Legalameetse Co-management

Developing co-management processes to build biodiversity and community resilience

Protected areas on state, communal and private land play an important role in safeguarding high priority biodiversity areas and ecosystems in the ORC. The majority of nature reserves in Limpopo and Mpumalanga are under land claim or have already been restituted to communities. These will all be governed through some form of co-management between the provincial conservation agencies and claimant communities. However there is not much experience of co-management (especially of institutional arrangements and beneficiation models in smaller reserves) in South Africa despite longer standing regional and international practice. The lack of experience and capacity in this field poses considerable challenges and even threats to protected areas and livelihoods.

The Legalameetse Nature Reserve (LNR), lying in the biologically-diverse Wolkberg Mountains and headwaters of the Selati River, is one such reserve. However lack of capacity together with institutional dynamics and tensions have challenged successful co-management arrangements thus far despite its provincial priority status.

A new co-management agreement is being discussed between LEDET (the management authority) and the communities with claims in Legalameetse. AWARD was approached to assist the Legalameetse Management Committee to ensure a tenable, equitable, transparent co-management process is followed so as to ensure sustainable natural resource management and community beneficiation.

In 2016 AWARD started work with communities and LEDET to support both the development of new co-management governance structures of these high priority biodiversity areas and to contribute to the livelihoods of community members through the development of various beneficiation mechanisms. The objective of our work is to support the development of functional, tenable and appropriate institutional arrangements for, and subsequent implementation of, co-management that takes into account (a) sustainable biodiversity and natural resource management and (b) meaningful, equitable and sustainable beneficiation of community members under current and future scenarios.

Brief history of land claimants and the LNR

Communities that were forcibly removed from the Legalameetse during the apartheid era, claimed land successfully in 2005 and started work on a co-management together with Limpopo Economic Development, Environment and Tourism. There are six communities with land claims in the LNR: Madutula (Mangena), Mamashiana, Paris, Cyprus, Balloon and Madeira.  LEDET together with its parastatal Limpopo Tourism Authority (LTA) is responsible for the reserve.  LEDET is the ‘Management Authority’, responsible for overseeing conservation and biodiversity management, while LTA is responsible for reserve tourism as the ‘Executing Agency’.

A co-management agreement was signed by LEDET and the Legalameetse communities through the Legalameetse Management Committee (LMC) in 2007. This was based on the full lease model of co-management in which communities get a lease fee (per hectare per year) but with little or no involvement in the management and decision-making of the reserve.  Each community is expected to form a legal entity called a Communal Property Association (CPA) to administer activities of the claimants/ beneficiaries [The Communal Property Association Act No. 28 of 1996 (CPA)]. Only two communities (Mangena and Mamashiana) had completed their land claim process and CPA registration which enables them to receive the lease fees.

A new co-management agreement is being discussed between LEDET (the management authority) and the communities with claims in Legalameetse. AWARD was approached to assist the Legalameetse Management Committee to ensure a tenable, equitable, transparent co-management process is followed so as to ensure sustainable natural resource management and community beneficiation.

In 2016 we started work with communities and LEDET to support both the development of new co-management governance structures of these high priority biodiversity areas and to contribute to the livelihoods of community members through the development of various beneficiation mechanisms. The objective of the our work is to support the development of a functional, tenable and appropriate institutional arrangements for, and subsequent implementation of, co-management that takes into account (a) sustainable biodiversity and natural resource management and (b) meaningful, equitable and sustainable beneficiation of community members under current and future scenarios.

Our main activities support:

• appropriate institutional arrangements as the basis for the co-management process;
• enhanced capacity of communities and government to collaboratively govern and manage the natural resources in LNR for livelihood beneficiation whilst maintaining the natural resources;
• the development of a draft co-management agreement using an inclusive, transparent process; and
• sharing of lessons from these processes.

Youth empowerment is an important part of our capacity-building work at Legalameetse. Through the establishment of the LNR Youth Forum to enable participation of youth in the CPA committees, eco-literacy bush camps in the reserve, mentorship sessions with AWARD interns and support to participate in relevant events, young people are increasingly realising that they can use the knowledge and skills acquired through RESILIM-O to start their own enterprises based on natural resources or indigenous knowledge, and some are thinking of building career paths using the skills acquired.

Dialogues on climate change and adaptation strategies are also an important part of the process. Support for a successful co-management arrangement will build the resilience of both the area and dependent communities.

 

Conservation Entrepreneurs

Enhancing capacity in youth, developing tools and guidelines

The conservation-based entrepreneurship (CbE) project, supported through a sub-grant to Institute of Natural Resources (INR), was designed to unlock the potential of conservation-based beneficiation models to enhance the resilience of local livelihoods and reduce vulnerability to climate change. As part of a longer-term process, the project has worked on:

• Identification of key historical, cultural and spiritual sites in the reserve by community elders.
• Enhanced capacity of youth forum members to incorporate CbE into development planning and establish the partnerships they need to operationalise these plans. This capacity includes skills and knowledge (business planning, legislation affecting developments in protected areas, beneficiation models and decision-making skills) and collective agency to co-develop ideas and take them forward (through exploration of a community cultural day in the reserve and learning exchanges).
• Development of basin-level guidelines for responsible natural resource-based beneficiation in the Lower Olifants which was well received by stakeholders K2C, Conservation SA, SANParks, the Limpopo Economic Development Agency and Maruleng Municipality.
• Development of other tools and guidelines including an integrated beneficiation model report, a preliminary business plan selected initiatives (e.g. Legalameetse Trail Adventures), a scoping report on selected opportunities in Mametja, several flyers and a game for teaching decision-making entitled “Crossroads: A game of decisions and consequences”.

 

Development & Beneficiation Strategy

Collaborative planning for development

Development in Legalameetse Nature Reserve is currently taking place on a seemingly ad hoc basis and without consultation with the new landowners. This makes planning strategically for beneficiation very difficult. AWARD is working collaboratively with EMROSS Consulting and the six CPAs, to develop a medium- to long-term Development and Beneficiation Strategy to guide conservation-based beneficiation opportunities in the reserve.