Govt owns up to land reform failures

Government has acknowledged its failures in its land reform programme, particularly in providing support to successful claimants.

Chief Land Claims Commissioner Nomfundo Gobodo said the keyword going forward will be sustainability.

In what could pave the way for other land reform cases, a controversial land claim was settled in Mpumalanga on Thursday.

Government paid about R1-billion for the Mala Mala Game Reserve, which is the biggest land claim settlement to date.

The battle for the exclusive game reserve went as far as the Constitutional Court, but in the end, all parties reached an agreement that could just set the standard.

The reserve will lease the land from the community for R700,000 a month over the next two years. After that period, the two parties will go into a joint agreement that will last between 15 and 30 years, with the aim being sustainability.

"Phase one was about getting the land back and phase two is about co-management, partnering with the MalaMala brand to ensure that it is sustainable but also to get the community who now owns the land to be part of the business,” said Gobodo.

Meanwhile, government has admitted to failures in its land reform programme.

Although most of the restitution claims have been settled, many of the claimants chose money instead of land, and redistribution targets are falling far short.

“Yes we acknowledge that there were a lot of failures. But the way that we’ve set ourselves up now is to try and make sure that each claim that is settled, is settled sustainably... so that we don’t after five years have to go back to the same claim to try and revive whether it’s a farm (or) a business and so forth,” said Gobodo.   

Eighty-percent of the Bushbuckridge area, including three reserves, has been claimed by locals, but the area’s rich wildlife is its economic lifeline.

The MalaMala settlement may just prove to be the model in balancing development and the conservation industry.