Economic development and conservation make strange bedfellows; in fact, they mostly clash head-on.
But the ANC government has adopted a radically different conservation philosophy - conservation areas must uplift the local, national and regional economies or they stand little chance of long-term survival.
This new ethos and the policies it has ushered in have received mostly praise from the international environmental community and will be on display when SA hosts the World Parks Congress in Durban over the next two weeks.
The business approach to conservation and environmental protection has its vocal critics who argue that government has a duty to the environment and should be the sole proprietor of SA's natural heritage.
This view takes no cognisance of the new political reality where government is faced with what many view as far more pressing social issues.
Says environmental affairs & tourism minister Valli Moosa: "If conservation has to compete with other social needs for funding, it runs the risk of not receiving the attention it requires.
"A financially sustainable model is non-negotiable for sustainable conservation," Moosa stresses.
Dutch millionaire businessman and philanthropist Paul van Vlissingen, who has invested more than US$25m of his own money into SA's national parks, puts it in corporate lingo: "Everything has to have a monetary value to be of use to society. If the ecology is not monetised' it will be slaughtered by things that are, such as cattle, farming and timber."
These financial realities have brought about a range of strategies that were unthinkable 10 years ago. Three of them will be discussed in this survey: the development of transfrontier parks, which has led to countries in Southern Africa opening their boundaries to animals and tourists (see "A new era gives wildlife the run of the continent"); the solutions found to accommodate successful land claims in conservation areas (see "Model works for people and land"); and the outsourcing to the private sector of most hospitality services in national and provincial protected areas (see "Concessions ensure a profitable heritage").
The last strategy is perhaps the most illustrative of the new approach by government and the SA National Parks Board (SANParks), the custodian of more than half the protected regions in SA.
Moosa again spells it out in no uncertain terms: "The private sector should be the driving force behind new investments. Why should the taxpayer pay for other people's holidays?"
But it is not only the concessioning process that involves private-sector involvement. According to estimates by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), more than 15% of SA land, outside of national and provincial parks, is run by the private sector for use in conservation-related activities such as ecotourism and game ranching.
The draft protected areas bill, expected to be enacted into law before the end of the year, will allow land owners to have their land legally recognised as conservation areas. This would make them eligible for property rate exemptions and provide incentives for conservation.
The protected areas managed by the SA government in one form or another amount to 5,8%, or just more than 7m ha, of the total area of SA, which is far below the internationally recommended 10%. To put it in perspective, SA ranks well behind its neighbours Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia.
Nevertheless, government has made significant progress in expanding wildlife areas since it came to power. It has pushed the number of new national parks to 20, and more than 400 other protected areas comprising state land have been established under national or provincial legislation.
Standing out from the above list is the Addo Elephant National Park - already it has been expanded to the Zuurberg in the north and ambitious plans are in place to stretch its boundary to the Indian Ocean coast. If successful, Addo will become the only global reserve hosting the big seven - the traditional Big Five plus whales and the white shark.
This fiscal year is the first since 1980 that government has budgeted for environmental land purchases. The R8m set aside this year will be followed by R42m in fiscal 2003/2004 and R51m in 2004/2005.
This won't be enough to meet Moosa's target of having 8% of land under protection by 2010, and 10% by 2015. Enter, once again, the private sector.
Philanthropy plays a role: the WWF over the years has bought 2% of SA's land and handed it to SANParks and provincial authorities, says WWF SA CEO Tony Frost, leading to the establishment or expansion of 40 nature reserves.
But more sophisticated and market-orientated models have been developed in the form of contractual national parks. In their simplest form, these reserves are the environmental responsibility of governmental bodies such as SANParks, but the property itself and the accommodation on it are run by private operators.
The most well-known example is Sabi-Sands, a collection of mostly up-market game reserves, which 10 years ago tore down the fences separating it from the Kruger National Park (KNP). The beneficiaries are the animals, which have a wider terrain to call their own.
Other contractual national parks are being managed by Van Vlissingen at the Marakele National Park and the Makuleke community in the northern KNP (page 70).
"Contractual national parks are one of the most important ways in which we can expand the land under environmental protection," says outgoing SANParks CEO Mavuso Msimang.
SANParks' finances will be one of the biggest beneficiaries. Msimang says that, coupled with the income from concessioning 12 lodges in its game parks (page 70), contracting out the purchase and management of conservation land should allow the organisation to achieve self-sufficiency in seven to 10 years.
In the present fiscal year, government has to provide about R76m to make up for the 18% shortfall between income and costs at SANParks.
Much time has been devoted to the cost side of the business, but resources have also been dedicated to ensuring that the local and national economy benefit from this investment in conservation.
Tourism is the obvious growth area. SA's abundance of wildlife is the key contributor to making SA the fastest-growing tourist destination in the world and the tourism industry the fastest-growing sector in the economy.
The number of overseas visitors has been rising steadily (see graph) and according to SANParks more than half of them visit a national park during their stay. The benefits of tourism are obvious in terms of spending on goods and services but are most graphically illustrated by the fact that every eight tourists create one new job.
Communities living around national parks get some spin-off from this spend through job creation and procurement. But SANParks has also pursued empowerment policies that ensure local communities get more contract work as well as become shareholders in concessioned lodges.
Another policy aimed at allowing local communities to benefit from the environment is the proposed biodiversity bill. For the first time, the legislation puts power in the hands of communities in terms of the exploitation and use of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge.
But problems remain in the administration of protected areas and Moosa is aware of them. Over the next few weeks he will be submitting five laws that will strengthen the management of conservation areas but also impose environmental regulations that indirectly support SA's conservation efforts.
As part of the protected areas bill, national government will have the right to take over provincial reserves that are part of sensitive biospheres or are being neglected by the provincial authorities.
In all these policies the profit motive, normally associated with business, is absent. Instead the money will be used to support SA's environmental and conservation work. It is back to basics, but this time it appears to work.
