Community Participation in the Heritage,Greening Mpumalanga and Tourism Programme

Abstract

Community participation in development projects is always advocated for but rarely practiced meaningfully. Narrow interpretations of participation that amount merely to job creation and skills transfer are prevalent and persist in spite of the changes in the policy context and in institutional arrangements meant to afford communities a platform to influence decisions and the direction of development in their locality. Historically, communities living adjacent to nature reserves have been dispossessed of their land, marginalized and alienated in the activities of the reserves. This qualitative case study sought to investigate challenges relating to community participation in Songimvelo Nature Reserve, a tourism development project which is part of the Heritage, Greening Mpumalanga, and Tourism Flagship Programme of the Mpumalanga Provincial Government. The objectives of this development project are to integrate nature conservation with socio-economic development through sustainable tourism ventures, in a Community Public and Private Partnership (CPPP) context. Data was collected through semi- structured interviews. The techniques used to ensure validity were member-checking, researcher reflexivity and triangulation. Interpretive data analysis was done. The findings of this study indicate that major challenges relating to community participation emanated after the validation of the land claim for a community of claimants. Prior to the land claim, government‘s approach to the management of the reserve was unilateral and paternalistic. The imminent change of land ownership has implications for the role, the rationale the intensity, the levels of participation and the patterns of participation for all the stakeholders. The challenges vary from conflicting values and ideals on land use, uncertainty, mistrust, and the need for new institutional and structural arrangements for the management of the reserve. The Songimvelo development project is evidence of how meaningful community participation is contingent to what rural communities can contribute in the development project. It requires more than indigenous knowledge or change in policy for communities to be acknowledged as key stakeholders and for them to influence decision making. ii Future research on the reserve could be conducted on the benefits, the effectiveness and new challenges of the new partnership in the Community Public Private Partnership (CPPP) context, post the signing of the settlement and co- management agreements.