The late Chiarman African PArks
The story has a second father: Mavuso Msimang, the invaluable and able Zulu CEO of South African National Parks. Realistic, seasoned by experience and well equipped to handle the crises and intrigues of post-apartheid national parks (he was trained in Moscow in urban warfare), he saw the need for a new approach to park management and understood how this could involve the private sector. Valli Moosa, the government minister responsible for the environment, strongly supported this new concept of public-private partnership for national parks.
The Marakele Model
Marakele National Park has one of the most accessible and breathtaking landscapes in South Africa. Only a few hours’ drive north of Johannesburg, it musters a diverse combination of fantastic mountains and gorges, bush and plains, rivers and ponds. But when I found it in 1997, it was stagnating. There was no money, no hope of achieving the expansion of lowland areas that was needed for the animals’ feeding range, or of building and maintaining fences. There were dedicated individuals to do the work, but there was no money to maintain and reinvigorate the park or to invest in a strategy of biodiversity. Access was difficult, game species and population levels were declining. Facilities such as tent camps were lacking; and there were practically no visitors. Simply providing money would not have been a sustainable solution. There had to be a broader strategy based on a model of public-private partnership, where both parties could focus on what they do best. The state would provide the land and legislative framework. The private sector would provide funds after careful economic analysis, under strict budgetary constraints, and within a clear accounting framework. It would also provide management expertise to allow for a culture of swift decision-making and to reintroduce the sense of purpose and strategy necessary for success. Based on a 30-year business contract, South African National Parks agreed to delegate the management and development of the northern area of Marakele to a joint management team. The management of the rest of the park would benefit from an agreement of mutual support. It certainly was a challenge, a joint venture between two cultures, between the state and the private sector. Though it was unusual and innovative, we proved that such a partnership could yield results that were superior to a purely public approach. The scheme was set up and implemented with splendid support from people within the government department responsible, South African National Parks, who appreciated the importance of making Marakele National Park a successful model for nature conservation. We brought together a dedicated group of South Africans to activate the project. Within a period of two years we purchased over a dozen farms, negotiated fence removal with neighbours, relocated tent camps, developed caravan, barbecue and day-visit facilities, built and operated new entrances, constructed over 150 km of new game fencing, removed 7,000 km of barbed wire, 80 km of high-voltage power lines, 100 km of telephone cables, cleared 5,000 hectares of bush, and built a small village for the local community, whose members now own land and houses in their own name. Schools were adopted, their roofs repaired, toilets rebuilt, and uniforms, books and teaching aids supplied, as were bicycles for those pupils living a long way away. Beds were provided for a hostel, and a scholarship was set up for the best pupil to continue to higher education. The entire program was completed within the planned span of two years. Tourist activities will now be the financial pump to maintain and expand the park. New partners who subscribe to the principle of ecological management are welcome to participate. Large areas are available for inclusion. Farmers who decide to bring in their land will retain ownership and will be granted the right to develop eco-tourism and thus benefit from all the advantages of the unified Marakele habitat and Park’s services. However, they must agree to concede to the Park the right of first refusal in the event that they want to sell their property outside their family. Tourism and associated services will provide a range of new jobs and opportunities for the local population. National parks can only prosper if local people benefit from the management of the park. This means primarily employment as rangers and in many jobs in the tourist camps. A 50-bed camp facility for overseas visitors can provide over 100 permanent jobs. Local arts can be sold and organic gardens developed. Small businesses will benefit from increased economics input in the area.
The need for a new approach
All African governments face a similar dilemma: in a desperate situation of overwhelming human needs and limited funds, wildlife slips inevitably from low to last on the priority list. In addition, the vast wildlife resources of sub-Saharan Africa have not been managed to help address precisely these pressing human needs, such as food and employment. Marakele is not a one-off case. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, national parks were established during colonial times and were often regarded as a ‘white man’s hobby’. Since then, a generation of well- trained park wardens has retired and been replaced by - mostly politically appointed - people with little motivation or managerial experience. The dull hand of bureaucracy has stifled new ideas and initiatives; sources of finance have dried up; and in many countries the culture of getting things done has declined into inertia indifference. Overall, this has produced mediocre or bad management, which in some instances has encouraged survival by corruption and deceit. This is all part of a lager picture that includes devastation wrought by civil war, hunger, crime, and HIV / AIDS. Some national parks only exist on paper as an area on a map surrounded by a green line. Many have had their game decimated, shot or starved during civil war. Many have been invaded by people simply trying to stay alive. The model of private-public partnership works: the state contributes land and provides the legislative framework; the private sector supplies initial funds, management, and suitable commitment. Together, they can develop tourism activities to make the park economically self-sufficient. Marakele aims to be just that from 2004 on. The vision of Nelson Mandela, the support of Minister Valli Moosa, and the commitment and courage of Mavuso Msimang to step into the unknown have created a success, an effective new strategy for national parks. It was a privilege and pleasure to head the team that put this into effect and to see its endeavours rewarded: it works! With its spectacular scenery and great diversity of flora and fauna, Marakele now rivals the Kruger National Park. The neighbouring private game reserve joined forces, and after taking down all fences the greater Marakele area is now approximately 120 000 hectares.
Going forward
Let us look beyond the borders of South Africa to other countries. There is every reason to develop the Marakele model of cooperation on Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda and Zambia - in fact, in all the countries of our planet where biodiversity and oases of nature are struggling to survive against the ever-increasing pressure of humankind. In generations to come, population control must be the foremost human contribution to the survival pf the planet’s ecosystems, as the guest for living space and agricultural land will continue to take its toll on nature and to deplete precious resources. However, time is running out. We need to develop models for the short and medium term to preserve the sub-Saharan wildlife and to manage it as a resource for suitable development • The position on national parks within the bureaucratic structure of government reduces the prospect of adequate financing and effective management. They are beset by external pressures - farming, tourism, building development and poaching, to which they have no adequate response. National parks cannot survive through land ownership and legislation alone: they must develop dynamic and cooperative management systems that equip them to survive in our times - and beyond. The private-public partnership, which has been so successful at Marakele, points a way forward. It also allows for extending parks through contract management with neighbors, and thus avoids increasingly heavy land acquisition costs. Under management contract, private landowners can develop their own business while their land extends the ecologically protected area. This approach consists of developing self-financing and suitable management systems. This is particularly the case where protected areas form the centre of a wider landscape and socio-economic systems based on the use of natural resources. Marakele was just the beginning. What started with an inspiring conversation with Nelson Mandela has become a systematic and strategic approach that addresses the pressing needs of people living in or around national parks as well as of the animals and nature. It requires a change from managing land to managing biodiversity over much larger areas. Ecological expertise is available. Private partners will supply the practical management. The exciting Marakele model has enormous potential for bringing about significant change to benefit people, animals, and nature in the wider area of sub-Saharan Africa. To develop and expand this, funds are needed from Europe, Japan and the USA to invest in surrounding infrastructure and to finance some of the groundwork in the parks to allow for their sustainable development.
Paul Fentener van Vlissingen
The late Chairman of African Parks
Paul van Vlissingen
Dutch businessman who left a generous mark as a laird in Scotland and as a conservationist in Africa
March 21, 1941 - August 21, 2006
ALTHOUGH best known in Britain as “the richest man in Scotland” and the man who proposed releasing wolves into the Highlands, Paul van Vlissingen’s greater claim to British fame was the example he set as a modernising landowner.
In the 1990s he and groups representing walkers, climbers and the like negotiated an agreement about access to his land. The Letterewe Accord — named for his 80,000-acre estate beside Loch Maree in Wester Ross — became something of a model for subsequent agreements and legislation in the Scottish parliament.
His restoration of Conholt Park, near Andover, made it into one of the greatest downland conservation areas and shooting estates in England, demonstrating that sustainable use and landscape preservation are natural partners.
Van Vlissingen’s reputation extended far beyond Britain, however. In his native Netherlands he embodied the spirit of enterprise, and under his leadership the family company, already substantial, grew to become the largest private business in Europe.
An early and nearly fatal brush with cancer made him a passionate and committed funder of medical research. He supported human population control, but believed it could be attained only through choice and empowering women through education and equality. Although a man with republican leanings, he was nevertheless a loyal and discreet friend of the Dutch Royal Family.
He also made a profound mark in Africa, where he brought a new approach to the management of despoiled and depleted national parks through the application of business skills and financing. He called these parks the “museums of Africa, as important and valuable for our cultural heritage as the Rijksmuseum or the National Gallery”. He funded a growing organisation that manages more than two million hectares of publicly owned, protected areas in seven African countries.
Paul Fentener van Vlissingen was born near Utrecht in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. He and his sister and two brothers were the latest generation of one of the leading Dutch industrialist families whose fortune was based on shipping coal on the Rhine in the 19th century.
Noting how as a boy Van Vlissingen spent much of his time outdoors, reading voraciously and writing poetry, his parents joked: “We have three children and a gypsy.” After secondary school, he studied economics at the University of Groningen, although he made no secret of the fact that he would preferred to have read philosophy. At the beginning of the 1960s he joined the financial department of SHV, the family company, moving later to the oil arm of the company. At the end of the 1960s he continued his training in the US, with stints working for the Chevron and Amoco oil companies, before returning to a management position in SHV’s oil group.
He joined SHV’s board in May 1974. It was a period of diversification for the company, which was one of the largest employers in The Netherlands.
In 1980 Van Vlissingen was treated for cancer and it was at this time he acquired the Letterewe estate in Scotland.
In 1984 he succeeded his brother, Frits, as chairman of the board at SHV. During his period at the helm, SHV refocused on trading in energy and consumer goods. SHV rapidly became the principal global transporter of liquefied petroleum gases, and developed the Makro chain of cash-and-carry wholesale stores. SHV’s turnover grew from € 5.6 billion (approximately £3.8 billion) to € 15.5 billion between 1984 and 1997. Profit rose from € 57 million to € 184 million. The Makro stores in Europe were sold in 1997. Shortly afterwards two large LPG distribution companies in the UK (Calor Gas) and France were bought.
Van Vlissingen personified the entrepreneurial spirit and aversion to bureaucracy of the families which had merged to form SHV in 1896. As a charismatic chairman he devised many unconventional solutions to business dilemmas.
He was convinced that continual change is the oxygen a company needs for its survival. He was also convinced that both fun and challenges in the working environment were important for all, and he evolved a managerial style which emphasised respect for, and investment in, people. This approach he applied to his companies, to the communities that lived on his estates and to his charities — among them Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye, to which he donated £ 250,000.
In 1998 he stepped down from day-to-day duties at SHV, and finally retired from the company in May 2005, so that he could devote himself, through the African Parks Foundation, to conservation and sustainable development in Africa.
Van Vlissingen was a complex man. Being born into one of The Netherlands’ richest families, he saw wealth as a tool that had to be used, along with the influence and power it provided. In many ways he led a restless life, caused by this constant search for the best application of this inherited wealth. One of his aims was to ensure that future generations of his family would have even more with which to do good. The philosophy of SHV (which he codified and put into practice long before such things became fashionable in business circles) was an intensely personal statement of the responsibilities that the family as owners had to the staff, and all of them to their customers.
He set aside time every day for reading and for writing. He published some of his poetry and his reflections on life, as well as books of photographs taken by his friends of issues and places he found important. He also published scientific work on the management of deer herds on Scottish shooting estates.
He was a very good shot and a thoughtful fisherman, but he gave the impression of gaining more pleasure from watching these sports than from participating.
While he did not parade his wealth, he was a generous and persistent host. Shooting weekends at Conholt and Letterewe were informal and relaxed. The summons to attend — because a rare wild orchid had emerged in a field or he wanted some children to run around the maze — were frequent. Once a science meeting was held for the African Parks Foundation at Conholt, and one of the participants remarked at the very fine wine that was served for what was essentially a business meeting with a group of strangers. Van Vlissingen’s reaction was simple — this was his home and why should he not offer them what he would offer his friends.
Friendship was important to him but it did not always come easily. He could never be trivial; he laughed and joked a great deal (he had a biting sense of humour) but conversations could be very intense.
In 2004 he received an honorary degree from the University of Bradford for his contribution to corporate governance and integrity and his unrelenting investment in people of developing countries. He did not approve much of baubles but this award meant much to him because it was a tribute to his work rather than his existence.
He was a significant supporter of the Countryside Alliance and of the Game Conservancy Trust, with much of its innovative work on song birds and shooting estates being researched at Conholt. He was committed to country sports as a necessary and desirable component of a sustainable rural environment. Above all, however, he believed they were a powerful statement of stewardship and a deep bond between man and the natural world.
From the late 1990s Africa and its wildlife were the main focus of his energies. During a meeting with Nelson Mandela, Van Vlissingen suggested that the problem for almost all of Africa’s protected areas was one of management. Mandela challenged him to prove it.
With South African National Parks, Van Vlissingen established a unique partnership in the public-private management of protected areas. But it soon became clear that South Africa could probably do this for itself; it was the rest of the continent that needed help.
The Africa Parks Foundation, funded by him to the tune of an estimated €100 million, was assembled with virtually no management structure and with decisions taken on the ground. Friends were cajoled into service, new friends were found, and his private office staff were suddenly conscripted into running a conservation body.
The foundation now manages protected areas in countries from Zambia to Ethiopia to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Wildlife conservation and sustainable development are treated as two sides of the same coin. Van Vlissingen was committed to ensuring that these places brought direct and lasting benefits to local communities by being their economic engines; providing jobs and entrepreneurial opportunity, not handouts and aid.
After falling ill during a visit to Garamba National Park, DRC, in 2005, Van Vlissingen received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer early this year. Seeing no point in prolonging his life by a few months while losing the quality of what little time was left, he declined any treatment except pain relief.
He paid farewell visits to Scotland and England, and to Marakele in South Africa, the park which provided the inspiration behind what was to be his last great enterprise, before returning to The Netherlands.
Van Vlissingen was divorced from his first wife. His partner over the next two decades was the art historian and conservationist, Caroline Tisdall. He is survived by her, their two daughters and by his partner, Suzanne Wolff.
Paul van Vlissingen, businessman, philanthropist and conservationist, was born on March 21, 1941. He died on August 21, 2006, aged 65.
