Regional Initiatives
The 1990s have seen South Africa change dramatically and the issues which face the country and its people today are more challenging than at any other time in our history. The country is faced with the urgent requirement to accommodate the pressing needs of its previously disenfranchised majority, and at the same time ensure that its natural resources are used in a productive and sustainable manner.
We are becoming increasingly aware that the demand to develop and manage land in a productive manner is becoming a national imperative. There are more mouths to feed, children to be educated and jobs to be created than ever before, and with progressive deregulation, the hope is that the private sector will provide the energy and resources to achieve this.
Specific initiatives
There are a number of distinct initiatives underway in the Kruger to Canyons region, united by a common theme recognising the critical need to harness the natural resources of the area to sustain and develop local communities in an ecologically sustainable fashion. Some of the initiatives are illustrated here and range in scale and scope from the empowerment of the historically disenfranchised majority through the transfer of ownership and conversion of marginal agricultural land to commercially viable ecotourism destinations, such as through the governmental Phalaborwa sub-corridor initiative to the establishment and registration of a new community school, the Hope School.
In parallel there is an effort to establish what will probably be the last consolidation of privately-owned game lands into an officially recognized nature reserve in the Central Lowveld region, the Blyde-Olifants Conservancy.
Part of this effort is the inclusion of local community interests through the Maburuburung Trust.