As President of Wildlife Ranching South Africa, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to address the 2018 Landbou Weekblad Land Summit, whose deliberations and outcomes I believe, will have implications for the future of our country.

I feel privileged because together with you, history has bestowed upon us the singular responsibility as a generation to be present and be active participants in the act of creation. We are gathered here today to deliberate in the process of creating an enduring future, not only for ourselves, but for future generations to come.

Wildlife Ranching South Africa constitutes the largest collective of more than 2,000 commercial wildlife ranchers (land owners), businesses and individuals with an interest in commercial wildlife ranching. Wildlife ranchers conduct their activities on millions of hectares of agricultural property dispersed throughout South Africa.

Our vision is to create a new wave of growth and prosperity in the wildlife industry, by leveraging our unique natural strengths for the benefit of all South Africans.

The vision of Wildlife Ranching South Africa and resultant constitution speaks directly to the topic assigned to me which is “Good neighbours and Mentorships.”

As a country we need to continually evaluate the dynamics that are driving our economy, we understand the desperate need to address unemployment and inequality in our country. We need to challenge ourselves to conceptualize bold ideas to bring about real transformation and economic growth for our country and our people.

We need to ask the question: In which industries can we establish ourselves as a global leader?

If you think about it carefully there may only be one or two industries, however, at the top of the list, I would put the Wildlife Economy. This is one industry where we as a nation can be truly globally competitive. We are not going to compete with Silicon Valley on tech or the Chinese on mass production of consumer products.

There is no country in the world that has the unique comparative advantages that we already possess in the Wildlife industry, namely:

• the natural bio-diversity
• private ownership of unique genetics of rare species
• established wildlife ranching infrastructure
• scientific and veterinary expertise
• available natural land and fundamental country infrastructure

There is significant latent demand for wildlife products and experiences in our country.

We can position ourselves to service a growing global middle class in the developed world, but also especially Asia, Latin America and other developing markets. We will continue to create a growing and latent demand for Wildlife experiences, products and services all over Africa, but especially here in South Africa.

That latent and growing demand, in turn, will continue to create its own demand for greater numbers of bigger and better wildlife experiences and products. This growing demand carries big opportunities for even the smallest companies in South Africa.

I believe we can develop bold ideas that are backed by a grand master plan to build a whole new wave of growth and prosperity for our nation.

I believe we can build a global tourism success story that surpasses Disney World and the Great Wall of China – last year 20 million tourists visited Disneyworld, and 10 million tourists visited the Great Wall of China, with only a paltry 3,5 million tourists visiting our country South Africa. We must stake our claim to our share of the global tourism dollar.

We need to be more externally focused and build a compelling case for foreign direct investment into our wildlife economy.

We must utilize large tracts of unutilized land that borders our national parks to stimulate consumptive and non-consumptive tourism in our country. We have our majestic big five species and other rare game species to offer this latent and growing demand.

We need to develop more Kruger National Park and Pilanesburg type of parks. However, these new developments need to be private sector driven, in partnership with the state and the tribal authorities and traditional leaders that preside over most of our rural land.

Every international tourist can help create 8 jobs in our wildlife economy on a sustainable basis.

This whole new economy will be driven by:

• sustainable game breeding programs to supply the expansion of the eco-tourism economy
• huge hunting concessions to support the utilization of our natural resources
• commercial abattoirs to support game meat production
• rhino conservation projects to support the preservation of this iconic African species

As an organisation, we are willing and able to support this new wave of growth and prosperity through offering mentorship and skills transfer and development. However, we need to be incentivized appropriately by government through regulatory certainty and enabling legislation that supports sustainable development of our industry.

We must be fully conscious that as we create this history, as we bring forth the new, we are guided by the knowledge that in the words of Thabo Mbeki “the future derives its first impulse in the womb of the present.”

In practical terms, we are in full support and working together with government to achieve the resolutions of the Operation Phakisa Bio Diversity LAB which include, among other things:

• to identify and prioritize 10 million Ha for the transformation of the wild life economy by 2018
• to establish, develop and support new wildlife ranching entrants through infrastructure support and game donation programmes, as well as working towards the creation of 100,000 jobs by 2030

I encourage all South Africans and participants of this summit to support the new dawn that is ushered in by the vision of President Cyril Ramaphosa for the benefit of our country and all who live in it.

Speech delivered by Tebogo Mogashoa

Landbou Weekblad Land Summit

23 August 2018

Photocredit @SENWES