Poverty in a transforming landscape: research in Bela-Bela Local Municipality, Limpopo Province, South Africa

Abstract

The spatial and economic situation of Bela-Bela changed severely in the last twenty years. The emergence of tourism transformed the rural municipality into a popular tourism hub. The transformation of the landscape of Bela-Bela Local municipality has not only changed the area spatially and economically, though also influenced the nature of poverty. Within this research the central question is how the spatial and economic situation of Bela-Bela changed and what the consequences are for poverty. The process of de-agrarianisation of the area fits within a more global trend in the Rural South. Rigg (2006) describes the emergence of a rural non-farm economy within the Rural South, which leads to a new type of poverty. Instead of old poverty, whereby the poor are not integrated in the system, the poor suffer now from new poverty; meaning that they are integrated, but on very unfavourable terms. The transformation of Bela-Bela not only involves the emergence of tourism, though also the implementation of land reform projects. The elitist position of tourism and the mainly failing land reform projects within the area put Bela-Bela in a distinct position. Although the process of de-agrarianisation fits within Rigg' s concept of the changing Rural South, the position of the poor is contradicting. It seems that in the apartheid era, the poor were in a position whereby they were actually part of the mainstream economy, though treated very unequally. Nowadays one can identify a clear disconnection between the rich and the poor whereby failing agricultural land reform projects only create holes in the economic landscape. Furthermore the pro-poor focus of tourism is more or less absent. Nonetheless it provides the area with a successful land restitution and development model, in the case of the Bela-Bela CPA. The collaboration between the white established order and the black community provides an exemplary role for the further transformation of Bela-Bela and South Africa.