Tug of War Rages over mine, toll road
Published by MAC on 2003-07-07
Tug of War Rages over mine, toll road
July 7, 2003
By Samantha Enslin, South African Press Association
The European Union (EU) has allocated €13 million (R111.8 million) to generate jobs and income for impoverished communities in the Wild Coast and is using tourism as the vehicle.. One of the key projects funded by the EU is Amadiba Adventures, run by the Amadiba Coastal Community Trust, which offers horse, hiking and canoe trails along the rugged coastal terrain between the Mzamba and the Mtentu rivers. The area is characterised by cliff-faces plunging into the sea, hills and waterfalls with dolphins and whales visible. This is the area that has been earmarked by Australian company Mineral Commodities to mine titanium minerals for export.
Amadiba Adventures was the first ecotourism initiative both owned and run by the community. The EU had invested €2 million in the project between 2002 and 2004.
The aim was to improve the quality of the lives of people who live in one of the country's poorest regions by setting up sustainable tourism projects managed by the communities themselves
Mike Haynes, the programme development officer for the EU's Wild Coast Community Tourism Initiative, said: "Most of the money generated from community ecotourism projects remains in the area. Although the income is modest, it is distributed fairly widely." Three non-governmental organisations (NGOs) act as an interface between the EU and the communities, and assist with technical support in areas such as environmental management, training and advice on business development. The annual revenue from the Amadiba Adventures is about R600 000 and 100 people are employed. Travis Bailey, the co-ordinator for Pondocrop, one of the implementing NGOs, estimated that revenue would exceed R1 million this year
One of the main challenges in getting the project off the ground was to get buy-in from the community and to assure the local people that they would not be alienated from the land as had been their previous experience with tourism.