02 Oct 2024

Khawa village’s spectacular natural attraction has caught the eye of Akashinga partners who have signed a two-year photography ecotourism development agreement with Khawa Kopanelo Development Trust.

Under the Akashinga partnership comprising Modisa Wildlife Project as well as Kalahari Research and Conservation, and the Khawa Kopanelo Development Trust, they will work closely to charter a historic path for the community to enter the travel tourism photography, which is an under explored niche in the tourism industry in the area.

In an interview, representative of Modisa Wildlife Project Mr Valentin Gruener said the aim was to develop Khawa ecotourism at KD15 Wildlife Management area in order to assist diversify the village’s tourism portfolio.

He said the development was birthed against the backdrop that the area was endowed with an abundance of game and beautiful landscapes, which blossomed with great ecotourism potential.

Such a move, he said, was a powerful conservation strategy targeted at empowering the community and reducing wildlife and predator poaching in the area. He added that they had noticed that opportunities existed in travel tourism photography.

The two-year project shall focus on capacity building for the youth in order to show them alternative wildlife livelihoods and the value of photography where they shall use attractions that are naturally found in their culture, tradition and area.

This development, he said, would contribute towards employment creation and reduce the degradation of the natural environment caused by human activities.

Furthermore, he underscored that photography based tourism was where tourists chronicled their travels.

He noted that the visuals created a stimulus for travel, where people would have an insight into unknown lands, especially that Kgalagadi was less travelled and could potentially draw in more tourists to explore dryland tourism safari.

“Images shape and reshape tourists’ destination perceptions and consequently influence their decision making of where to spend vacations. Photographic tourism is that form of special interest tourism in which tourists visit a particular place with the aim of photographing subjects that are unique to them,” he said.

Thus Mr Gruener wants to infect the people with his enthusiasm for wildlife conservation, highlighting that due to the significant impact of photography on tourism, marketers invest greatly in this visual stimulation tool.

He highlighted that introducing the community to photography tourism was part of exploring other smart value chains in the wildlife sector.

“It is important to work with nature in a morally sound way. Last week, we were at the kgotla to sign the contract. We are not generating any profit from this. It is part of our conservation efforts and community empowerment,” he said.

Furthermore, he said the photographic and film potential for KD15 is far much bigger than what hunting is currently doing for communities.

“When the hunting season is over, the hunter has nothing to do and we can use this time to do something else,” he said.

Mr Gruener divulged that the agreement entailed that the trust will benefit P15 000 as KD15 lease for photography per month for two years, construction of a boom gate, clean campsites, training, adding that P106 000 shall be expended to develop the boom gate.

“We have noticed that there is illegal camping going on there. We need to make sure that tourists pay for camping. It is the community that will manage this as part of taking responsibility to manage their resources” he said.

He said he strongly believed that they could have an attraction in the Kalahari that is equal in size to that of the Serengeti in Tanzania.

Communities, he added, have to decide to do that with their animals as they are sitting on massive treasure.

“We can learn from Khwai and Mababe areas who have benefitted from this and now have a lot of photographic lodges. The same is possible here in Kgalagadi,” he said.

Khawa village Kgosi Piet Manyoro is optimistic of the agreement. He said the community’s trust acquired funds through their annual hunting quota allocated by government.

He said the agreement would support the community to develop other wildlife revenue streams, which would run throughout the year and thus create employment opportunities for locals.

“Ba ya go tsamaisa bajanala ba tsaya dinepe mo KD15 ba duela trust. Ba ya go hira di tour guides tse di tlaa tsamaisang bajanala, jaanong se se tlaa re thusa fela thata re le morafe gore re seka ra emela letsomo fela mme re bo re ntse re dira sengwe, ditumalano di dirilwe, ba tlaa hira bana ba motse, go a simologa,” he said. ENDS