CHAPTER 4: THE COMMUNITY AND ECOTOURISM IN MABIBI
4.7 STATE-SOCIETY RELATIONS: ACCESS TO AND CONTROL OVER
In terms of the geographic location, Mabibi is located within the boundary of the IWP.
According to the Integrated Management Plan (2016), policies are issued under the World Heritage Convention Act (Republic of South Africa, 2000) – which combines the World Heritage Convention into the legislation governing SA (Hansen, 2014). This means that the
63
country is obliged to conserve and protect proclaimed areas such as the IWP in terms of the operational policies as per the implementation of the World Heritage Convention. In line with this, the legal framework and management strategies that ensure the IWP is conserved implies a certain way of supervising. This has had a great impact on the community and has brought about social changes.
Firstly, according to the zonation map in the Integrated Management Plan (2011-2016), the terrestrial area of Mabibi falls under restricted land, meaning that the management approach applied prohibits access, therefore, the coastal forest is fenced-off. According to the Integrated Management Plan (2011-2016; 121), ‘the focal purpose of zonation is to conserve biodiversity and ecological processes and provide visitors with an exclusive high-quality game/landscape viewing and close to nature overnight experience’. So the question is, where do the local people’s needs fit in in this process of ensuring the protection of biodiversity and ecological processes. This immediately gave me the impression that there is little consideration of the needs of the community. Respondents argued that local people have traditionally used resources in the coastal forest and protected these resources, and therefore they do not understand why they are cut off from the coastal forest. One respondent argued that they used to have myths that they used to scare children and people into not harming nature and therefore know better not to harm the environment (Key Informant 2 Interview, Mabibi, August 2016).
Based on the observations and findings, the respondents seemed to be well informed on conserving their environment.
Secondly, the marine environment in Mabibi falls within the zone of a controlled section of the park (IWPA; IMP, 2011-2016). This means that there are fishery regulations governing access to marine resources. These policies implemented in the marine section of the park force the community to acquire permits to be able to fish. The requirements of the Marine Living Resources Act, 1998 (Act No. 18 of 1998) and associated regulations continue to apply to the capture/fishing of pelagic fish which include, but are not limited to, bag/size limits, recreational angling licenses, fishing methods/equipment, launch sites and compliance requirements (IWPA; IMP, 2011-2016; 146). These regulations have meant that controls and restrictions are placed on the marine environment. According to a key informant (key informant 2 Interview, Mabibi, August 2016), ‘the IWPA refuses us permission to fish, dictating which fish to catch and how much to catch forgetting that we have the right to food’. Interviewees expressed how
64
they used to fish for food and an income but since the resources have been controlled, livelihoods have been disabled. ‘Fishing has always been a way of obtaining a livelihood for us either through subsistence means or commercial means, fishing has always been important in sustaining our livelihoods’ (key informant 2 Interview, Mabibi, August 2016). The community engaged in a fishing project aimed at teaching young girls and women in the coastal areas how to fish. Furthermore, in such an illiterate community, the people complained about fishing permits and the processes associated with obtaining these permits and licenses as being complicated and long (Community meeting,Mabibi, October 2017).
Cutting of trees, hunting, and bark harvesting for medicine are activities not allowed in the coastal forest (Community meeting, Mabibi, August 2016). As observed from the survey and interview findings, 80% of the sampled households depend on agricultural activities and most rely on natural resources and grants to obtain a livelihood. However, while this is the case, others combine agriculture with other activities (Key Informant 1 Interview, August 2016). For instance, one of the respondents highlighted that she obtains a livelihood through planting vegetables and selling them to the Thonga beach lodge and also depends on her children’s social grants for income (Key Informant 2 Interview, Mabibi, August 2016). However, the respondent expressed how human-wildlife conflicts are a problem, this is due to crop raiding by bush pigs. ‘With the small gardens we have in our yards, these bush pigs destroy and eat our food’ (Key informant 4 Interview, Mabibi, August 2016). Respondents further expressed how they could not kill or hurt these animals as they fear criminal charges or being fined (Community meeting: Mabibi, August 2016).
According to respondents, the only form of stakeholder interaction is through engaging in the tourism business. This is the main form of stakeholder interaction between all the stakeholders in the IWP. According to the findings, tensions exist between IWPA and the local community which stems from there being no open channels for communication between IWPA and residents. In an engagement with the local people, the findings revealed that the IWPA has employed a top-down approach where resource use and other key livelihood activities are restricted, this was seen through the observations and findings. While doing so this has created hardships for local people as traditional livelihoods have been restricted. As revealed above, the Induna is powerless in the planning and management though land forms part of Mabibi’s natural resources. According to Key informant 3 (Mabibi, October 2017), the local government
65
has failed to address the issues highlighted by the community hence community feels like they are disowned as they have no basic infrastructure which is the mandate for the local government to provide.
The local community issues on local livelihoods being restricted are not baseless. These stem from the power relations that often marginalize and displace local communities. This is evident in Mabibi, where the IWPA has power in influencing the management of the IWP and ultimately Mabibi. A trend in current literature has often exposed tourism to have displaced and marginalized local people from accessing natural resources (Mariki, 2016). According to Vedeld et al (2012), PA's central aim is to conserve the natural environment, restrict natural resource use, creating park boundaries, and revenue through tourism without considering the impacts on the people living within the PA. Findings suggest that Mabibi is no exception to this narrative. Once local people are not involved in park tourism, communities are impacted negatively when they are not able to meet subsistence needs which can result in them choosing to relocate, which has proven to be the case for the youngest people in the area (Harihar et al.
2014). In the case of Mabibi, the lack of development and restricted land has resulted in rural- urban migration.
From the findings above, I was able to conclude that a negative relationship exists between the residents of Mabibi and IWPA. The IWPA sees itself as actively engaging with the local people and also assisting in fostering local economic development and as highlighted by the IWPA has improved local livelihoods as the government has failed to create opportunities and foster development in the rural areas. According to key informant 4, the IWPA has created job and income generating opportunities that were not available before the park was established (Key Informant 4 Interview, Mabibi, October 2017). However, even though this is true to some extent, the issues revealed above show that there is some disregard of the local issues and also a lack of communication between the IWPA and the people of Mabibi. This is founded on the conclusion of a majority of the respondents revealing how the IWP has negatively impacted local livelihoods. Furthermore, through examining the relationship between IWPA and the local community, it was deemed important to find the issues playing a role in the relationship.
The results above suggest that state-society relations are complex, with many forces at play.
With this said, we can agree with Martin et al (2016), that the allocation of local land for nature- based tourism can affect and often disadvantage local communities, leaving them powerless
66
and excluding them from materially and culturally important land and resources, which is the case in Mabibi. According to Thondhlana et al (2015) in such situations, decentralization of rights and responsibilities for nature-based tourism is needed, which entails fostering skills development through sustainable livelihoods, maximizing the benefits from ecotourism, and lastly minimizing the costs. The findings in this chapter suggests that conservation approaches have obligated the local community to change their way of life, which has counted against the involvement of people and hence reinforced a division between the people of Mabibi, government & IWP.
It is important to note that park authorities' central aim is conserving nature and hence have the power to decide on stakeholder engagement/involvement (Cundill et al. 2013; Thondhlana et al. 2015). Thondhlana et al (2016) further suggests that in such a case where conservation is a priority, park authorities’ interests are mainly to ensure the protection of the area before anything else which is a characteristic of fortress conservation approaches. Fortress conservation approaches have been criticized for displacing local people in a sense that people are excluded from using natural resources hence alienating them all because of the goal protecting the area. In the case of Mabibi, it has been clear that the relationship between the stakeholders is dominated by a lack of communication and active community involvement in the planning and management of the IWP. In addition, the management style is top-down putting forward conservation before people’s needs which to some extent is similar to the old approach that is ‘fortress’ in nature.