SOUTHERN AFRICAN PEACE PARKS

Greater Mapungubwe

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The Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area has become the cultural TFCA. Visitors flock to the area not only to see the magnificent sandstone formations, the wide variety of trees - notably the enormous baobab - and game and birdlife, but also to experience a kinship with past generations. The cultural resources of the Limpopo-Shashe basin are generally associated with Iron Age settlements of around 1200AD. The similarity of ivory objects, pottery remains and imported glass beads excavated at different sites spread across the modern international borders of Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe, attests to the cultural affinity of the people that lived in the Limpopo-Shashe basin during the Iron Age.

The Mapungubwe World Heritage Site is a major attraction park and was home to the famous Golden Rhino - a symbol of the power of the King of the Mapungubwe people who inhabited the Limpopo River Valley between 900AD and 1300AD. At that time Mapungubwe had developed into the largest kingdom on the subcontinent. It is believed that a highly sophisticated civilisation, which traded with Arabia, Egypt, India and China, existed at Mapungubwe.

Progress

A major step in advancing the transfrontier process was taken when the core area of South Africa's contribution to the proposed TFCA was consolidated. Mapungubwe National Park, previously known as the Vhembe Dongola National Park, was officially opened by the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, on 24 September 2004. Peace Parks Foundation, De Beers, National Parks Trust and WWF SA assisted in consolidating the area which became Mapungubwe National Park by facilitating negotiations with landowners and the buying up of farmland.

The 30 000ha Mapungubwe World Heritage Site is a major attraction, as are the magnificent sandstone formations and the wide variety of trees, notably the enormous baobab, as well as game and birdlife. While the park already has lion, leopard and elephant, four white rhino were reintroduced in July 2004. This was appropriate, as Mapungubwe is home to the famous Golden Rhino - a symbol of the power of the King of the Mapungubwe people who inhabited the Limpopo River Valley between 900AD and 1300 AD. At that time Mapungubwe had developed into the largest kingdom on the sub-continent.

Thanks to the South African government's Poverty Relief Programme, the park boasts a number of accommodation facilities: Leokwe Camp, the Venda-style main rest camp comprising self-catering cottages, a communal kitchen and a swimming pool; the Limpopo Forest Tented Camp which offers self-catering units, as well as luxury and semi-luxury tent options; the luxurious Tshugulu Lodge set in a sandstone cliff, and the Vhembe Wilderness Trail Camp. A treetop walk and hide allow visitors to stroll along an elevated boardwalk leading through the riverine forest. An interpretive centre and museum scheduled for construction between 2005 and 2007 will create a further 300 job opportunities. During the first construction phase 600 temporary and 50 permanent jobs linked to training and skills-transfer programmes were created.

In Botswana, land to be committed to the proposed Greater Mapungubwe TFCA would encompass the Northern Tuli Game Reserve (Notugre), an association of private landowners who had agreed to remove the fences that separate their properties and jointly manage wildlife resources. Notugre presently embraces 36 farms with a combined area of 70 000ha. It is renowned for its Tuli elephants, the largest elephant population on private land in Africa.

Notugre's land-use practice is based on the non-consumptive use of wildlife, in particular commercial photographic tourism. There are three upmarket lodges and a number of tented safari camps, all catering for the close to 30 000 visitors a year. The lodges have a combined capacity of over 100 beds, with a further 70 beds in the self-catering safari camps. Tourism facilities and infrastructure comprise horse-back trails, cycle trails, game-viewing roads, water holes and more recently a modern international airfield that provides a direct route between Notugre and Johannesburg. The combined labour force of Notugre is around 300 employees, 90% of whom are locals.

The area to be committed to the TFCA by Zimbabwe is the Tuli Circle Safari Area, which is used extensively for hunting by permit.

For more news on progress made, go to Progress Report.

International Coordinator

Johan Verhoef cut his conservation teeth in the Kruger National Park, and spent the latter part of his SANParks career as co-project manager for the development of Mapungubwe National Park & World Heritage Site - the proposed core area of the Greater Mapungubwe TFCA.