South Africa, if not southern Africa. We, the Tembe people, have no mines or minerals and our agricultural potential is very, very limited. Tourism is our gold mine.
“I am set on realising Maputaland’s tourism potential – and that means conservation is a very high priority for me.”
His relationship with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, and in particular its CEO Dr Bandile Mkhize, had helped considerably in his ability to forge ahead with his plans, he said.
“Mkhize is a great breath of fresh air, a person who listens and makes decisions. Ezemvelo recently donated about R200 000 towards an education bursary I started for my people. This was based on his understanding that without education, environmental or otherwise, our people cannot hope to move forward.”
This week Tembe met community representatives from the Mbangweni Corridor for a solid seven hours, the people responsible for pulling down the Ndumo Game Reserve eastern boundary fence and invading this part of the reserve.
“The fence will be restored. In fact, as we talk, it is being re- instated.”
Underwriting all of his aims, though, is a caveat: Ndumo will retain its integrity so long as politicians stay away from interfering in the process.
“I am personally consulting these people. I will never make unrealisable or wild promises. I have offered them 20 jobs for the erection of this fence, and offered educational bursaries for four of their children.
“In this specific context this is what I can deliver – and will do so. These people must be treated humanely and never again be duped by promises that cannot and have not been fulfilled by politicians.”
To reinforce his point, Tembe said what was driving his overall eco-tourism programme was the knowledge that it could only be achieved within the context of traditional structures: the Tembe royal family.
“This is where the tourism future for this region lies.”
Tembe has a sound appreciation of Maputaland’s troubled history; not only through his royal Tembe household lineage, but his belated appointment in 2001 as the iNkosi for the Tembe community about 10 years after his father’s death.
He swept aside Maputaland’s decades of turmoil, conflict and unrealised hopes.
“You can’t wish away this past and expect a sudden, united belief in this region’s future as a tourist mecca, however desirable. It takes time. But please listen to me: it will happen. I have shown my hand with my people, not just in this tourist and conservation future, but in my own commitment to our unification as a Tembe authority.”
He acknowledged that most onlookers viewed the region through the lens of the threatened Ndumo Game Reserve, continued rhino poaching, a Kosi Bay estuary overwhelmed by a seemingly unstoppable off-take of fish, and continual community encroachment into sensitive wetlands and swamp forests.
“This will be stopped as I pursue our tourism objectives for the region. This is where we will create jobs and gain the crucial income my people need. The difference is that there will be no more empty and broken promises from politicians.”
The government’s entire land restitution programme in this area, he said, had been a complete failure, where about 300 of the 400 claims remain unresolved.
One such claim was that of Ndumo Game Reserve itself, where he contended that the reserve’s title deeds had been handed over to individuals and not the community: “It was flawed from the start, and I have made representations to government for this land restitution issue to be overturned. But I am making progress here.”