Chapter 4 - Private Lodges, Infrastructures and Guides

Summary

Introduction

As previous chapters have shown, filming wildlife in South Africa was difficult, in part because of the regulations and terrain of the Kruger Park, which for much of the period was the only place in South Africa where free-roaming Big 5 game were found. Places such as the Kalahari and the Okavango offered more obvious rewards. As Kim Wolhuter put it after filming for the first time in the Serengeti in 2021: ‘My first time to east Africa. Was insane. Now I see why all those international crews don’t want to film in our bushveld, cos they’ve been spoilt with those open plains’ (Wolhuter, 20 November 2021).

This chapter analyses how the growth of private eco-tourism lodges around the Kruger Park, and particularly in Mala Mala and the Sabi Sand, turned the bushveld into an area where people could film successfully, overcoming the difficulties of the local terrain. The first part of the chapter explores the development of the private lodges; the second part the infrastructural and technological developments there that forwarded both tourism and filming; the third part the rise of career guides and their importance; the fourth part the importance of habituated animals. In conclusion, it considers the implications of these developments and which films they affected.

The Growth of Private Lodges

Many of the farms adjoining the Kruger Park’s western boundary were originally hunting farms owned by wealthy white businessmen. This area had originally been part of the Sabi Game Reserve which included the current Kruger Park. In 1926, the National Parks Act was passed and the land to the west sold off to private owners – mainly for hunting. In 1961, the Kruger Park, concerned about possible foot and mouth disease and the effects of hunting on its western boundary, fenced it in. In 1962, Mala Mala moved from hunting to photographic tourism and started the development of luxury safaris. In 1993, when hunting in the Sabi Sand had ended, the fence was removed, allowing for the free movement of game across the whole area.

In the neighbouring Sabi Sand Reserve (often referred to as Sabi Sands), hunting still continued on many of the farms.