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The Madiba Corridor Project is a tourism development initiative, between Lake Gariep, the Southern Drakensberg in the Eastern Cape, and the Wild Coast at Port St Johns. It seeks to utilise the natural and socio-cultural assets, and the region’s rich and colourful history to develop tourism and agri-tourism sector alongside the forestry, industrial and agricultural developments in the region. The initiative will be a multi-party initiative with contributions from multinational agencies, government, development agencies, civil society, the private sector and communities.
The project was funded by ECDC and developed by the Landmark Foundation in 2006. It is a culmination of three years of work in the area by various parties. It has provided the framework as a project concept document for the initiative and has already attracted development interest from various agencies.
This study has identified certain key interventions to realise the tourism potential of the Madiba Corridor, which is situated in the northeastern Eastern Cape. The area stretches from Lake Gariep in the northwest of the corridor, along the Eastern Cape’s Southern Drakensberg, and south to the Wild Coast at Port St Johns. The project recognises the important role that tourism can play in local economic development (LED) and broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE).
The area has great tourism potential, but has few anchor tourism attractions and little tourism infrastructure or services. The area is geographically remote and has tourism access difficulties. Historically the area has not benefited from government infrastructure investments that would be beneficial to tourism, as large sections of the corridor fell within the Apartheid homelands of the Transkei and Ciskei. The work highlighted the development opportunities in the region and developed the actions required to deliver on this potential.
The defined area of the Madiba Corridor has extraordinary natural assets, ranging from the Great Karoo landscape around Lake Gariep, to the Southern Free State grasslands and Alpine landscapes of the spectacular Southern Drakensberg, to the coastal areas of the equally scenic Wild Coast. A further defining feature, and perhaps the feature that distinguishes the area the most from others, is the fact that the area is home to most of the leaders of the recent political struggles of our country. This struggle history is however not restricted to recent history, but encapsulates much of the history of the South African political struggles, be it from the days of the San, the Griquas, the tribal upheavals, frontier wars and Boer – British strife, to the recent victory over Apartheid. This struggle history provides a rich cultural and historic context with which to build the concept of a tourism region: The Madiba Corridor, where a “Struggle Tourism Route” could be developed. |
