‘About iSimangaliso’

Topics relevant to Sodwana Bay and Ozabeni November 2009 Introduction ...... 1 Plant and animal names in “About iSimangaliso” ...... 3 Section 1: Introduction to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park ...... 5 ‘Poverty amidst Plenty’: Socio-Economic Profile of the Umkhanyakude District Municipality .5 The first World Heritage Site in South Africa ...... 9 iSimangaliso’s "sense of place" ...... 13 A new model for Protected Area development: Benefits beyond Boundaries ...... 16 Malaria ...... 23 Section 2: Topics ...... 28 Bats of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park ...... 28 The climate of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park ...... 32 The coast and shoreline of iSimangaliso ...... 35 iSimangaliso’s coastal plain: rivers and lakes ...... 40 Coelacanths ...... 43 iSimangaliso’s coral reefs ...... 47 Crocodiles of iSimangaliso ...... 51 Deep-sea fishing in iSimangaliso’s waters ...... 57 Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park ...... 60 The Pelagic Marine Ecosystem ...... 66 Frogs of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park ...... 69 The formation of iSimangaliso’s grasslands ...... 73 The dynamics of the coastal grasslands ...... 78 The hippos of iSimangaliso ...... 83 iSimangaliso’s people: the precolonial period ...... 87 iSimangaliso’s people: the Zulu Kingdom ...... 89 iSimangaliso’s people in the 19th century ...... 93 The creation of poverty in the iSimangaliso area ...... 97 White settlers enter Natal ...... 100 The impact of HIV and AIDS on the iSimangaliso area ...... 103 Lake St Lucia ...... 105 The Lala Palm ...... 108 The shaping of the land claims on iSimangaliso: the national framework ...... 114 The shaping of the land claims on iSimangaliso: Events in KwaZulu Natal ...... 119 The land restitution process ...... 123 Land claims in the iSimangaliso area: memory, community and kinship ...... 128 Experiences of loss: the Mngomezulu family in Mbila ...... 132 Experiences of loss: Mr Zikhali of the Mbila Land Claims Committee ...... 135 Marine Protected Areas ...... 137 The Ndlozi Peninsula: conservation and the military...... 142 Turtles of iSimangaliso ...... 146 Wilderness in history ...... 151 Managing wilderness in iSimangaliso ...... 155 Introduction

About iSimangaliso is designed to provide support for tour guides working in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. It is also intended as a resource for the new training programmes offered by iSimangaliso to local people who will take up employment as tour guides in the Park and the surrounding areas. It offers content material and topic worksheets about the people, animals and plants of the Park, and about the way in which the iSimangaliso is fulfilling its management mandate. It also offers a brief history of the area, which will help tour guides and their clients to place what they are experiencing in context, and perhaps to look at the Park with new eyes. iSimangaliso is committed to the development and transformation of the tourism industry in and around the Park, as central to its conservation of this extraordinary World Heritage Site. These materials set a standard for the level of information that will be required from tour guides and others who offer tourism services in order to be certified to operate within the Park.

This material may be studied through one of the training courses offered by iSimangaliso, or used as a study guide by an individual candidate for iSimangaliso Authority assessment. iSimangaliso has designed a workshop to introduce the methodology of training tour guides in the content required for certification using these study guides.

Conventionally, tour guides are more familiar with what we refer to as Green facts and ideas. These include the biophysical descriptions of plants and animals, and facts about their habitats and their life cycles.

Red materials describe the lives and actions of the people who have made the history of the Park - hunters and gatherers, farmers, soldiers and traders, missionaries, hunters and conservationists, government officials, chiefs, and ordinary men and women.

Brown - the mixture of red and green - represents the different management regimes that have created the Park over the last century, in conflict and co-operation with local people, governments and agricultural interests. These materials are strongly represented in About iSimangaliso.

Tour guides in the iSimangaliso Park are required to integrate the red, green and brown materials in the presentation of the Park to visitors and tourists.

Outside of the descriptions of science, a good fact is hard to find. There is no one body of unified knowledge about the Park and its surrounds that can be made into one coherent story. These materials draw on voices from different knowledge traditions: conservation management, biophysical descriptions, historical fragments, oral histories collected from local people - land

1 claimants, healers, farmers, conservationists - as well as autobiography and local history - which record stories of the area. At the heart of the materials is a gap: there is no record of the voices of the original owners of the land. About iSimangaliso will remain a partial and incomplete collection of materials about the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and its surrounding areas that will need constant change and update.

Names and naming The iSimangaliso area borders Mozambique and Swaziland, and in the nineteenth century was the northern border of the Zulu Kingdom. The various names of the area and people reflect the creation of a cultural landscape. A recent interview with a land claimant gives very local names such as kwaGwalabanda and kwaMashude. The colonials and the subsequent white settler government referred to the area as Northern Zululand, and later, as the Homeland of KwaZulu. Since 1994 it has become Northern KwaZulu Natal; its new municipal name is uMkhanyakhude (a tree that shines in the dark: the Fever Tree). The area is also known as Maputaland in some contexts, after the broad coastal plain which stretches across southern Mozambique and north-eastern KwaZulu Natal, or Tongaland/Thongaland, after the local language, spoken by those who may now prefer to identify as "Zulu". Some alternative names for local people are Tembe-Tonga, Tsonga, Ronga, and Gonda. The area is sometimes referred to, generically, as St Lucia. Some small towns also have alternative names; Manguzi is sometimes called KwaNgwanase, for example. The name of the Park has changed recently from the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park Authority is now the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority.

2 Plant and animal names in “About iSimangaliso”

In “About iSimangaliso” we use two types of names to identify plants and animals. The first is the common name used by people of the area, the region or the country, in Zulu, Afrikaans or English. We also use the scientific name of each species, its binomial Latin name, so that identification across regions and countries is both possible and consistent. The scientific study of characteristics, relationships and naming of animals and plants is called taxonomy or systematics. Carl von Linné (also known as Linnaeus) was the originator of a system by which all living organisms are given a two-part Latin name, or binomial, in 1735, when he published a book named Systema Naturae (the System of Nature) in the Netherlands. In this book he presented a new classification for what he described as the three kingdoms of nature: the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom and the kingdom of stones, or minerals. The book attracted much attention among the scientists of the time and his binomial (two name) system is still in use. The first edition of Systema Naturae had only eleven pages. Linnaeus later published new editions, each time with new plant and animal species. In the 10th edition he decided that the whale was a mammal, not a fish, and that on the available evidence, humans were part of the same group as monkeys. The 13th edition was published in 1770 and had 3000 pages. In the 21st century the number of species described to science has become too large to be assembled in one book, but species new to science are still described and named using the Linnaean system. Linnaeus grouped broadly similar organisms together and then refined the groupings by assigning the organisms to progressively smaller groups with more and more in common. He called the largest classificatory group a kingdom. There are currently five recognized kingdoms, each with different characteristics: Monera (bacteria and viruses), Protista (algae and protozoans), Fungi (mushrooms and allies), Plantae (plants) and Animalia (animals). Modern classification recognizes six other primary divisions that descend in ordered steps beneath each kingdom to provide an increasingly detailed and exact naming of an animal or a plant. These are: Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and finally Species. Species is the most specific way of describing an animal or plant.

Human beings, for example, may be described thus: Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata (having a spinal cord) Class: Mammalia (mammal, a warm-blooded animal that suckles its young) Order: Primates (characterised by a refined development of the hands and feet, a shortened snout, and a large brain). Family: Hominidae (the natural family of primates including modern man and the extinct immediate ancestors of man). Genus: Homo (man) Species: sapiens (wise).

3 The first letter of the generic (Genus) name is always capitalised, while the specific (Species) name is always in lower case. The Generic and Specific names may be written in italics or underlined. According to this convention, our scientific name is Homo sapiens, or Homo sapiens. The Marula tree’s binomial is Sclerocarya birrea or Sclerocarya birrea.

Linnaeus lived before Darwin. Darwin’s book, The Origin of Species, was published in 1859. Linnaeus’s groupings have been revised to take account of Darwin’s theory of evolution and to reflect ancestral relations between organisms. Molecular phylogenetics, which uses DNA sequences as data, has driven many recent revisions of the system.

This article was based on a contribution written by Professor Renzo Perissinotto.

Check your understanding 1. What are the two types of names used to identify plants and animals in “About iSimangaliso”? 2. Why do we use these two types of names? 3. Who invented this binomial system, and when? 4. How many Kingdoms are currently recognized in this system of taxonomy? 5. Which organisms are placed in the Kingdom Monera? 6. In which Family does this system place modern human beings? 7. What is a mammal? Name 5 mammals that can be found in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

Apply your knowledge 1. Which other Primate is native to iSimangaliso, apart from human beings?

4 Section 1: Introduction to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park

‘Poverty amidst Plenty’: Socio-Economic Profile of the Umkhanyakude District Municipality

The iSimangaliso Wetland Park is physically located within the uMkhanyakude District Municipality. The ecological wealth of the Park is in striking contrast to the poverty of the people of the district. iSimangaliso is located within the Umkhanyakude District Municipality, which is made up of five local municipalities. These are: Big 5 False Bay, Hlabisa, Jozini, Mtubatuba, and Umhlabuyalingana.

The Umkhanyakude District Municipality is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped district municipalities in South Africa. The socio-economic conditions in this area are an outcome of the 20th century history of South Africa. After the defeat of the Zulu Kingdom, Britain annexed Zululand, and in 1897 demarcated "reserves" (areas set aside for rural people whose land had been alienated). Successive white governments continued the process of land alienation, levying taxes which forced the men of the area to join the migrant labour force that built South Africa's mines, plantations and cities, leaving their own homesteads short of labour. Forced removals, from the 1950's to the 1980's, created densely populated zones of poverty far from urban areas. In 1977 the area became part of the KwaZulu "homeland" under the apartheid government. Infrastructure development and the provision of basic social services (housing, education, health services, clean water and sanitation) were systematically neglected for many decades.

As one of the most disadvantaged areas of the old KwaZulu homeland, the area was targeted, after the first democratic election, for urgent intervention. In 1996, the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative was established as a tripartite project with bordering countries Swaziland and Mozambique to lay the basis for the development of tourism in the area. (iSimangaliso is the anchor project of the LSDI). Among the achievements of the LSDI was the building of roads, particularly the N2, which allowed much greater access to services and encouraged both trade and tourism in the area, and

5 the very successful anti-malaria campaign, which has decreased the incidence of malaria dramatically.

The Umkhanyakude District Municipality is a democratically elected organ of local government, required to submit Integrated Development Plans to national government. However, the district includes large areas of "communal" land, still de facto ruled by traditional authorities. According to the 2001 census, the population of the municipality is 566 800. Ninety eight percent of the population spoke Zulu as a first language; 93% were classified as 'rural". Population growth was amongst the highest in the country. KwaZulu-Natal has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Most of the broader District Municipality falls within South Africa’s malaria high-risk area (zones that lie adjacent to the Mozambique and Swaziland borders), although an ongoing malaria reduction programme keeps malaria incidence down. The area is also a high-risk bilharzia zone. Bilharzia is strongly linked to poor educational achievement in children.

The Umkhanyakude District has a relatively low number of people in the economically active age group of 18 – 64 years. This is made worse by the migration of people of working age to the urban and industrial areas. The male/female ratio is 45.2% (male) to 54.8% (female).

Over 80% of households live below the poverty line, earning less than R5000 per year. Only13% of the economically active population is formally employed (in jobs that are regulated by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act). The majority of households are dependent on the informal economy (they are self-employed, or work seasonally on the farms or commercial plantations, or work on poverty relief public works programmes funded by government, building infrastructure or clearing aliens in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park). Their enterprises are ‘survivalist’ in nature. The number of dependents on each member of the economically active age group is very high.

Levels of adult literacy are very low. Twenty per cent of the residents of the district have had no schooling. There are high concentrations of children of school-going age, but in the uMkhanyakhude District Municipality, over 25% of school age children do not attend school. The education

6 infrastructure is very poor; there may be over 50 pupils per classroom, sometimes as many as 70. There are very low levels of enrolment in secondary schools in the municipality. There are few matriculants in the adult population. Only 1, 5% of the entire population has progressed to tertiary education.

There are also very low levels of service delivery in the district. Access to basic services such as water, sanitation and refuse removal has a direct affect on health and education. Most households do not have these basic services. As many as 56% of the people of the district have no access to piped water, while 18% have to walk further than 200m to access water. Only about 5% have piped water inside their dwellings.

Many people in the area are living with HIV/Aids. An ambitious international Aids research project, the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies, has worked in the area researching the disease for 10 years and offers antiretroviral treatment.

Check your understanding 1. What are the five local municipalities that make up the uMkhanyakhude District Municipality? 2. Approximately how many people live in and around the Park? 3. What language do the great majority of people outside the Park speak? 4. Although the population growth is very high, what has caused it to slow down in recent years?

7 5. Would a high population growth rate result in more old or young people living in the area? 6. The male/female ratio is 45.2% (male) to 54.8% (female). Historically, why are there more females living in the surrounding areas? 7. Provide two key statistics that reveal the level of poverty in the area. 8. What does it mean that there is a high level of ‘dependency’ in the area? 9. Give five characteristics to illustrate the low level of education in the surrounding areas. 10. How many people have no access to piped water? 11. What programme has the government set up to address the problems of poverty and unemployment in the adjacent areas? 12. Which neighbouring countries are working with South Africa to develop the broader region?

Apply your learning 1. The Umkhanyakhude District Municipality the one of the poorest and most underdeveloped district municipalities in South Africa. From your understanding of the history of this area provide an explanation for this.

2. The areas surrounding the Park are ‘communal land’. What two levels of leadership would you expect to find in the area?

3. As a tour guide how would you convey a sense of the ‘poverty amongst plenty’ to a group of visitors on an Eastern Shores trip?

8 The first World Heritage Site in South Africa iSimangaliso Wetland Park was the first site to be declared a World Heritage Site in South Africa because of its biodiversity, outstanding examples of ecological processes and its ‘superlative natural phenomena and scenic beauty'.

An aerial view of the coastal dunes and the mouth of Kosi Bay mouth and lake showing the ‘Superlative natural phenomena and scenic beauty’ of the Park (photo: Debbie Cooper)

The beauty and biological wealth of the greater iSimangaliso area was recognised by its proclamation as one of the first World Heritage Sites in South Africa. iSimangaliso Wetland Park was entered on the World Heritage List in 1999.

What is a World Heritage Site? The member states of UNESCO adopted the World Heritage Convention in 1972. Countries who sign the Convention agree to work together to identify, protect, conserve and present the world's irreplaceable cultural and natural heritage. While respecting national independence, the Convention recognises that there are some places on earth that are important to all the people of the world. Member states protect these outstanding sites in their country.

9 All countries have places of local or national heritage significance that are sources of national pride, but sites chosen for World Heritage listing represent, according to a set of agreed criteria, the best examples of cultural and natural heritage in the world. It is the universal value of World Heritage Sites, transcending national values, that makes a site in Egypt important to the people of Indonesia, Argentina and Australia, as well as to Egyptians. World heritage status places a particular responsibility for stewardship of World Heritage Sites on member states and site managers by recognising that all the people of the world have an interest in their survival.

By 2007, 830 sites had been granted world heritage status. The World Heritage List includes the Taj Mahal (India), the Great Wall (China), the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador), the Vatican City (Holy See), Mount Kenya National Park (Kenya), Westminster Abbey (United Kingdom) and the Grand Canyon (USA).

In South Africa, Robben Island in the Western Cape, the Fossil Hominid Sites of Sterkfontein in Gauteng (the Cradle of Humankind), the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park in KwaZulu-Natal, the Fossil Hominid Sites of Sterkfontein, Swartkrans, Kromdraai, and Environs, the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape, the Cape Floral Region Protected Areas, and the uKhahlamba / Drakensberg Park have all been declared World Heritage Sites.

Why was the iSimangaliso Wetland Park chosen? Ten natural and cultural values have been identified which are used as criteria for choosing World Heritage Sites. A site has to fulfil only one criterion to be selected as a World Heritage Site. iSimangaliso was listed on the World Heritage List for three of the ten values recognised by the Convention. These are: 1. Outstanding examples of ecological processes (criteria vii), 2. Superlative natural phenomena and scenic beauty (criteria ix), and 3. Exceptional biodiversity and threatened species (criteria x).

South Africa’s World Heritage Convention Act South Africa signed the World Heritage Convention in 1997. In 1999, government developed special legislation, the World Heritage Convention Act (Act 49 of 1999), which incorporates the World Heritage Convention into South African law, in order to make sure that the principles and values of the Convention are applied to South Africa’s World Heritage Sites.

The Act brings a South African perspective to the management of World Heritage Sites by acknowledging the urgent national need for development and poverty alleviation. The Act requires government to find innovative and effective ways of combining the conservation of South Africa's extraordinary endowment of natural resources with wealth-creating sustainable economic

10 development. It is this integration of conservation and development that makes World Heritage Sites such as iSimangaliso a "new model in protected area management".

South Africa’s World Heritage Convention Act supports the World Heritage Convention by placing a national obligation on the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority to present, promote and conserve the Park’s natural and cultural heritage. Apart from its extraordinary beauty and irreplaceable biodiversity, the Park is the largest protected area of recorded and potential Stone Age and Iron Age sites in South Africa. These sites provide significant evidence of the presence of people for thousands of years in the area, and important insights into how they lived in southeast Africa over time. The communities living in and around iSimangaliso today have a rich relationship with the land and natural environment. Cultural traditions, land use management practices and indigenous knowledge systems continue to shape the current environment. Less tangible but equally important are resources such as significant sacred spaces, oral traditions and rituals.

Check your understanding 1. What is the name of the international body to which countries have to apply to have their heritage sites listed? 2. What is the name of the Convention that South Africa signed in order to agree to protect heritage sites in our country? 3. What legislation did South Africa put in place to create World Heritage Sites in South Africa and when was it established? 4. What is the meaning of "outstanding universal value”? 5. What types of values may World Heritage Sites be listed for? 6. Name five World Heritage Sites in South Africa. 7. Name the three natural values for which the iSimangaliso Wetland Park was listed. 8. What is the special contribution of South African World Heritage legislation to the management of world heritage sites?

Glossary Stone Age There is evidence that people in southern Africa made tools from stone (such as beautifully crafted knives) at least 80 000 years ago. Iron Age People started to forge iron to make tools and weapons in southern Africa about 1800 years ago. Heritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations.

Apply your learning

11 1. Why do you think South Africa signed the international World Heritage Convention? 2. ‘iSimangaliso belongs to everyone in the world’. Discuss this statement. 3. Why did South Africa’s World Heritage Act introduce an approach that sets out to combine conservation and economic development? 4. Discuss how you would present a group of tourists with the interesting fact that the Park provides a "new model in protected area management". 5. What are the advantages for South Africa of having World Heritage Sites?

12 iSimangaliso’s "sense of place"

One of the reasons why the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is valued is because of its ‘sense of place', which is the way in which individuals and groups attach value to the Park. People place different meanings on places according to their traditions and cultural values.

When the Leon Commission recommended that the government should not allow the mining of the Eastern Shores and that the iSimangaliso Wetland Park should be developed as an eco-tourism destination, the Commission made specific reference to the unique ‘sense of place’ of iSimangaliso. A specialist report on iSimangaliso’s “sense of place” was drawn up as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) recommended by Cabinet in 1989 in response to Richards Bay Minerals’ application to mine the dunes on the Eastern Shores. This was a four year study involving much public participation and the first of its kind.1 The Review Panel’s recommendations were released in December 1993. In 1996 government decided to accept these recommendations. Government decided that mining the dunes would threaten the “sense of place” created by superlative natural beauty of the unique marine, beach, lake, estuary, wetlands, dune and inland ecosystems of iSimangaliso as a whole.

Many South Africans value St Lucia for its intangible benefits, captured in the notion of 'the sense of place'. Views expressed by interviews with land claimants, tourists and visitors, and by many people who attended the public hearings spoke of the symbolic value attached to the environment as they experienced it and claimed the right to determine the decision on land use, in favour of excluding mining. The Review Panel decided that the land-use proposals would affect the whole area, not just the Eastern Shores and its immediate environment.

The Commission pointed out that many human societies identify certain places and spaces as sacred ("special", "rare", "holy"). Mosques, temples, churches, graveyards, sacred trees and forests, certain mountains, are "charged with an untouchable character" because of the essence or "spirit" - however defined - which dwells within them.

1 F.J. Kruger, B.W. van Wilgen, A.v.B. Weaver and T. Greyling, Sustainable development and the environment: lessons from the St Lucia Environmental Impact Assessment, South African Journal of Science Vol.93 January 1997

13 Some societies believe that remote natural places such as this have a ‘sense of place’ or ‘sacred spirit’.

In western society, there is a long tradition of seeing "nature" - particularly in remote places - as being charged with a sacred spirit, the "spirit of the place." For such people, the spectacular beauty of the landscape and the sense of being enfolded within myriad forms of life makes the Park very precious. (See Wilderness in History, and Conservationists: Ian Player). For land claimants, "sense of place" is experienced not only as the source of all practical life and livelihood but as a spiritual relationship emanating from the many years of ritual and religious activity that has taken place on the land, and as the burial place of ancestors.

Some have drawn attention to the healing and calming effect that the wilderness has on many people, or the importance to the planet as a whole that such complex and rich ecological systems continue to exist.

While these perceptions, created by religion, culture, science, tradition and personal belief are deeply subjective, people from many different backgrounds recognise and value the ‘sense of place’ of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

14 Kosi Bay estuary mouth and lake system with the age- old tradition of fish traps passed down from generation to generation.

However defined or experienced, the ‘sense of place’ of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is an important cultural value and needs to be respected, promoted and presented to both local people and visitors.

Check your understanding 1. What is an EIA? 2. Why did the government of the day decide that an EIA was necessary? 3. Which Commission recommended that the government should not allow the mining of the Eastern Shores and that the iSimangaliso Wetland Park should be developed as an eco- tourism destination? 4. When were the Review Panel’s recommendations released? 5. When did the new government decide to accept these recommendations, and why?

Apply your learning 1. The idea of a ‘sense of place’ is a subjective perception. Discuss what you understand by the meaning of ‘subjective’. 2. What does the iSimangaliso Wetland Park mean to you? Does it have a ‘sense of place’? Describe as a tour guide how you would describe what this Park means to different people.

15 A new model for Protected Area development: Benefits beyond Boundaries

The iSimangaliso Wetland Park recognises that it is impossible to conserve the natural environment without putting the needs of the people who live in that environment at the centre of the conservation strategy. iSimangaliso represents a new model for Protected Area development and management in southern Africa. Government recognises that to conserve the natural environment, the needs of the people who live there must also be recognised. The vision of the iSimangaliso Authority is to balance the conservation of the ecological and cultural wealth of the area with equitable and sustainable use of its natural and cultural resources.

Alongside agriculture, tourism is recognised as the lead economic driver of the region and iSimangaliso is the key tourism attraction. The existence of iSimangaliso stimulates tourism in the area and in the region as a whole, bringing many business opportunities and jobs. Its international status as a World Heritage Site helps government to market South Africa as a tourism destination and to raise money from international donors for social and economic development. Tourism development generates benefits based on iSimangaliso’s natural and cultural wealth, bringing economic empowerment and job creation to neighbouring communities and land claimants.

This approach - ‘Benefits beyond Boundaries’ - is currently promoted by international organisations such as UNESCO, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the World Heritage Convention (WHC). ‘Benefits beyond Boundaries’ was the theme of the World Parks Congress of 2003.

Forging strong regional linkages to overcome poverty Ending the paradox of poverty amongst natural plenty depends on forging strong regional economic linkages. iSimangaliso is a key eco-tourism resource for the uMkhanyakude district and plays an important role in regional and provincial economic growth initiatives. Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCA) are being implemented across Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa, as well as tourism initiatives such as the Lubombo Route, which link all three countries. The Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI), which preceded the establishment of iSimangaliso and the iSimangaliso Authority, built the new Hluhluwe-to-Mozambique border road, upgraded the N2, opened new border posts and implemented a successful malaria programme that has reduced the prevalence of malaria in the South African section of the region by over 96%. Lake St Lucia is now malaria-free for the first time in history.

16 Land Care contracts are awarded to local SMME’s employing both land claimants and other iSimangaliso neighbours: 40% of contractors and 60% of people employed are women. Alien plants degrade ecosystem integrity, cover about 10 million hectares of land in South Africa, and represent one of the foremost threats to biodiversity. From left to right are Philisiwe Gumede, Thuleleni Msane, Fikile Ngobese, Agnes Nxumalo, Cecilia Dube, Bongiwe Buthelezi and Dudu Mdladla.

Land claimant communities are the custodians of iSimangaliso Land claimant communities are the descendents of the original inhabitants of the land. The iSimangaliso Authority supports the Regional Land Claims Commission to settle land claims that have been lodged on land in iSimangaliso. Together with land claimants, the iSimangaliso Authority takes responsibility for the implementation of settlement and co-management agreements. Title to land within a protected area is transferred to successful claimants but no physical occupation of the land takes place and the land continues to be managed as an integral part of iSimangaliso. Each settlement agreement contains arrangements for compensation and benefits to land owners. Co- management agreements are also negotiated with landowners.

Community based natural resource management iSimangaliso provides community access to a range of natural resources through the Community Based Natural Resource Management programme. The depletion of natural resources in communal areas surrounding parks has increased pressure on the resources inside iSimangaliso. Many households living in or adjacent to iSimangaliso are dependant for survival on fish and mussels, ilala palm and wood for building, fuel wood and carving, grasslands for grazing and incema for craft production. Plans for sustainable natural resource use are developed in terms of environmental

17 legislation and in consultation with beneficiary communities as a component of the Local Area Plan. Three thousand five hundred community members, most of them women, harvest incema annually in iSimangaliso. The iSimangaliso Authority monitors use for sustainability and promotes value- adding strategies through the craft programme.

Mrs Ngwane (secretary), Mrs Aslina Mdletshe (chair: Vuzakhe garden) and Mrs Hlabisa (committee member) with fresh vegetables from their own gardens.

Protecting swamp forest by improving food security in the area The iSimangaliso Authority has initiated an agricultural programme to improve food security in the area and thus protect vulnerable Coastal Peat Swamp Forest. The programme aims to improve the poor local soils and provide access to water, fencing, seeds, training, extension services and enterprise development skills. Coastal Peat Swamp Forests are highly threatened wetland ecosystems in South Africa and occur only in isolated patches. Farmers have damaged many of these remarkable wetlands by partially draining and burning the existing vegetation and the peat to increase soil fertility. Although these wetlands support families that supply local and regional markets with bananas and other fruits and vegetables, farming in swamp forests is environmentally unsustainable because farmers do not have the luxury of allowing the land to rest, and more and more swamp forest are cleared to maintain production.

Empowerment and transformation in iSimangaliso The goals of empowerment and transformation cut across all the key drivers of the iSimangaliso Authority's strategy. Land claimant groups and communities living inside and adjacent to iSimangaliso are the primary beneficiaries of the equity partnerships, income generation and job opportunities, training, capacity building and mentoring elements of each development.

18 Land care programmes create many jobs One of the ways in which the iSimangaliso Authority protects world heritage values is through land care programmes. It contracts community-based SMMEs to clear aliens and rehabilitate land reclaimed from commercial forestry. More than half of the people employed are women. The number of temporary jobs created through these programmes is substantial.

New infrastructure

New infrastructure development offers opportunities for community-based contractors The construction and maintenance of fences, roads, field-ranger camps, picnic sites, park furniture, hides, public toilets and view points makes an important contribution to local livelihoods by providing opportunities for community based contractors to supply these services and create local jobs.

New infrastructure improves visitor experience while supporting improved and effective Park management. In addition to new investments in tourism, old facilities are continually upgraded, in preparation for 2010 and beyond.

Opportunities for local entrepreneurs The iSimangaliso Authority encourages private-sector innovation, initiative and expertise. iSimangaliso’s commercial strategy reinforces existing tourism businesses and creates conditions for the emergence of new products and markets. Investment benefits tourists by providing services that offer value for money, and concession fees contribute towards the costs of park management. Investment must contribute towards social transformation and economic empowerment, and must be environmentally sustainable.

The iSimangaliso Authority offers local entrepreneurs activity concessions in the Park. A small business development programme supports community-based entrepreneurs to improve their business skills and, ultimately, tender for these concessions. Other skills development programmes - in tourism, hospitality and guiding – have enabled local people to take up jobs in the local tourism industry.

Mandatory partnerships The empowerment of land claimants and communities living in and around iSimangaliso as mandatory BEE partners is a key aspect of the iSimangaliso Authority's commercial policy. Equity partnerships between the private sector and mandatory community partners (at rates of between 20% and 63%), job creation and employment equity in tourism facilities and activities, and the procurement of goods and services from local entrepreneurs and small businesses are central to transformation of the tourism sector.

Linking women crafters to urban markets

19 A craft programme focused on product and organisation development links about 300 women crafters to a higher value urban market that includes an important contract with Mr Price Home and other retail outlets.

Heritage is a vital resource The Cultural Heritage programme supports local and emerging tour guides to interpret the natural and cultural landscape, as well as five drama groups to access temporary income generation opportunities at tourism facilities.

Everyone is welcome to visit iSimangaliso Wetland Park Thousands of tourists and visitors from South Africa and many other countries visit iSimangaliso each year. The iSimangaliso Authority maintains public access for all to the Park through its entry fee pricing strategy and the provision of accommodation and recreational facilities at affordable prices. For those visiting iSimangaliso overnight there is a range of accommodation, from rustic trail camps to up-market lodges. iSimangaliso also provides a wide range of recreational facilities for day visitors.

Schools and members of neighbouring communities are offered special programmes in the Park, and on New Years Day it is customary to give visitors free access to popular destinations within iSimangaliso.

Thembi Nkanini from KwaJobe produces a basket to fill an order from Mr Price.

20 Glossary Alien plant: an invasive, rapidly growing plant not endemic to the environment, often introduced by mistake from another country or region, that "takes over" and kills endemic plants that form the basis of an ecosystem's food chain. They are difficult to clear.

Infrastructure: the basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community, such as roads and bridges, transport and communications systems, water and power lines, and public institutions including schools, hospitals and post offices.

Check your understanding 1. What is the new approach to Protected Area management? 2. How does it differ from previous approaches to the management of Protected Areas? 3. Name three international organisations that support this new model. 4. What role does tourism play in the development of the area? 5. What was the theme of the last World Parks Congress in 2003? 6. Name four achievements of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI). 7. Name three skills development programmes operating through iSimangaliso. 8. What is a Local Area Plan? 9. Why are land claimants the beneficiaries of many of the programmes that have been set up? 10. What is a “mandatory partnership”? 11. What is a TFCA, and what benefits is it designed to bring? 12. How many women harvest incema annually in the Park? 13. Give five examples of “infrastructure” in the Park. How do infrastructure programmes benefit local communities?

Apply your learning 1. How would you explain ‘the new model’ of Park management to visitors to the Park? 2. Discuss ways in which you could bring the ‘benefits beyond boundaries’ policy into your itinerary when you are guiding a group of tourists in the Park. 3. One of the success stories of the Park is the alien plants clearance programme. Prepare a detailed ‘story’ that you could tell a group of tourists about the contracts to clear aliens and rehabilitate land reclaimed from commercial forestry to illustrate the impact of the ‘benefits beyond boundaries’ approach on local communities.

21 22 Malaria

The southern section of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is now a malaria free zone, and malaria in Kosi Bay has been greatly reduced. St Lucia is now entirely malaria- free. However, it is important to understand the causes of this disease, what areas it is still found in, and what one can do to both prevent and cure the disease.

Malaria is a disease carried by the female Anopheles mosquito that can cause serious illness and death if not treated in time. It has been described as "a worldwide pandemic of staggering proportions" causing at least one million deaths each year. Malaria occurs along the eastern low-lying regions of southern Africa. The province of KwaZulu Natal is at the southern end of this malaria belt.

Malaria is now regarded as a regional rather than a country-specific problem. Through the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative’s (LSDI) implementation of a coordinated strategy (with Swaziland and Mozambique), the prevalence of the disease has been dramatically reduced. Implementing malaria control interventions in southern Mozambique has greatly reduced malaria transmission in northern KwaZulu Natal, and St Lucia is now entirely malaria free.

Spraying under the roof eaves has given more than half a million people protection from malaria.

Tourism is a major development strategy for the iSimangaliso area. It is difficult to attract tourists to an area in which they may succumb to a life-threatening disease. Decreasing the risk of malaria encourages tourism and the many economic benefits it brings to the area.

23 Apart from vastly improving the quality of people’s everyday lives (and preventing tragically unnecessary death), decreasing the burden of disease enables the people of the area to respond to the new economic opportunities that the increased investment in the area since 1999 has brought. The very small numbers of people who still contract malaria in KwaZulu Natal tend to live in the north of the province where seasonal epidemics correspond to the wetter, warmer time of the year. Malaria case numbers increase during the hot and humid rainy season and peak in April and May, after which they decrease with the onset of the cooler, dry winter months.

The causes of malaria Malaria is caused by a parasite whose life cycle is only completed if it spends time inside humans and inside the body of the female Anopheles mosquito. The female Anopheles mosquito bites humans to obtain the blood that enables her eggs to develop. Eggs are laid on the surface of standing water. The hatchlings develop into larvae and then emerge as adult mosquitoes.

The malaria parasites enter the female mosquitoes’ body in the blood that she sucks from humans who already have the parasite in their blood. The parasites are then injected back into humans when the mosquito bites them. Inside humans, the parasites spend time in the liver and then in the red blood cells. They eventually rupture the blood cell wall and are released into the blood stream. At this point, about 14 days after being infected, the victim experiences a range of symptoms including sweats, shivers and fevers which can cause serious illness and death if not treated in time. Repeated infections of malaria can result in the development of some immunity in people who survive malaria.

Before Sir Ronald Ross established the roles of the malaria parasite and parasite-carrying mosquitoes in causing malaria in 1897, many ideas about the cause of malaria had flourished in southern Africa. People had associated malaria with night mists and evil spirits; the early European settlers thought malaria was associated with the fever tree (Acacia xanthophyllous, umkhanyakhude) because it was found in the same regions in which malaria occurred. The settlers also noticed that people who lived at lower altitudes were at greater risk of getting malaria than those who lived higher up, and built their settlements on mountain slopes rather than in the valleys close to water.

Malaria in South Africa Sporadic malaria epidemics have been recorded in South Africa as far south as Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape. An epidemic in Durban in 1902 caused 4,177 cases of malaria; 42 people died. The 1932 malaria season was the worst in recorded history in the province. Out of a population of one million people, an estimated 22 000 died. The state responded by implementing a Malaria Control Programme in 1933. As a result of the scientific evidence that mosquitoes rested and fed on

24 humans indoors, the programme successfully experimented with the use of an insecticide spray (made of a mix of liquid pyrethrum and paraffin) that was applied to the inner walls of houses. This approach became the global standard for malaria control, although DDT, a powerful insecticide that is also poisonous to humans and animals, soon replaced the pyrethrum/paraffin mix. Although DDT has been banned for agricultural and domestic uses for a number of years in South Africa, the profound impact of the malaria programme in South and southern Africa has lead to the recent decision by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to reverse its previous decisions and endorse residual spraying with DDT in countries that have a severe problem with malaria. While DDT is still important for mosquito control in northern KwaZulu Natal there has been much work done on artemisinin-based combination therapy and experimentation with the use of another insecticide, Deltamethrin.

Malaria and drug resistance The first anti-malaria drug, quinine, is a derived from the bark of a tree. One of the ongoing challenges in the treatment of malaria is that the parasite quickly becomes resistant to the drugs used to treat it. Between 1996 and 2000, the incidence of malaria in South Africa, and in northern KwaZulu-Natal in particular, increased dramatically. In 1995 there were 5 991 notified malaria cases in South Africa; in 2000 there were 61 934. Ndumo Clinic, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, is a satellite clinic of Mosvold Hospital situated in an area of high malaria incidence. The number of malaria cases detected at the clinic increased from 637 in 1995 to 30 885 in 20002. Doctors quickly established that the drug used as a standard treatment no longer worked to treat malaria. The Department of Health changed the standard drug, and by January 2002 there were only 31 cases of malaria reported at Ndumo. By 2005, the incidence of malaria had decreased to 3 – 6 per thousand people. These figures represent a dramatic and very recent reduction of suffering and death amongst poor rural people.

Overcoming malaria The very successful malaria intervention strategy currently implemented by the Malaria Control Programme - one of the key projects of the LSDI – has adopted a multi-pronged approach that integrates the efforts of a number of government departments. The programme targets the vector mosquito through indoor spraying, and also uses appropriate drugs to kill the malaria parasite in the body of the victim. Treatment for malaria is provided free of charge at all clinics in the area. Community education programmes encourage people to seek medical assistance as soon as the

2 Williams. V, Medical Manager, Mosvold Hospital http://www.e-doc.co.za/newedoc

25 signs and symptoms appear in order to prevent the disease from progressing to a serious stage. A Primary Health Care approach to malaria control places emphasis on community based programmes that facilitate the use of insecticide treated bed nets in high-risk areas.

People travelling into the high-risk areas near the Mozambican border are now advised to take the medication currently advised, and to continue treatment for a month after leaving the area.

This article is based on a contribution from Karrin Martin, Rajendra Maharaj and Natasia Morris of the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Check your understanding 1. How many people die from malaria each year? 2. Where is the malaria belt in southern Africa? 3. Is there malaria at St Lucia and along the Eastern Shores? 4. Which part of KwaZulu Natal is a malaria risk zone? 5. How has the Malaria Control Programme drastically reduced malaria in KwaZulu Natal? 6. What are the main benefits to the region of reducing malaria risk? 7. At what time of the year are people at risk of contracting malaria in certain areas? 8. What is the scientific name of the mosquito that causes malaria in KwaZulu-Natal? 9. When would a person start to feel ill from malaria and what are the symptoms? 10. How far south of the Park was the disease of malaria experienced before the first malaria control programme was established in 1933? 11. What was the first method of controlling malaria? What method of control replaced this early method? 12. Why does the drug used to treat malaria constantly change? 13. What was the early medicine taken by the settlers to prevent malaria? 14. Why is insecticide sprayed on the indoor walls of homes? 15. Besides the spraying of insecticides what other methods are used to prevent local people living in malaria risk areas from dying of malaria? 16. How did the ‘fever tree’ get its name?

Apply your learning 1. How would you explain the life cycle of the mosquito to a group of tourists? 2. In what way could you reduce the alarm of tourists who arrive in the Park and are very concerned about contracting malaria? 3. Develop an interesting ‘story’ to tell a group of tourists about the early beliefs about malaria among the colonial settlers and local people before it was discovered that it was the Anopheles mosquito that was the cause of the disease.

26 4. The Zulu name for ‘fever tree’, Umkhanyakude, is the name of the District Municipality in which the iSimangaliso Wetland Park lies. What does this Zulu word mean? Develop an interesting story about this word, the area and its association with fever trees.

27 Section 2: Topics

Bats of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park

Rufous hairy bat (Myotis bocagei)

Because they are small and nocturnal, people do not often see or notice bats, yet they exist in nearly every part of the world and represent a quarter of the world’s mammal species. In South Africa we have 56 of the world’s 1,011 bat species. There are 27 species of bat in KwaZulu Natal. Three of these bats - the Trident bat, the Large-eared free-tailed bat and Rendall’s serotine - are protected on the same schedule as the Black Rhino. iSimangaliso has a large and interesting bat population that includes several endangered species. In 2003, scientists working in the uMkhuze section of the Park recorded the Rufous Hairy bat (myotis bocagei) and the Least Fruit bat (Epomorphous wahlbergi) for the first time. There is a growing interest in bats worldwide and in many countries bats are becoming tourist attractions in their own right.

Bats come in all shapes and sizes, from giant fruit bats to tiny pipistrelles. The larger fruit bats have dog-like faces and large eyes. The smaller insect-eating bats have smaller noses and larger ears. These are the bats that are able to find their way by hearing, in a process known as echolocation.

28 Bats are mammals, which means their young are born live and the mothers feed them milk in the same way as human mothers do. Bats generally have only one baby a year, and for their size have one of the slowest rates of reproduction of any mammal. Although they are known as nocturnal (active at night), most bats will fly only for the first hour or two after dusk, and again just before dawn. Fruit bats are different in that they are active at night. Occasionally, at the beginning of winter, bats can be seen flying in almost full daylight.

Fruit bats, as their name suggests, eat fruit or lick nectar from flowers. Often the fruit is crushed and only the juices consumed. The teeth are adapted to bite through hard fruit skins. Large fruit bats must land in order to eat fruit, while the smaller species are able to hover with flapping wings in front of a flower or fruit. Fruit bats aid the distribution of plants by spitting the seeds or eliminating them elsewhere. Some fruit bats pollinate visited plants. They bear long tongues that are inserted deep into the flower; pollen thereby passed to the bat is then transported to the next blossom visited. Plants banana, peach, date, avocado, mango, guava, cashews and figs all rely on fruit bats for pollination and thus reproduction.

Bats play a vitally important role in maintaining the health of ecosystems. An insect bat weighing 30 grams can eat up to 300 insects a night. Multiply this by the number of bats in a roost (from 10 to 5000) and you have an idea of the impact they have on insect populations.

To many humans, bats are associated with dread; they are said to carry dirt, disease and bad omens. But, in reality they are simply small animals, and part of the greater environment in which we live. Bats are some of the cleanest mammals in the world, spending a large part of the day grooming. Since they do not make nests they carry very few, if any, parasites.

Most bats in southern Africa give birth to their single young at the beginning of summer (November or December). Bat pups are born pink and mostly hairless and cannot fly until they reach almost adult size, usually between January and March. At this time the babies do sometimes make mistakes while chasing moths or while trying to enter a roof space and may end up inside houses.

Never try to catch a flying bat – try leaving the windows and doors open to allow the bat to fly out on its own or, if it lands on the ground or on a curtain, use an old t-shirt or soft cloth to gently gather the bat up and put it outside somewhere high. Let it fly away on its own.

All mammals may carry disease, but very few of them do, and bats are no exception to this rule. However untrained people should never handle any wild animal as the risk of injury to both animal and human is too high. True rabies has never been found in a bat in Africa but two species have been found that are able to carry a rabies-like virus, although this is very rare. If people leave bats alone then there can be no risk of harm.

29 The free-tailed bats sometimes find the roofs of human buildings good roosting places, which may become a problem as they often live in large colonies. They do not harm the buildings unless the roof leaks, in which case rainwater dripping through bat guano (droppings) can become very smelly. Bats can be removed from a roof in their non-breeding season (May to September) but this is a specialised task and needs expert advice.

The bat caves on the beach north of Mission Rocks are well known to many park visitors. As with all bat roosts, it is vitally important that the bats are not disturbed during the day when they are resting and sometimes in a deep sleep in a condition known as torpor. It is especially important not to disturb the bats during the time when the babies are flightless (between November and March) and during the coldest days of winter. Only people trained to work with bats should enter the caves.

Watching bats leave their roosts at dusk can be an exciting event – sit quietly to the side of the caves and the bats will leave naturally.

Glossary

Nocturnal: at night Some birds roost in trees for the night; bats roost hanging upside down in caves or in the roofs of houses. Rabies is an acute, infectious, often fatal viral disease of most warm-blooded animals (especially cats and dogs) that attacks the central nervous system and is transmitted by the bite of infected animals. Dusk: just after sunset Pollinate: to bring the male part of a plant, the pollen, in contact with the female part of a plant so that the plant can set seeds and reproduce itself. Guano: droppings or excrement

This article is based on a contribution written by Eleanor Richardson (Bats KZN).

Check your understanding 1. How many species of bats are there in the world? 2. How many species in South Africa? 3. How many bat species have been recorded in KwaZulu Natal? 4. Name the two species of bats recorded for the first time in the uMkhuze section of iSimangaliso in 2003. 5. Name the two main types of bats. 6. How do insect-eating bats find their way around when they are flying?

30 7. When are bats most active? 8. How many babies does a female bat have per year? 9. When are the bat pups born? 10. When are they ready to fly? 11. Name two ways in which a fruit bat contributes to the health of the ecosystem of which it is a part. 12. When is it especially important not to disturb bats, and why? is it important not to disturb bats during the day? 13. What time of the year it is especially important not to disturb bats and why? 14. How do bats sleep? 15. People through the ages have tended to view bats in a negative way. Name three common misunderstandings people have about bats.

Apply your learning

1. If you took a group of tourists to the bat cave at Mission Rocks, what time of the day would be the best time to visit the cave, and what specific instructions would you give your tour group? 2. Draw up a set of guidelines for tour guides to be used when taking a group of tourists to observe a colony of bats.

Read more Taylor, P.J. 2000. Bats of Southern Africa. University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg. (online from the UKZN Press website http://www.unpress.co.za/)

31 The climate of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park

The iSimangaliso Wetland Park area experiences weather systems coming from both tropical and temperate regions. During the winter months, from May to July, cold fronts sweep across the subcontinent bringing cool air from the southern ocean and widespread light rainfall that may last for several days. This winter rainfall may contribute as much as 20% of the annual rainfall for the region. In the spring, the strong upper level (jet stream) winds, surface heating, low level inversions and invading frontal systems can create very large thunderstorms that produce heavy rainfall, generally in the late afternoon. Very few of these storms produce hail but can cause flooding in the rivers. The intensity of these storms usually subsides during mid to late summer, but subtropical clouds in late summer continue to provide frequent smaller thunderstorms.

Although rainfall is highly variable (in a pattern that is typical of subtropical regions), about 60% of the rainfall occurs during the spring and summer months, from September to March. Rainfall is highest from January to March and lowest from May to September. Cut-off lows regularly cause heavy rainfall. Rainfall declines steeply from the east to the west of the Park, with a mean annual rainfall of 1,200 mm at Cape Vidal on the coast and 650 mm at uMkhuze in the far west (rising to 800 mm in the Lubombo Mountains).

Episodic floods occasionally occur during the late summer, caused by tropical cyclones – great storms - moving down the Mozambique Channel. These tropical cyclones may bring over 700mm of rain in several days, leading to major flooding that causes great destruction. The most recent of these, Cyclone Demoina, occurred in 1987 and caused widespread flooding and great damage to infrastructure on the east coast of southern Africa, from south of Durban to the north of Mozambique.

Banks of thunderstorms form over the warm offshore ocean current throughout the year and occasionally move inland to provide additional rainfall along the coastal dunes. These convective storms are partially responsible for the very large variation in rainfall from the wet coast to the much drier interior. The annual average rainfall is just over 1000mm but it has been recorded below 500mm and above 3000mm. Droughts and floods caused by cyclones play an important role in the hydro-ecology of the region. Evaporation rates are high, especially during the drier winter and early spring periods. The annual average evaporation in the Lake St Lucia system is approximately 1,300 mm per annum. Because the rate of evaporation is so high, there is an annual negative water balance in the region: more water leaves the system than enters it.

32 In March 2007 Cyclone Gamede in combination with very high Spring tides caused waves of 8-12 metres in height off iSimangaliso. These waves undercut dunes and scoured away sand along much of the KwaZulu-Natal coastline. This picture was taken near the St Lucia Estuary mouth, which was opened by these swells, and remained open for five months iSimangaliso falls within the subtropical climatic zone of Africa. The warming influence of the Agulhas current plays a significant role in moderating temperatures between summer and winter, as well as between daily minimum and maximum temperatures. The summers are hot and the winters mild, with intermittent cold spells caused by the passage of cold fronts from the Antarctic region. While occasional days of great heat occur (the maximum temperature recorded at the uMkhuze weather station was 450C) temperatures in iSimangaliso are usually very moderate. The average summer temperature is 26 degrees Celsius. Relative humidity is high, and for much of the year it exceeds 90%. The high humidity of summer – from January to March - can be very uncomfortable. However, this humidity is often offset by prevailing north easterly winds that blow parallel to the coast for much of the year, peaking in August and troughing in May.

Winters are mild and pleasant, making the Park an ideal beach destination for tourists in both winter and summer. The slight cooling in the early morning results in the formation of dew, creating low- level mist that influences some of the vegetation types in low-lying sections of the coastal forests.

This article was based on a contribution written by Professor Bruce Kelbe.

Check your understanding 1. At what time of the year does it rain in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park? 2. What is the average annual rainfall in the Park? 3. How much does winter rainfall contribute to annual rainfall in the Park? 4. At what time of the year would you expect the biggest thunderstorms to occur? 5. What is the average summer temperature in the Park? 6. When did Cyclone Demoina occur?

33 Apply your knowledge 1. Why does more water leave the system than enter it? 2. Why does the rainfall vary so much from year to year?

34 The coast and shoreline of iSimangaliso

The wave-cut platform at Mission Rocks, one of the few rocky outcrops along the coast of iSimangaliso

South Africa’s coast is 3000km long and stretches from the Mozambique border to the Orange River, which separates Namibia from South Africa. The west coast is washed by the Atlantic Ocean and the east coast by the Indian Ocean. Two large ocean current systems have major influences on the ecology of the South African marine environment: the cold Benguela current, and the warm Agulhas current, which flows past the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The cold Benguela current flows northwards along the western coast of southern Africa, feeding cold nutrient rich water into the shallower coastal zone. The cold sea current cools the air above it. When this cold air passes over the hot land on the coast it does not give up its moisture, which results in the dry desert-like environment characteristic of the western coastal zone.

The warm Agulhas Current is the most important influence on the unique coastal and marine environment of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The Agulhas Current is part of the westward-flowing South Equatorial Current that flows down the east coast of Africa from 27°S to 40°S. It is narrow, swift and strong. As it moves south, it hits African shores north of Madagascar. Here it breaks into north and south-flowing components. Then the Agulhas splits again, flowing in a southerly direction either side of Madagascar before merging again south of the island. The Agulhas sweeps southwards past Mozambique and eastern South Africa, usually some kilometres offshore, bringing with it warm, clear tropical water. (The Agulhas current prevented European sailors from reaching India for many centuries because it flowed against their sailing ships).

35 As a result of the influences of these two ocean currents, the west coast marine environment is cold, murky, and nutrient rich, while the east coast is warm, clear and nutrient poor. As a result, the west coast has lower biodiversity (far fewer species of plants and animals) but each of these species is very productive. The east coast, including iSimangaliso, has much lower levels of productivity but much higher biodiversity – there are many species of plants and animals in the warm clear waters brought by the Agulhas Current.

Coral reefs in the northern section of the Park can exist because of the clear, subtropical water carried south by the warm Agulhas current and the absence of large silt-laden rivers. (The submarine canyons on the continental shelf trap the sediments carried by the Agulhas current). The tiny algae that live within most corals need light to grow and support their coral hosts and cannot live in dirty water or in areas deeper than 30 m.

The sandy shoreline

iSimangaliso’s Cape Vidal beach Due to a slow rise in sea level, a ‘barrier and lagoon’ coastline has developed along the shoreline of the Park. While sea level has fluctuated greatly over millions of years along the iSimangaliso coast, for the last twenty thousand years sea level has been rising slowly at the rate of between one and two millimetres per year.

These historic fluctuations have worked on the sandy shoreline to form a typical ‘barrier and lagoon’ coast, where shallow coastal lakes were closed off from the sea by substantial barriers of sand, or “spits”. The positions and shapes of Lake St Lucia and Kosi Bay were probably established some hundreds of thousands of years ago by coastal erosion and the development of sand dunes during

36 a period of much lower sea levels. As sea levels started to rise, these coastal lakes flooded to reach their present shape and dimensions. At some point in the distant past, the coastal shoreline was probably the Western shoreline of Lake St Lucia.

Coastlines like this are never stable. In geological time, coastal lakes exist only for a short time. Lake St Lucia and Kosi Bay may become filled with sand (through human intervention or natural processes) as they gradually become converted to land; or, if international attempts to reduce CO2 emissions fail, they may be drowned by the more rapidly rising sea levels threatened by man-made global warming.

Dunes and beaches Much of the shoreline of the Wetland Park is backed by a cordon of stable, vegetated sand dunes, usually more than 100m high, and some thousands of years old. These are often fronted on the seaward side by younger, less stable dunes. The dunes and the beaches protect inland areas from flooding by the sea. These dunes are amongst the highest vegetated dunes in the world.

Dunes form when onshore or shore-parallel winds are present on shorelines that have plentiful supplies of sand. When sea levels were much lower, the exposed shoreline provided most of the original sand supply for dune building. Additional sand for dune building is supplied by river mouths, such as the Mfolozi River and Lake St Lucia mouths, from where it drifts north along the shoreline. Determined by weather and storm conditions, sand continually moves between dunes and beaches in ten-year cycles. This slow movement continues until dunes become stabilised.

The younger frontal dunes (seaward of the older structures) are still in movement and formation. An impressive mobile dune field flanking the older dune system on the seaward side has formed at Maphelane. In the 1960's, before marine managers understood the origin and destiny of moving sediments, many mobile dunes in the Wetlands Park were planted with casuarinas trees with the intention of stabilizing them for "easier management". This is now considered unwise, since this practice deprives upwind areas of sand needed to maintain stability and build up the beaches.

The beaches themselves are wide, often steeply sloping, with coarse sand. Long-shore currents that result from wave action scour sediments (sand) from these sandy beaches that is then replaced by sand from further down the beach. In more recent geological time, the beaches in the Park have been sustained by sand transported from inland and deposited at the Mfolozi and St Lucia mouths, which then moves northwards along the shoreline. The minerals (such as titanium) that have been found in the sands of the dunes were deposited there in sediments brought down by the rivers.

37 Dune slumping occurs where beaches are narrow, allowing the dune foot to be washed by spring tides or storm surges. This is a natural part of the cycle. A consistently rising sea level would increase dune slumping. This occurs when the dune is undercut by high seas.

Blowouts are sites where strong onshore/offshore winds have broken through the younger dunes creating large gaps. Sometimes they occur in long, linear dune formations in areas of strong wind where stabilising vegetation has for some reason died back, or a footpath has developed (for example, the blow-out at Mabibi). Once formed, blowouts tend to get bigger and bigger, because the gap channels wind-streams, creating a whirling mass of air that sucks everything near it toward its centre and increasing local wind speed. This encourages further erosion.

Rocky outcrops Along the coastline of the Park rocky outcrops are found on the sandy shoreline. First Rocks, Perrier’s Rocks and Mission Rocks are good examples of the rock formations found at some beaches, most of them made of a lime-rich, wind deposited, hardened sandstone. They are a few thousand years old. These "high energy coastlines" - particular combinations of wave, wind and shoreline - erode the rock over time, leaving a rough platform at sea level. They are called wave-cut platforms.

These rock formations often create bays of rock with a sandy beach in between, known as zeta bays. Sodwana Bay is a good example of a zeta bay.

This article was based on a contribution written by Professor Gerald Garland.

Glossary

An ocean current is a continuous movement of ocean water that flows in one of the Earth's oceans. Ocean currents can flow for thousands of kilometres and are part of a global system. They are very important in determining climate, especially in those coastal regions bordering on the ocean.

Check your understanding

1. How long is South Africa’s coastline? 2. Which are the two ocean currents that influence the ecology of the South African marine environment? 3. Which ocean current plays a dominant role in shaping the coastline of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park?

38 4. What direction does the Agulhas Current flow and between which lines of latitude? 5. How did the Agulhas current prevent European sailors from reaching India for many centuries? 6. Explain how a ‘barrier and lagoon’ coastline has formed. 7. Give examples of two large lake systems in the Park that have been formed in this way 8. At what rate has the sea level been rising along the iSimangaliso coast? 9. Why are coastlines always changing? 10. How might Lake St Lucia and the Kosi lakes be filled in the future? 11. The dune cordon is the significant landform that stretches along the entire coast of the Park. Describe the following characteristics of this dune cordon: a. Height b. Age c. Global significance. 12. How do dunes form? 13. Where does the sand come from to build the coastal dune cordon in the Park? 14. The exchange of sand between the beaches and the dunes takes place in a cycle. How long is this cycle? 15. Which part of the dune field is in constant motion and shifts daily? 16. How did Park managers try to stabilise the dunes in the past? 17. What was the problem with this management strategy? 18. Where in the Park would you find an example of: a. Dune slumping b. Blowouts c. Rocky outcrops d. Zeta bay e. Wave cut platforms

Apply your learning

1. You take a group of visitors to Mission Rocks. How would you introduce the wave cut platform that you can see from that site? 2. How would you explain the formation and dynamic state of the dune cordon to a group of visitors? 3. In order to impress upon your tour group the age of the formation of the dune cordon and the lake systems in the Park, explain the processes that have created these landforms. 4. Explain why the sea on the east coast of South Africa, including iSimangaliso, has lower levels of species but higher levels of biodiversity than the sea off the west coast of South Africa.

39 iSimangaliso’s coastal plain: rivers and lakes

A vast coastal plain stretches from Richards Bay in the south to north of Maputo in Mozambique. The coastal plain is very flat with highly permeable and porous soils that absorb most of the rain that falls in the area. Because there are no major rivers that originate in the coastal plain all the coastal lakes receive their flow from groundwater streams from the dunes or from the larger rivers that rise in the interior, where the soils have a lower storage capacity. The rapid flow of these rivers often leads to flooding in the coastal regions.

The lakes, pans and swamps in the floodplains of the uMfolozi, Pongola and Mkhuze rivers rely on flooding for replenishment. During drought periods, these rivers dry up, and there is little or no flow into many of the coastal water bodies. During the drought that began in 2002, very little flow from the five major rivers reached these water bodies. However, periodic scouring of the lake sediments (especially at the mouth) takes place during so-called “mega floods” such as that caused by Cyclone Demoina in 1984.

The coastal plain has several kinds of lakes with very different features and functions. On the floodplain of the uMfolozi River many small lakes form in small tributaries that have insufficient flow to sustain an open channel to the main river. Floods maintain the sediment that supports the embankments of these small lakes (for example, Lake Eteza). Several of the lakes along the coast line have lost their connection to the sea and have become isolated freshwater bodies because of the abundant supply of marine sediment that is continually deposited along the shoreline.

Lake Sibaya, for example, has been cut off from the ocean and has become entirely dependent on regional groundwater and rainfall. Other lakes have tenuous connections to the Indian Ocean through estuaries that are frequently blocked by sediments during drought periods when river flow is insufficient to keep the mouth open.

Lake St Lucia undergoes regular mouth closure during drought conditions and in the past the mouth was dredged to keep it open. This no longer takes place, although a sediment trap is still dredged. In March 2007 the mouth was breached naturally due to the combination of spring tides and cyclonic weather causing high seas, and seawater flowed into the lake because the level of the water in the lake is lower than the sea. Before this, the last time the mouth was open was in May 2002.

The influx of seawater and its evaporation in the shallow lake system has led to very high proportions of salt (salinity) in the water during extended drought periods. During wet episodes, the lake reverts back to a freshwater system. These changes are often very rapid. The ecological resilience - the ability to recover - of the iSimangaliso lakes to these changes in salinity is because

40 groundwater (particularly from the dunes) continues to seep into the lake and wetlands along the margins of the lake, even during dry, high salt periods that may last several years. Freshwater species survive in the fresh water refuges provided by this groundwater seepage at the bottom of the lake and in small streams and creeks. With the mouth closed and the lake dry, these groundwater seepages provide hippos, crocodiles and fish with freshwater wetlands along the lake margins and have allowed them to survive the worst of the droughts.

Lake St Lucia, a dynamic and productive ecosystem

The coastal dunes on the eastern shores of Lake St Lucia form a ridge between the Lake and the Indian Ocean. This ridge provides ground water seepage to both bodies of water. The Mfabeni Swamp that drains southward toward Catalina Bay through the Nkazana stream and occasionally into Lake Bhangazi in the north splits the ridge in the centre. The flow in the Nkazana stream is supplied by the groundwater mounds on either side, and even during the most severe droughts has never been known to stop flowing into Catalina Bay. The water table in the Eastern Shores and many other areas along the coastal plain is close to the ground surface, forming various types of wetlands. However, the water table is very seasonal, and fluctuates up to several meters in depth.

The establishment of large commercial forests above these shallow groundwater mounds along the Eastern Shores in the 1950s reduced the depth of the water table, because pine forests use double the amount of water that coastal grasslands require. As a result, there was too little groundwater to sustain many of the wetlands, and they disappeared. These commercial pine forests were recently removed from the Eastern Shores. Since their removal - the largest deforestation project in South Africa - many wetlands have returned, along with the animals that rely on these habitats.

41 Check your understanding 1. What do the lakes, pans and swamps in the floodplains of the Mfolozi, Pongola and Mkhuze rivers rely on for replenishment? 2. In what year did Cyclone Demoina occur? 3. On what water supply does Lake Sibaya depend? 4. Why does the water in lake St Lucia become very saline (salty) in periods of drought? 5. When was the last time that the mouth of Lake St Lucia breached (opened) naturally, and what caused the breach? 6. How do freshwater species, hippos and crocodiles survive even when Lake St Lucia is dry? 7. Which stream on the Eastern Shores has never been known to stop flowing? 8. Where does this stream’s water supply come from? 9. Why did many of the wetlands disappear when large commercial forests were established on the Eastern Shores?

Apply your knowledge 1. Explain why the coastal regions of iSimangaliso often experience flooding from large rivers in the interior.

42 Coelacanths

On 27 November 2000 coelacanths were first discovered in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park by three mixed gas divers in Jesser canyon, off Sodwana Bay, at a depth of 107 metres. These divers were the first to see a live coelacanth in its natural habitat. The coelacanth is considered to be a living fossil, the last of the lobe-finned fishes. It was thought to have gone extinct over 70 million years ago - until a fishing trawler captured a single specimen off East London in 1938. Coelacanths have since been found off the coasts of the Comores, Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania and Indonesia.

Diving at depths in excess of 60 m is a very risky operation. It requires specialist training and the use of TRIMIX, a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and helium. (Sadly, one of the divers that discovered the coelacanths, Rehan Bouwer, died of a cerebral embolism as a result of an uncontrolled ascent after the dive).

Description The Coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae is a primitive bony fish with lobe fins. Adults are large, reaching 2 metres, and may weigh up to 98 kilograms. Coel-a-canth means “hollow spine”. Coelacanths have an elastic unsegmented notochord instead of a backbone. Most of the skeleton is made of cartilage (like sharks). This ancient fish has a three-lobed tail fin, and limb-like pectoral and pelvic fins. The first dorsal fin is rayed and fan-like. The head is bony, with large plates, and the eye has a light reflective retina. A hinge in the head allows the coelacanth to open its mouth especially wide – it is the only living animal with this structure. It has a rostral organ that may detect electric currents emitted by prey, and scales with sharp prickly spines. A swim bladder is filled with fat to provide buoyancy. Individuals can be identified by the unique, distinctive pattern of white spots on each side of the dark slate coloured body.

Photographs showing the left and right side of a coelacanth as documented in the coelacanth catalogue of the African Coelacanth Ecosystem Program. An individual can be recognised by the unique pattern of white markings on each side of the body. Coelacanths in the Park

43 Coelacanths have been seen in the Park at sixteen different localities in the Wright, Jesser and Chaka canyons inshore of Five mile reef, at Two mile reef, and at Leven Point north of Cape Vidal, at depths which range between 54 and 144 metres, and in water ranging between 16 and 22.5°C in temperature. Wright Canyon is designated as a Coelacanth Sanctuary. In February 2004 a new individual was seen adjacent to Diepgat Canyon at Sodwana, at 54 metres, by scuba divers. The African Coelacanth Ecosystem Program (ACEP), a research program aimed at understanding these fascinating fishes and their habitats, has recorded at least 21 individual coelacanths in the Park.

The total number of coelacanth sightings in iSimangaliso is 71 (21 different individuals with many re- sightings). Three of the first five coelacanths documented by the TRIMIX divers in Jesser canyon were re-sighted every year between 2000 and 2005, indicating that they had been resident over at least a five year period. Although coelacanths have been encountered at different localities, most sightings took place in a particular cave in Jesser canyon. At present scientists don’t know why coelacanths prefer certain caves to others, though hypotheses such as abundance of prey, freshwater input and behavioral history have all been put forward.

Coelacanths are legally protected from capture, disturbance and trade, and access to potential coelacanth habitat in iSimangaliso Wetland Park is closed to the general public. Divers must obtain a permit from both the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and the Marine and Coastal Management branch of the Department of the Environment to dive in potential coelacanth habitats.

Observing coelacanth behaviour Although coelacanths were first thought to use their lobed fins to move along the seabed, observation in their deep-water habitat revealed that they use their fins to swim in a unique way. Coelacanths are neutrally buoyant, neither sinking nor floating, and can hover almost motionless within their caves or swim across open terrain. Two iSimangaliso coelacanths were observed moving between Jesser and Wright canyons, which are approximately four kilometres apart. Researchers then conducted a telemetry study. A single animal was tagged and tracked over a twelve-day period. The tagged coelacanth ranged over a distance of less than two kilometres, using at least three different caves. Scientists were surprised that on some nights the coelacanth moved inshore into shallower (73 metres) water. This was the opposite pattern from that observed in the Comoros, where a telemetry study of large individuals showed that these coelacanths went into deeper water at night. Some coelacanths in the Comoros study sank to depths below 400 metres at least once per night, and the maximum depth of such an excursion was recorded as 698 metres!

What do coelacanths eat? Nothing is known about the diet of the coelacanths in the Park. Researchers in the Comores have recorded only eleven fish prey items, including cuttlefish, as part of the coelacanth diet, including

44 deepwater species such as snappers (Symphysanodon sp.), lantern fish, beard fish, the deep sea witch eel, a Swell shark and cardinal fish. However, a shallow water nocturnal reef fish, the crimson tip longfin, has also been found in a coelacanth stomach. Comorian fishermen report a diversity of bait species that have been used in the accidental capture of coelacanths including octopus, tuna, mackerel, flying fish, carangids and most commonly the roudi escolar (Promethichthys prometheus). The Tanzanian coelacanths are reported to have fed on cardinal fish, deep-water prawns and even a pipefish.

The life cycle of the coelacanth Scientists know very little about the breeding habits of South Africa’s most famous fish. A juvenile coelacanth has never been seen in the wild. All the coelacanths seen in the Park to date appear to be adults, with an estimated length of more than one metre (coelacanths can reach two metres in length, though female coelacanths grow larger than males). However, coelacanths are reported to grow slowly, mature late in life, have extended pregnancies and live a long life. Coelacanths are thought and to start breeding at about 16 years of age and to live for about 50 years. Two of the Sodwana coelacanths have been thought to be pregnant. Coelacanths give birth to live young, with about 30 pups being born looking just like tiny 35 centimetre long adults. Scientists believe that coelacanths are pregnant for three years, a year longer than the pregnancy of the spiked dogfish, the vertebrate with the longest known gestation period. (The spiked dogfish, it is believed, can live for a hundred years).

Check your knowledge

1. Why is the coelacanth considered to be “a living fossil”? 2. When would a diver need to use TRIMIX, and what is it? 3. When and where were coelacanths first seen alive in their natural habitat? 4. When and where was the first dead specimen captured? 5. How many individual coelacanths have been spotted in iSimangaliso? 6. Where, exactly, would you hope to find coelacanths in the Park? 7. Researchers in the Comores recorded coelacanths sinking to great depths in the ocean. What was the maximum depth recorded? 8. What does it mean to say that coelacanths are “neutrally buoyant”?

9. What do the iSimangaliso coelacanths eat?

10. At what age do coelacanths start breeding, and how long do they live?

11. Do coelacanths lay eggs?

12. How long is the pregnancy of the spiked dogfish?

Apply your knowledge

45 1. A visitor is excited because she is sure that the large fish she saw while snorkeling at Sodwana was a coelacanth. Explain to her (by physically describing the coelacanth in detail, and what we know about its habits) why it is unlikely that the fish she saw was a coelacanth. 2. Explain to a group of visitors why coelacanths are protected in iSimangaliso.

46 iSimangaliso’s coral reefs

The iSimangaliso Wetland Park has a series of patch reefs that run parallel to the coastline and have been colonized by corals where conditions are suitable (and by seaweed, seasquirts and sponges where conditions are not suitable for corals). The existence of coral reefs in the northern section of the Park can be attributed to the clear, subtropical water carried south by the warm Agulhas current and the absence of large silt-laden rivers. The tiny algae that live within most corals need light to grow and support their coral hosts and cannot live in dirty water or in areas deeper than 30 m.

South Africa’s coral reefs are not true tropical coral reefs (with many thick layers of coral) but are composed of a thin layer of coral cover on sandstone outcrops. The coral communities in iSimangaliso are unique in that they do not extend into very shallow water, and support a greater cover of soft corals than most coral reefs. This may be because soft corals cope better with the powerful swells and sand movement of this high energy coastline.

What are coral reefs? Coral reefs are exciting marine environments with a great deal of animal activity. Corals are very simple animals that form a living habitat for hundreds of other species. Corals are very diverse and there are many shapes and forms, including those with hard limestone skeletons, soft corals that are supported by tiny spines or spicules and black corals, deeper water species with a horny skeleton. Their basic body plan is very simple: a cup-shaped body with a single opening at the top that is surrounded by a ring of tentacles. Corals are closely related to sea anemones and look similar although the tiny individual coral polyps usually live in large numbers as a colony.

Most corals support tiny algae called zooxanthellae that are able to harness the energy of the sun (by photosynthesis). Both hard and soft corals absorb nutrients from the algae that help them to grow. Corals also use their tentacles to catch tiny marine animals (zooplankton). If the algae die - because of rapid temperature changes, too much light or from other sicknesses - the corals loose their colour and become very pale or even completely white. This is known as “coral bleaching” and is a key threat to coral reefs linked to global climate change. Mass coral bleaching events have occurred in the western Indian Ocean and in tropical areas north of South Africa in recent times.

Corals of iSimangaliso The coral reefs of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park support 43 genera of hard corals and at least 11 genera of soft corals. They also support a diversity of seaweeds, sponges, lace animals, seasquirts and echinoderms such as sea stars, feather stars, brittle stars, urchins and sea cucumbers. Reefs also provide homes for many types of mollusks ranging from the beautifully coloured but toxic sea slugs called nudibranchs (means naked gills as these snails do not have a shell) to snails with

47 ornate shells, octopus and cuttlefish. Living reefs support rich fish communities, providing homes and food for many grazing and other reef fish, which are preyed upon in turn by predatory game fish such as tuna, dorado, sharks and marlin.

In addition to the 54 genera of hard and soft corals found on iSimangaliso’s reefs, reef environments support a high diversity of marine plants and animals

Four types of soft coral are common in the Park. Mushroom soft corals Sarcophyton species are fleshy and usually greenish yellow in colour with a thick base and wavy margin. Leather corals Lobophtyum species form large encrusting grayish or pale brown carpets on the reef, often with ridges. Lobed Sinularia species are usually pale cream or grey-white and form irregular lobes and ridges. Thistle corals are brightly coloured, red, purple or yellow and cover the crests of shallow rocky outcrops.

Hard corals lay down a limestone skeleton and have a rigid structure. Common hard corals in iSimangaliso include the fragile Acropora species that form massive plates, delicate branches or staghorns. Giant domes are formed by the tiny corallites of the Porites coral. Other types include the honeycomb (Favites) or false honeycomb corals

(Favia) as well as spiny Acanthastrea corals, which can also be seen in rock pools at Cape Vidal, Bhanga Nek and Sodwana. One of the common hard corals at Sodwana is the star coral Galaxea and this species often has its polyps extended in the day. Another conspicuous coral is the Platygyra which has meandering valleys that are luminous green. Solitary hard corals include the Fungia or mushroom hard corals often found in sandy gullies.

Where are the Park’s coral reefs?

48 The major coral-inhabited reefs are found in the northern section of the Park - between the Mozambique border in the north and Leven Point in the south - and have been grouped into a northern, central and southern complex.

The northern complex lies adjacent to Kosi Bay, extending from just south of Ponta do Ouro in southern Mozambique to just north of Bhanga Nek. The main reef body is approximately 6km long and the reefs are shallow (6-12m). The reefs in the northern complex are similar to those at Five Mile Reef in the central complex. There is a northern and southern patch of Acropora-rich communities separated by a large shallow area inhabited by seaweeds. The main Kosi reef lies within the Sanctuary area in the Marine Reserve where diving is not permitted. There are scattered outcrops of reef between the central and northern complexes, including the Mabibi complex (3.7 km long), a reef just north of Mabibi (800m long) and Elusive Reef, a small reef with an amphitheatre structure.

The central complex is accessed from Sodwana Bay and consists of four main reefs named according to their distance from the launch site at Jesser Point. These sites are the best-known dive sites in the Park and support a scuba diving industry at Sodwana. Two-mile reef is approximately 2.1 km long. Four-mile reef is a deeper reef (ranging from 15-35 m) that extends for approximately 1.2 km eight kilometers from Jesser Point. Seven-mile reef is 11km north of Jesser Point and is 1.4 km long. Nine-mile reef is 13.6 km from the launch sites, ranges from 3 to 22 m in depth and extends for about 3 km. Two, seven and nine-mile reefs have similar coral communities, dominated by soft corals. Four-mile reef is deeper and has greater cover of the more delicate tabular and branching staghorn corals. Closer to Jesser point are two other small patch reefs. Quarter-mile is a shallow (2-13 m) reef just off Jesser Point where pregnant ragged-tooth sharks gather in summer. Stringer reef is about 14m deep and is known for its high diversity and numbers of juvenile fish.

The southern complex extends from just north of Leven Point to Red Sands (Ochre Hill). The complex includes two main reefs known as Red Sands Reef and Leadsman Shoal. Red Sands Reef is a patch reef, similar to Two-mile reef but larger, being about 5 km long. Leadsman Shoal is the largest and most southerly reef extending just over 12 km in length. Almost the entire southern complex is within the Sanctuary area of the Marine Reserve where no fishing or diving is permitted.

Warning Corals should never be touched. Corals break easily, and certain types of coral (such as the prickly thistle coral) can cause injury. In addition, certain diseases are easily transmitted to corals by human touch.

49 Rocky reefs In iSimangaliso there are many reefs that are not encrusted with corals, or have very low coral cover. These are referred to as rocky reefs. These shallow reefs serve an important ecological function as they support populations of juvenile fish. Inshore rocky reefs are dominated by algae or redbait and in some areas, seagrass. When seaweed decomposes, it releases what is known as breakdown products. These breakdown products of play a significant role in supporting filter feeding invertebrates such as mussels and redbait on rocky reefs. Green turtles feed on marine vegetation on shallow reefs.

Deep reefs are colonized by sponges and other types of corals that do not have algae in their tissues (such as sea fans and black corals). Here, too the breakdown products of seaweeds play a significant role in supporting filter feeding invertebrates Both shallow and deep rocky reefs provide habitat for commercially and recreationally targeted fish species such as the slinger. Some reefs serve as important sites where fish come to spawn (breed). Home and Shisa reefs off Maphelane are spawning sites for cock grunter and squaretail kob respectively.

Check your understanding 1. What two factors make possible the existence of coral reefs in the northern section of the Park? 2. Why are corals so ecologically important? 3. Is coral a plant or an animal? 4. Name ten species that live on coral reefs. 5. What is the difference between hard and soft corals? 6. How many types of soft coral are found in the Park? 7. Name three hard corals to be found in the Park. 8. What important function do rocky reefs serve? 9. Where are the best-known dive sites in the Park? 10. Where is diving not permitted in the Park? 11. Where do coelecanths live? 12. Where would you go in the Park to catch a slinger? Apply your knowledge

1. Explain to a group of tourists why corals should never be touched. 2. Where would you advise a group of keen divers to dive in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, and why?

50 Crocodiles of iSimangaliso

Weighing one of the oldest crocodiles at the St Lucia Crocodile Centre

The Nile crocodile is part of a larger group of ancient reptiles called Crocodilians. Crocodilians are the last remnants of the great age of reptiles that dominated animal communities during the Mesozoic period, 245 million years ago. Of the three crocodile species found in Africa, only the Nile crocodile has established itself in the eastern half of the subcontinent. Despite the superficial resemblance, crocodilians are more closely related to birds than to lizards.

Nile crocodiles are found within all the wetlands, rivers, lakes and estuaries of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. The Lake St Lucia population is the largest crocodile population in a single water body in South Africa, as well as the most southern breeding population in Africa. The highest concentration of crocodiles (between 1000 and 1200) is found along the Eastern Shores and Narrows of Lake St Lucia. They can often be seen basking in the sun along the water’s edge.

Male Nile crocodiles may reach six metres in length; females are seldom more than four metres long. (Although seldom observed, crocodiles can gallop like a horse and can attain a speed of 17 kilometres an hour for short distances). Crocodiles leave the group when they are about one metre long. They can live for more than a 100 years; ‘Khehla’ in the Crocodile Centre is estimated to be between 80 and 100 years old.

Crocodiles in the food chain

51 Young crocodiles eat small animals such as crabs, prawns, fish, frogs and insects. Larger crocodiles take bigger prey including antelope, zebra, hippo, porcupines, pangolins, wildebeest and large cats. Up to 70% of the adult diet consists of fish. Crocodiles are important predators with a powerful influence over plants and animals further down the food chain. They keep barbel catfish, which are predators themselves, in check. Barbel catfish eat other fishes that are food for more than 40 species of birds. If birds leave an area because there are no edible fish, the amount of bird droppings - which provide nutrients for the fish – declines and the food chain is disrupted.

Nile crocodiles have a reputation as man-eaters. A number of deaths and disappearances are attributed to them each year.

Crocodiles do not chew their food. They swallow mouth-size pieces. When a larger animal is captured, Nile crocodiles shake their heads violently from side to side to break off chunks of meat to swallow. They often scavenge from carcasses, together with a number of other animals, seeming to tolerate each other’s presence.

Breeding Females become sexually mature when they are about 2.5 metres in length. Crocodiles mate in July, during the winter. At the beginning of November the female selects a suitable nesting site where she digs a hole in the soil with her back legs. (A nest site is usually made in sandy soil, although along the Mpathe stream, nesting sites are made in clay soils).

Nile crocodile hatchling.

52 A successful nest has fresh water close by, is high enough above the water so that the eggs are not submerged, and is open enough to the sun so that the incubation (egg development) temperature of 28 – 34ºC is maintained. Females lay between 45 and 50 eggs, but may not lay eggs every year. The female protects the nest for the 90-95 days of incubation. When the eggs begin to hatch, she responds to the calls of the young and helps to dig them out of the nest. Then she carries her hatchlings in her mouth to a nursery site where she guards them for a few weeks. Only 2% of eggs and hatchlings survive natural predation.

One of the threats to successful breeding is the increasing presence of exotic invasive vegetation such as Chromolaena odorata on breeding sites. Crocodiles prefer to lay their eggs in open, sunny, sandy areas. Many females abandon nesting sites when they encounter the fibrous root mats of Chromolaena odorata while digging egg chambers. Where eggs are successfully deposited, these alien plants create shade that lowers the temperature of the nests by 5 to 6 degrees Centigrade. The cooler temperature affects the sex of the baby crocodiles, resulting in far more females than males, and may prevent the development of the embryo altogether. A female-biased sex ratio will eventually lead to the extinction of the species in iSimangaliso.3

Crocodiles and drought Because one of the key requirements for successful nesting is the presence of fresh water, crocodiles are badly affected by drought. The current very low water level of Lake St Lucia, for example, has caused the number of crocodile nests to decline from 100 -140 per year to between 50 and 70 per year.

In September 1970, during a severe drought, more than 50 crocodiles had to be airlifted from Lake St Lucia to save their lives and to ensure that breeding stock was not destroyed. The conservationist Ian Player organised the airlift. In his own words: By September 1970 the situation had become absolutely desperate. After consulting with Nick Steele, Nick van Niekerk and Tony Pooley, I approached Brigadier James Blatt; Officer Commanding Natal Command, and explained that we urgently needed a big helicopter to airlift the crocodiles from the Mkuze mouth to the Mkazama stream – a distance of probably 21 kilometres. Brigadier Blatt was immediately sympathetic and said he would make a Super Frelon helicopter available. By the morning of the 4th September 1970 the Super Frelon was on its way to the top end of the Lake. 30 White and Black rangers volunteered to work round the clock in an untiring bid to save the crocodiles. The saurians were netted and then dragged to the shore. This was extremely dangerous and the rangers were constantly at risk of losing their lives. I must emphasize that the crocodiles were not drugged, but had Hessian

3 Leslie, A J, Spotila, JR: Alien plant threatens Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) breeding in Lake St. Lucia, South Africa. 2001

53 draped over their heads in an effort to subdue them. Some of the crocodiles weighed 1,000 pounds (454kg). They were wrapped in canvas and then winched to the lower part of the helicopter and flown to the fresh water stream, where rangers from St Lucia were waiting to offload and release. It was a spectacular effort by a phenomenal group of men to save the unfortunate crocodiles; which were so exhausted that they had to be moved physically to the stream. After sliding into the fresh water, the huge reptiles drank their fill and became visibly bloated before slowly swimming off. Over 50 large, mature and breeding crocodiles were saved.4

Conserving crocodiles Crocodiles are so well adapted to their environment that they have not changed during the past 200 million years. However, in the first half of the 20th century the pressure of commercial hunting for valuable crocodile skin and widespread eradication programmes dramatically reduced crocodile numbers. Although legal protection in the early 1970’s resulted in significant recoveries of the Nile crocodile over some of its former range, the status of Nile crocodile populations throughout southern Africa is not unconditionally secure.

The destruction of suitable nesting sites when land is cleared for agriculture has played a major part in the decline of crocodiles in areas in which they were formerly found. Threats to the survival of the Nile crocodile in South Africa are also due to construction of dams in rivers; wetland transformation; pollution of rivers and degradation of lakes and estuaries; effects of exotic invasive vegetation, such as Chromolaena odorata, on breeding sites; and uncontrolled water removal for agriculture. Livestock may trample and destroy nesting sites, and young crocodiles are often drowned in gill nets. Because crocodiles may prey on humans, there are also targeted attacks on the crocodile population, for example, killings of crocodiles by farmers in rivers or dams on their property; execution as a result of conflict with people; and killings for medicinal purposes.

The South African Red Data Book lists the conservation status of the Nile crocodile as Vulnerable. The total South African population is less than 8 500 crocodiles in the wild. Today, only three secure wild populations of Nile crocodiles are to be found within the borders of South Africa: in the Kruger National Park, in Ndumu Game Reserve, and in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, where there is an important population of 1200 crocodiles.

Glossary

Reptiles include snakes, lizards, crocodiles, turtles, (and dinosaurs), cold-blooded, egg-laying creatures with backbones and lungs.

4 Ian Player, Ian Player Perspective – Lake St Lucia, 15 April 2009 (the Wild Foundation)

54 The Mesozoic era was a period of time from about 245 to 65 million years ago. It was characterized by the development of flying reptiles, birds, and flowering plants and by the appearance and extinction of dinosaurs.

Predators are animals, like crocodiles, lions, and wild dogs that live by capturing and eating other animals. An elephant is not a predator because it eats only plants.

The rule of the food chain is Eat and be eaten! Algae are little green plants in the sea that are eaten by certain fish. Seals eat the fish, and killer whales eat seals. At the moment, human beings are considered to be at the top of the food chain, because no other species hunts and kills humans for food.

Crustaceans are creatures with hard bodies (their skeletons are on the outside) that mainly live in water, such as lobsters, crabs, shrimps, woodlice, barnacles, and water fleas.

Eradication programmes are designed to systematically destroy plants or animals.

Vulnerable: weak, easy to attack.

This article was based on a contribution from Xander Combrink.

Check your understanding 1. What is the name of the species of crocodile that is found in the eastern part of Africa and in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park? 2. Why could the crocodile be called an "ancient" species? 3. The largest crocodile population in a single water body in South Africa is found in the iSimagaliso Wetland Park. What percentage of the crocodiles in South Africa does this population represent? 4. What length may a large male crocodile achieve? 5. What do young crocodiles eat, and what do they eat as adults? In what ways does their diet influence the ecology of the wetlands? 6. At what stage does the female crocodile become ready to breed? 7. How has the presence of alien plants on the banks of water bodies affected crocodile breeding? 8. How many eggs does a crocodile lay at one time, and what is the ideal temperature for crocodile eggs to hatch? 9. How long does it take for the eggs to incubate, and how does the mother crocodile provide care for her hatchlings? 10. What happened in the early 20th century that threatened crocodile populations?

55 11. How does drought affect crocodiles? 12. Since when have crocodiles been protected? What is the conservation status of the Nile crocodile according to the South African Red Data Book? 13. On the Tourist Map of the Isimangaliso Wetland Park locate the sites on the Eastern Shores where crocodiles are found: the Mpathe Stream, the Narrows, the Catalina Bay picnic site, the Estuary, the Skiboat Club, Lake Bhangazi, and the shores of Lake St Lucia.

Apply your learning 1. Where would you take tourists to the Park to show them crocodiles, and to illustrate the threats to their conservation? 2. How would you explain to a group of tourists the great value of the crocodile population in iSimangaliso? 3. How would you link the importance of alien eradication in the Park with crocodile breeding and the health of the wetland ecosystem?

56 Deep-sea fishing in iSimangaliso’s waters

The iSimangaliso Wetland Park has a number of conservation measures and tools that are in place to manage deep-sea and other recreational fishing. The marine environment of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is protected through its proclamation as a World Heritage Site and the declaration of the marine area as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). Before 2010 there were two MPAs in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, (the St Lucia and Maputaland Marine Protected Areas) which excluded the southern section of the Park, which ranges from Cape Vidal to the Cape St Lucia Lighthouse. The MPA was extended to include this area.

The marine environment has been carefully zoned in order to achieve the maximum amount of protection for the marine environment while accommodating the needs of recreational anglers, who are important visitors to the Park. There are four zones: sanctuary, wilderness, restricted and controlled, each of which has different levels of protection, with strict control in the sanctuary areas (where fishing is not allowed at all) through to controlled areas, where recreational fishing is permitted with some restrictions. Even in these controlled and restricted areas there is a need to regulate the activities of anglers. It is the intention of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park to introduce catch and release areas in the restricted zones for added protection of fish species. Other conservation measures applied in these zones include minimum fish size limits, daily bag limits and closed seasons. A fish list – defining the species that can and cannot be caught has also been introduced.

Fishing for game fish involves trolling lures or baits behind a moving boat or fishing with live bait at the surface or in the water column. Bottom fishing involves fishing with baited hooks that are lowered onto the reef or seabed using a sinker. These fish species are generally slower growing and more resident than pelagic game fish species and are thus more vulnerable to over-fishing. For this reason, only pelagic game fish may be caught while fishing off a boat in iSimangaliso. To protect the reef fish species, no bottom or reef fishing is allowed. This also applies to spear fishing; fisherman may only shoot pelagic game fish. Only recreational fishing is allowed in the marine reserves. As the area south of Cape Vidal is not yet protected as a marine reserve, bottom fishing and commercial fishing is still permitted there.

Pelagic game fish caught in iSimangaliso are fast growing, highly migratory species that can sustain relatively high fishing pressure. The most common game fish species caught in the area include king mackerel (cuda), yellow fin tuna, dorado (dolphin fish), queen mackerel (Natal snoek), skipjack tuna, eastern little tuna, sailfish and marlin. Most of these species are summer migrants that migrate southwards during the summer months and return to warmer, more tropical waters during the winter months. All of these species are predatory, feeding primarily on smaller pelagic fishes such as sardines, sprats, mackerel, flying fish, half-beaks, and bonito. Many of these game fish species do not spawn (breed) in local waters but return to more tropical waters along the East African coast to spawn.

57 In the iSimangaliso Wetland Park deep-sea anglers access the marine environment from a number of launch sites, including Sodwana Bay and Cape Vidal. In 2005, a total of 6860 recreational fishing launches were recorded. Catches in the marine reserve and at other launch sites in the Park are monitored by means of anglers completing catch records in the launch registers as well as by ski boat inspections conducted by Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife (EKZNW). King mackerel dominates catches from recreational ski boat fishing and there is a distinct seasonal trend, with more fish being caught during the summer months. Approximately 35 000 fish (115 tons) were reported caught by ski boat anglers fishing in the Park during 2005. Although catches fluctuate considerably on an annual basis, there has been little indication of a declining catch rate over time.

In addition to the marine reserve regulations, recreational deep-sea anglers fishing in the Park are subject to other national regulations. These include regulations pertaining to safety at sea (Merchant Shipping Act No. 57 of 1951) as well as those pertaining to the harvesting of marine resources (Marine Living Resources Act No. 18 of 1998). Thus all seagoing vessels must be registered and annually tested for seaworthiness. Furthermore, skippers must be in possession of a skipper’s ticket of competency, and all anglers on board must have recreational angling licenses. Recreational deep-sea anglers are important visitors to the Park as they bring in a substantial amount of local revenue, and a number of ski-boat fishing competitions are held within the Park each year. However, as the fishing takes place within a marine reserve, public pressure is growing for these competitions to be held on a “catch and release” basis, so that all fish caught are released unharmed to the water. The billfish angling community (anglers that target marlin, sailfish and other billfish species) has done particularly well in this regard and nowadays very few billfish are brought to the gantry. Better techniques of angling such as the use of circle hooks are also being employed, which reduce the number of fish that are badly wounded by swallowing the bait. These improvements bode well for the future of recreational deep-sea angling in the Park.

Check your understanding

1. Name the laws that protect the marine environment of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

2. Name the four zones of protection in the MPA.

3. Fishing in a sanctuary area is permitted, with some restrictions. True or false?

4. Name five of the most common game fish species caught in the area.

5. Name two important launch sites for deep-sea anglers in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

6. Which pelagic fish species dominates catches from recreational ski boat fishing?

7. When are more fish caught - in the summer or the winter?

8. Better techniques of angling such as the use of circle hooks are also being employed, which reduce the number of fish that are badly wounded by swallowing the bait.

9. Name three conservation measures applied in restricted zones to protect fish species.

58 Apply your knowledge

1. You are the skipper of a fishing boat. What are you required to do in order to comply with the law?

2. Explain to an angler why only pelagic game fish may be caught while spear fishing or fishing off a boat in iSimangaliso, and why bottom fishing is not allowed.

59 Terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park

In terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem terms, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park can be divided into five areas. This breakdown of landscape elements is a very simple one. The five ecozones discussed can be further subdivided, depending on the scale at which one views the landscape and the criteria used to demarcate different zones. Another way of saying this is that the closer you zoom up, the more texture you can see, and the more subdivisions you can make.

The five major ecosystems found in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park are: § The Eastern Shores coastal dune system, consisting of linear dunes up to 180m in height, sub-tropical forests, grassy plains and wetlands § Lake systems, consisting of two estuarine-linked lakes (St Lucia and Kosi), four large freshwater lakes and the St Lucia estuary § The uMkhuze and Mfolozi swamps, with swamp forest, extensive reed and papyrus wetlands § The inland Western Shores, with ancient shoreline terraces and dry savannah woodland § The uMkhuze section of iSimangaliso.

Eastern Shores coastal dunes and grasslands

Aerial view of Lake Bhangazi on the Eastern Shores with the forested coastal dunes.

The coastal dune system consists of linear dunes up to 180 metres in height, sub-tropical forests, grassy plains and wetlands. The forested coastal dune system is a prominent landscape feature of the eastern edge of the coastal plain, and the dunes are among the highest forested dunes in the world. The dunes influence the ecology of the Eastern Shores region because moisture-laden

60 winds from the sea blow onshore and rise over the dunes, resulting in condensation and rainfall. Some of this rainwater seeps inland through the patchwork of grasslands, forest clumps and wetlands that lie between the dunes and Lake St Lucia. The rain-catching function of the dunes is an important source of water for the lake, especially in times of drought. Dense, stunted vegetation on the seaward side of the dune cordon gives way on the landward side to tall trees with a closed canopy. Interesting species such as the Trumpeter Hornbill and Samango monkey are common. The Maputaland coastal plain is an acknowledged centre of biodiversity and the Eastern Shores grasslands are particularly important in this regard.

Lake and estuarine systems The lake systems consist of two estuarine-linked lakes (St Lucia and Kosi), four large freshwater lakes (Sibaya, Ngobozeleni, Bhangazi North and Bhangazi South) and the St Lucia estuary. This section will deal with Lake St Lucia and its associated estuary.

Kosi Bay lake system

St Lucia is the largest estuarine system on the African continent, and a critical habitat for a large number of species. It is one of the four Ramsar wetlands included in the Park. St Lucia is a dynamic ecosystem and changes in salinity and water levels exert major influences on the biota of the lake, resulting in high biodiversity. Lake St Lucia and its associated fresh water systems provide habitat for one of the largest populations of Nile crocodile on the sub-continent. It also contains the largest hippopotamus, White pelican and Pinkbacked pelican populations in South Africa, as well as extensive Cyperus papyrus swamps and Barringtonia racemosa swamp forest. Sections of the

61 shore of the lake are lined by mangroves or fringed with reed beds, Papyrus and sedges. An important ecological function of these plants is the production of the detritus that forms the basis of the lake food chain.

The Narrows are a part of Lake St Lucia which, when the mouth is open, is influenced daily by the sea’s incoming and outgoing tides. In this area, and because of this tidal influence, the lake edges support Mangrove communities. Estuarine fringing trees like Hibiscus tiliaceus and Barringtonia racemosa are found in this area, as well as a large and important stand of Juncus kraussii, the Matting Rush.

Mangrove communities act as diversity drivers in estuarine environments because of the crucial role that estuaries/mangroves play as juvenile nursery grounds for marine fish and crustaceans e.g. mullet, grunter, stumpnose, perch, prawns and crabs. These species all produce their young at sea. These juveniles then migrate into estuaries and take shelter in mangrove swamps where food is abundant and they are able to avoid predators, and mature before returning to the open ocean. Mangrove trees are crucial to the ecology of estuaries. Their leaves fall into the shallow, warm waters where they decompose to provide food for detritivores such as crabs, worms, insect larvae, shrimps, bivalves and fish. In turn, increasingly larger fish prey on these detritivores, and they in turn sustain predatory birds (herons, fish eagles) and crocodiles. In this way, mangroves provide crucial habitats as well as much of the energy that sustains food chains in estuaries.

The St Lucia system displays extremely high productivity, and is one of the most outstanding wildlife areas on the African continent. Over 340 species of bird have been recorded, and the lake and its associated wetlands form one of the most important refuges on the southern African subcontinent for large numbers of many species of migratory waterfowl and wetland birds. According to surveys, 82 species of fish have been recorded in the St Lucia system. Numerous species of larval fish frequenting shallow, marginal areas use the system as a nursery area, and many adult fish enter the area to feed.

The uMkhuze and uMfolozi swamps

These areas are dominated by swamp forest, and extensive reed and papyrus wetlands. The uMkhuze Swamp is part of the larger uMkhuze wetland system and is classified as a freshwater phragmites and papyrus swamp (characterized by the species Cyperus papyrus and Phragmites australis). Poorly conserved elsewhere in South Africa, this community covers approximately 7 000 hectares in the Park. The uMfolozi Swamp is part of the uMfolozi floodplain wetland system and has been formed due to input of sediments transported by the uMfolozi River. Although the larger system is hydrologically compromised, it still provides a wide variety of habitats ranging from open

62 water bodies, grass and sedge-lands and fig forests, and therefore, a diverse habitat for many rare animal species.

The Western Shores

The Western Shores of Lake St Lucia receive less rain than the Eastern Shores, and support a drier ecosystem - one which may be described as dry savannah or thornveld, and which also reveals ancient shoreline terraces containing marine fossils. Sand forests occur on the higher lying ground between the coastal plain and the Lubombo Mountains. The annual rainfall in False Bay Park on the Western Shores is only half that which falls on the eastern side of the lake, which is only 15 kilometres away. The Western Shores includes False Bay Park, the Charter’s Creek and Fanie’s Island areas and the Ndlozi peninsula, and is characterised by tall grass, Ilala palms and Terminalia sericea trees. The landscape on the Western Shores has been shaped by the influences and interactions of soil, rainfall, fire and herbivores, and the vegetation is typical of bushveld, with many acacia trees. Large wild herbivores are more abundant and diverse, mainly due to the higher soil nutrient status. uMkhuze section

The uMkhuze section of iSimangaliso contains a number of different savanna types

The variety of landscapes and the landscape variation (at more local scales) explains iSimangaliso’s high species diversity. This is particularly true of the uMkhuze section of iSimangaliso where many converging geological formations and their associated soil types form varied landscapes. In uMkhuze, it is this variety of soil types that most directly accounts for the reserve’s plant and animal diversity, which includes over 700 plant species arranged in over 20 discrete communities. These communities in turn support a wide variety of mammals, birds,

63 reptiles, amphibians and insects. There are six different types of savannah vegetation in the uMkhuze section - the Makatini Clay Thicket, Maputaland Coastal Thicket, Southern Lebombo Bushveld, Tembe Sandy Bushveld, Western Maputaland Clay Bushveld and Western Maputaland Sandy Bushveld. Sand Forest also occurs in uMkhuze on the ancient inland dunes (fossil dunes of an earlier coastline) that are found in this area.

The uMkhuze River

Check your understanding

1. What are the five major ecosystems found in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park? 2. How tall are the tallest dunes? 3. What function do the dunes play with regard to Lake St Lucia’s water supply? 4. Name four species of animals and birds that can be found in large numbers in Lake St Lucia and its associated fresh water systems. 5. Is the water in the Narrows saline water or fresh water? 6. What is detritus, in the context of the estuarine system? 7. How many species of birds have been recorded at Lake St Lucia? 8. How many species of fish have been recorded in the St Lucia system? Which species of plants dominate the uMkhuze and uMfolozi swamps? 9. If the annual rainfall on the Eastern Shores is 1000 ml per year, what is the annual rainfall on the Western Shores? 10. What most directly accounts for uMkhuze’s plant and animal diversity? 11. How many plant species have been identified in uMkhuze? 12. Name six different types of savannah vegetation in the uMkhuze section of the Park.

Apply your knowledge

64 You are accompanying a group of visitors to the Narrows. Explain to them how important Mangrove communities are to the estuarine environment, and detail the ways in which they act as “diversity drivers” in these systems.

65 The Pelagic Marine Ecosystem

The oceans cover more than 70% of the Earth’s surface. The pelagic marine environment, with its millions of species of plants and animals and its central role in the water cycle as the source of rain is the largest and most important of the ecosystems that sustain life on Earth. The pelagic ecosystem refers to the sea surface and underlying water column. This enormous body of water is in a constant state of motion and is affected by wind, waves, currents and tides.

The surface and depths of the open ocean form the pelagic marine ecosystem

Off the coast of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park between the Mozambique border in the north and Cape St Lucia in the south, the pelagic ecosystem of the Indian Ocean is dominated by the southward-flowing Agulhas Current consisting of warm, clean water coming down from the tropics. The current is about 100 km wide and travels at speeds of between one and two metres per second. The water temperature ranges from 220C in winter to 27 0C in summer with an average salinity of 35 g salt per litre of water. The current flows along the edge of the continental shelf, which off northern KwaZulu-Natal is very narrow. The shelf-break occurs at depths of around 200 metres only five to ten kilometers from the shore. The clean, tropical water found off iSimangaliso is poor in nutrients and thus does not support a high biomass of marine organisms. However, it can support the growth of specialised animals such as corals which sustain a rich and diverse ecosystem.

Closer inshore, a northward moving “counter-current” is sometimes formed by local winds and wave refraction which moves sand northwards, replenishing the beaches with sand and building the huge coastal dunes that are characteristic of this coastline. Only a few small rivers - such as the Siyadla River at Kosi Bay and the Ngoboseleni River at Sodwana Bay - enter the sea along this coast, but, as neither of these rivers carries much sediment, the sea is generally clean. In the south, however, the large Mfolozi River (and sometimes the St Lucia estuary when the mouth is open after heavy rain) carries a heavy sediment load into the sea, dirtying the water but also providing a rich

66 source of nutrients for marine organisms. Because such different types of organisms are thus able to live in the marine environment south of Cape Vidal scientists have described the marine environment here as a separate “bioregion”, the Natal Bioregion. The area north of Cape Vidal is known as the Delagoa Bioregion.

The organisms that live in the pelagic environment range from tiny single-celled plants called phytoplankton to some of the largest animals that have ever lived on Earth, the whales. A food-chain (or food-web) in the pelagic marine environment starts with phytoplankton which is then consumed by zooplankton, which in turn is fed on by small pelagic marine fish such as sardines and sprats. These small fish are eaten by larger game fish such as king mackerel or yellow fin tuna, and sea birds such as swift terns. Larger game fish are fed on by top predators such as tiger sharks and man.

Whale Shark, an inhabitant of the open ocean

All plants and animals that live in the pelagic marine ecosystem are extremely well adapted to this environment. Many forms of plankton, for example, have developed long flattened legs or antennae to float in the water column and thus save energy by not having to swim all the time. Most pelagic fish are silvery in colour with distinct counter-shading (darker on top and lighter below) which enables them to hunt their prey effectively while avoiding detection by their own predators. Some of the largest animals found in the pelagic environment off iSimangaliso are humpback whales and whale sharks. Both these giants survive by feeding on tiny plankton and small fish which they filter from the water column.

Most marine invertebrates and fish have a pelagic egg and larval stage. Many species of reef fish spawn at night with males and females rising to the surface to expel thousands of eggs and sperm into the water in elaborate mating rituals. Once fertilized, the fish eggs float in the sea and are

67 widely dispersed by the currents. Loggerhead and leatherback turtle hatchlings use the same currents to transport them to feeding grounds further south.

This article is based on a contribution from Bruce Mann.

Check your understanding

1. What percentage of the earth’s surface is covered by the oceans? 2. What is the pelagic marine ecosystem? 3. Why is the pelagic marine ecosystem the most important ecosystem on the earth? 4. Which current dominates the pelagic ecosystem off iSimangaliso? 5. How wide is this current, and how fast does it travel? 6. Which current replenishes the beaches with sand and builds the huge coastal dunes that are characteristic of this coastline? 7. Which river carries a heavy sediment load into the sea south of St Lucia? 8. What are phytoplankton? 9. Why are most pelagic fish silvery in colour with distinct counter-shading (darker on top and lighter below)? 10. What do humpback whales and whale sharks eat? 11. What happens to fish eggs after they are fertilised?

Check your understanding

Describe a food-chain (or food-web) in the pelagic marine environment.

68 Frogs of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park

Painted Reed Frog

Frogs are an important yet often overlooked group of animals. They are a dominant group in wetlands, where they are good indicators of environmental health. Changes in frog and toad populations point to changes in the wetland environments that sustain them. This is because frogs live "on the edge", between water and land, and are very sensitive because unlike higher vertebrates, they lack hair or feathers to protect their skin. Frogs have a very loose skin that is used in breathing, and they are particularly sensitive to pollution such as chemical waste, oils, pesticide and fertiliser runoff from agriculture, as well as increased ultraviolet radiation from the sun caused by the destruction of the earth’s ozone layer associated with global warming. iSimangaliso’s coastal plain holds the highest frog diversity in South Africa. The Park is home to at least 50 species, or 43% of the 116 species currently known from South Africa. Of these, nine species are endemic (native) to South Africa. iSimangaliso provides protection for five Red Data species.

Frogs are highly seasonal in their activity. For much of the colder part of the year most species remain hidden underground or within dense vegetation. They begin to emerge with the first rains in September, and by November their calls can be heard in every wetland. Male frogs call during the breeding season in order to attract mates and to defend territories, and each species has a unique and characteristic call. Frog populations are most active in the summer months, between November and the end of February.

69 Frogs can be difficult to visually identify. Some species are very similar in appearance, and there may be a large amount of variation between individuals of the same species. Colouration can differ between the sexes of some species, and many species change their colour between day and night. Since only a small number of species can safely be identified visually, a very useful way of identifying and locating frogs is through the unique calls of the males of each species. An observer familiar with the call of each species can detect the presence of several species at a pan without seeing a single frog. Tracing individual calls also allows the detection of frogs hidden in dense vegetation.

The majority of frogs in the Wetland Park are dependant on wetlands during the rainy season. A single shallow wetland or pan may support breeding populations of up to twenty species of frog at this time. However, within a wetland, different groups of frogs will be found in different microhabitats.

These are some of the interesting frogs to be found in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park: The Foam Nest Frog creates conspicuous white foam nests, which may be seen in branches that overhang pools of water. This foam is created through the churning of a fluid, secreted by the female of a mating pair. The nest itself is inedible and helps protect the eggs from predators. The eggs, once laid in the nest, develop over a number of days, until the tadpoles drop out into the water below.

Three large toads, Guttural, Eastern Olive and Red (70-100mm), may be commonly seen and heard calling along bare water edges or in open water. Foraging individuals of these species are often seen away from water – they are less reliant on damp habitats than many other species.

Two groups of frogs in iSimangaliso, the Squeakers and the Rain Frogs, do not need pools of water for survival. Squeakers lay their eggs beneath the moist leaf litter of the forest floor, where they develop without a tadpole stage. The young emerge as miniature replicas of the adults.

Rain frogs deposit their eggs in a chamber underground. The female remains near the eggs until the young develop. Rain frogs are rotund frogs (22-50mm) with short, squat legs; when they are threatened, they blow themselves up and become almost completely round. Three similar looking Rain frog species occur in the Wetland Park. One of these, the Whistling Rain Frog, was only described to science in 2003. It lives in dense woodland and forest on the Western Shores and near the town of St Lucia, where it was first detected by the strange, high pitched whistle given by the males.

70 Whistling Rain Frog

What is the difference between a frog and a toad?

Frogs and toads belong to the same order, Anura, but they belong to different families. True toads are all members of the family Bufonidae.

Frogs have finer bodies with narrower waists while toads' bodies are broader. • When on a flat surface, frogs lie flat, but toads tend to sit upright. • Frogs have feet that are specially structured to act as suction caps to enable them to climb trees and other surfaces. Toads live on the ground. • Frogs have an amazing variety of colours - green, yellow, orange, red, black and even blue. Toads are duller in appearance. • Frogs can jump and leap very far because they have strong back legs, but toads cannot leap very far or jump very high. • Some frogs have poison glands, but all toads have poison glands. • Frogs have slimy, slippery and delicate skin, but toads have drier skin with warts. • Frogs' eggs are laid in bunches, whilst toads' eggs are laid in long strings. • Generally, frogs live near water (although there are some desert species which hibernate until rains come). Toads tend to live away from water. • Some frog species are diurnal (active in the day) and some are nocturnal (active at night); toads are almost exclusively nocturnal. • Frogs have teeth for gripping their food (they do not chew). Toads do not have teeth.

Glossary Chamber: room or space Rotund: round

This article is based on a contribution written by James Harvey.

71 Check your understanding 1. In what kind of habitat are frogs and toads usually found? 2. Why are frogs good indicators of environmental health? 3. How many species of frogs are known in South Africa, and how many of these species live in the Park? 4. How many of these frogs are native to South Africa? 5. Why is it difficult to identify frogs? 6. In what season are frogs most active? 7. Why do the male frogs call during the summer season? 8. Name three large toads that are commonly found in pans in the Park. 9. Describe how the Foam Nest Frog breeds. 10. What is unique about the Squeaker and Rain Frogs in the Park, and how does each of them breed? 11. Where does the rare Whistling Rain Frog live in the Park?

Apply your learning 1. Where would you take a group of visitors that were interested in seeing or hearing frogs? How would you explain to them why iSimangaliso is so rich in frog species? 2. Explain to a group of visitors why frogs are good indicators of wetland health.

72 The formation of iSimangaliso’s grasslands

Did people in the Iron Age shape the landscape? Until quite recently scientific opinion was divided about how the grasslands of the iSimangaliso area were formed. One theory was that Iron Age people shaped the landscape by clearing and burning forests thought to be the original vegetation of the area. Today scientists believe there is more evidence that the grasslands are very ancient, and that they were formed by climate and fire, not by the actions of people.

Grasslands on iSimangaliso’s Eastern Shores The old view: people shaped the landscape

One of South Africa’s pioneering ecologists, John Acocks, wrote a book - first published in 1953 - entitled Veld Types of South Africa that has had a profound impact on ecological thinking in South Africa. One of the most striking features of the book was his proposal of an important vegetation change in South Africa, the destruction of forest, scrub forest and savannah by Iron Age people who lived in the subcontinent before the arrival of Europeans.

Iron Age people are classified as those who made iron tools, grew crops and domesticated animals.

Acocks describes a veld type he calls “Coastal Forest and Thornveld” - an important element of iSimangaliso - and claims that The area shown as occupied by coastal forest is not all forest today, but in this area there can be no doubt that the whole area was naturally some form of forest.

73 Acocks believed that the mix of wetlands, dune forest and coastal resources on the (such as we find on the Eastern Shores of Lake St Lucia) was very attractive to Early Iron Age communities. The archaeological record shows that these early agriculturalists could have been living in the iSimangaliso area as early as 1600 years ago, cutting fields into the dune forests and planting a variety of crops, as well as hunting, gathering plants, and making use of the large mussel colonies growing on the rocky beaches (as indicated by the many shell middens found by archaeologists along the beaches on the gentle slopes of the dunes).

Because soils in the Eastern Shores area lose their fertile quality quite quickly, these communities would have cut new fields frequently in the area. This practice of moving agricultural sites has produced an archaeological record that is thin (just under the surface of the earth) but extensive. Weapons and tools were evidently made from the bog iron ore that was exposed near the shores of Lake St Lucia and other wetlands.

Acocks thinks that this form of land use - "slash and burn”, or shifting agriculture - had a significant impact on the vegetation and habitat. When forests are cleared, grasslands and scrub (smaller bushes and plants) grow up to take their place. This gradual shift in vegetation would have made the area more suitable for grazing animals, gradually allowing domestic animals more extensive grazing land.

In Acocks’s influential view, Iron Age farmers are thought in this way to have gradually destroyed the natural forests that supposedly covered the coastal areas that had more than 900 mm of rainfall per annum. Once the forest was converted into grassland, the grassland habitats were artificially maintained by burning. The grasslands that exist on the coastal plain of iSimangaliso are therefore secondary or “false” in that they are considered to be entirely a product of human activity through the destruction of coastal forest and maintenance of grassland through deliberate use of fire. According to Acocks, the grasslands you drive through on the road between St Lucia and Cape Vidal along the eastern seaboard are only a few hundred years old.

Climate and fire shaped the landscape

Today most scientists accept that the grasslands along the eastern seaboard have been there for many thousands of years. This argument is supported by evidence from a wide range of disciplines, including archaeology, palaeobotany, biogeography, climatology and ecology.

Archaeologists study the human past by scientifically analysing the material remains (dwellings, pots, tools, weapons, beads) of ancient cultures buried under the surface of the earth. They have analysed the distribution of Iron Age people in South Africa over the last 2000 years. Wood, they say, was an important resource for Iron Age people. Their homesteads were constructed partly of

74 wood. They used wood to build kraals where livestock could be kept at night. Wood was used for cooking, for making fires to harden clay pots and to extract iron from rock. While Iron Age people occupied areas in which wood was readily available early in the settlement of South Africa - such as in the grassland-forest mosaic in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park - this does not prove that "original forests" were cleared for agriculture or livestock.

The presence of many endemic species (plants that are native to a certain limited area) in the grassland habitats of iSimangaliso suggests that these grasslands have a long evolutionary history. Palaeobotanists, who study plant fossils and remains of ancient vegetation buried in the soil, have identified grains of ancient pollen in cores (narrow, deep soil samples) taken from areas mapped as ‘false grassland’ by Acocks, that show these areas to have been grassland for a long time, at least 10 000 years, much longer than these areas have been inhabited by Iron Age people.

Ecologists study the relationship between organisms and their environment. Some ecologists have studied the patterns of recovery of plants and animals following fire. This evidence shows that species richness is greatest two to three years after a fire. The presence of so many species suggests that fire is a frequent natural occurrence in the grassland habitat. Furthermore, the dominant species in the grasslands of iSimangaliso have a very poor ability to disperse seed; if the grasslands are very young (hundreds as opposed to thousands of years old), it is unlikely that such poor seed distributors would have become so well established in so short a time.

Climate, then, is the most important determinant of the distribution of grasslands. The key factor is the frequency of fires. Fires destroy forests and nurture grasslands. Fire is a natural feature of the eastern seaboard, an inevitable consequence of summer rainfall and dry winters which dry out the vegetation sufficiently to carry fire, particularly under berg wind conditions (when the wind comes from the west to north-west). Before people were there to make them, fires would have been widespread under berg wind conditions. According to this theory, we would expect forests in the iSimangaliso area to be confined to sites that are protected from the fire-path of the berg wind.

Current forest patches, coastal forest, dune forest as well as swamp forest, are, in fact, restricted to the east or southeasterly slopes of undulating dunes with a west or northwest orientation. We find these forests only on the wind free side of these slopes, which protected and continue to protect trees from fire.

Small groups live lightly on the land

Evidence from anthropologists supports this view. Early Iron Age people lived in small groups. Colson5 shows us, based on her work in the Zambezi Valley in Zambia, that small groups living as

5 In Reynolds, P, Crawford Cousins C, 1993, Lwaano Lwanyika: Tonga Book of the Earth, Panos Publications.

75 hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers could not afford much specialisation. Powerful and difficult skills (such as forging iron) were secrets, kept in families, surrounded by ritual, and passed down the generations. For a small group, the labour needed to provide enough wood to forge a small amount of iron amongst those families who knew the secret must have been immense. The great value of iron hoes, axes, spears and knives (recorded by Colson) reflected the difficulty of their manufacture by these small groups. (A hundred years ago, small groups living in the Kosi Bay area are said not to have had access to iron knives 6). The backbreaking labour of agriculture without iron tools limits the size and extent of agricultural activities. This view supports the climate and fire theory of grassland formation. The impact on forests of small groups of people with simple tools is insignificant.

Since the 1920s, however, humans have substantially shaped the land surface in the iSimangaliso area by radically changing the floodplains of the Mfolozi River and the mouth of Lake St Lucia. They were able to do this because they had complex industrial machinery, a large labour force, an immense amount of stored labour in the form of money, and a sophisticated body of engineering knowledge.

Check your understanding 1. How does Acocks think that Iron Age people destroyed “the original forest” of the eastern coastal plain? 2. How old are the coastal grasslands of iSimangaliso, according to Acocks? 3. What do archaeologists study? 4. Name three ways that Iron Age people used wood. 5. What do paleobotanists study? 6. What is a “core”? 7. What is an endemic species? 8. How old are the coastal grasslands now thought to be? 9. What is the role of fire in maintaining grasslands? 10. What protects trees from fire? 11. What is the most important determinant of the distribution of grasslands? 12. What technological innovation enabled agriculture to expand? 13. How have humans substantially changed the land surface in iSimangaliso in the last hundred years?

Apply your knowledge 1. Where in iSimangaliso could the formation of the grasslands best be explained to a tour group?

6 Oral history of the Kosi Bay area: interview with Mr A.V. Tembe, 2007

76 2. Read the article Managing coastal grasslands. Prepare a short input on grasslands that combines the Red, Green and Brown elements of the “story.”

This article was drawn from a contribution by Professor Fred Ellery.

77 The dynamics of the coastal grasslands

Coastal grasslands are grasslands within five to ten kilometres from the sea. In iSimangaliso, these are the grasslands surrounding Kosi, the grasslands within the Coastal Forest Reserve, the grasslands of Ozabeni East and the grasslands of the Eastern Shores. These grasslands occur mainly on sandy nutrient-poor soils, in areas where rainfall ranges from 800 to 1400 mm a year. In the lower-lying areas, the high groundwater table prevents the growth of most woody plants, resulting in sedge-rich hygrophilous grasslands, typical wetland vegetation. In higher areas, the vegetation ranges from dry fire-climax grasslands through scrubby woodland to forest. Fire and groundwater are the main determinants of the coastal grasslands of iSimangaliso (see The formation of iSimangaliso’s grasslands).

Groundwater Groundwater resources are affected by vegetation. Trees have deep roots that “tap” into the groundwater. Through transpiration, each tree pumps out many litres of water each day from the groundwater aquifer. While closely planted and actively growing pine or eucalyptus trees cause the most damage to the aquifer, both indigenous forests and alien invasive woody shrubs also use vast quantities of water. To protect grasslands and groundwater aquifers, we need to prevent the expansion of bush clumps and forests, as well as alien invasive woody shrubs.

Grazing We know relatively little about the grassland dynamics of the iSimangaliso coastal area and the dynamics of the hippo grazing system. Hippos form a large component of the Eastern Shores grazing biomass and the interactions between hippo grazing lawns, other grazers, and fire and vegetation succession are important for the successful management of grasslands.

Grazing alters the balance between grasses and other plants, giving the advantage to the non-grass species (or non-grazed grasses). However, frequent burning encourages the growth of grasses and discourages woody plants. Some of the grazers (such as hippo) form "lawns". These lawns are gradually reduced as non-grazed grass clumps expand. Burning these areas allows the lawn- makers to start with a clean slate. These lawns are very productive and they are used by several species other than hippo.

In the coastal areas, the grazers tend to feed on the drier grasslands during wet periods when the hygrophilous grasslands are flooded and unavailable to them. During dry periods the grazers prefer to feed on the dry pan-bottoms and hygrophilous grasslands. The amount of grazing available changes as pans and hygrophilous areas dry out, creating additional areas for grazing. Thus carrying capacity is dictated by the wet-period conditions when grazing is most limited.

78 Hippos tend to feed in a mosaic pattern between tall grass clumps. These clumps expand during wet periods. Fire burns out these clumps and tends to even out the grass height and re-establish lawns. Grazing pressure on lawns fluctuates during the progression from wet to dry periods. Low- lying areas are more likely to be grazed during dry periods than in wet periods, so that the area is effectively rested during wet periods. During wet periods, grazing is diminished and vegetation accumulates. To maintain the grazing lawns, burning is carried out after a wet season, when the accumulation of vegetation and grass has dried.

Managing coastal grasslands

There are different grassland management strategies in different areas of the Park. The Eastern Shores is currently being developed as a high-density tourist area. Its ecosystem is closely linked to the Lake St Lucia ecosystem, with great variation in topography and vegetation because of the narrow distance between the Lake and the sea. In this area, management has to be more intensive and more interventionist than in the grasslands to the north.

Before the 1950's there were many cattle grazing on the Eastern Shores, and the area was frequently burned to encourage new growth for grazing, using a traditional grasslands management method now called "point-source" burning. Several fires would be ignited within an area at different times, so that a mosaic of burns was allowed to develop. Time of day, weather conditions and season were important, as they promoted different types and extents of burns, and hence different vegetation responses. The fires would be spread from early winter to December, with most of the burning completed before the end of August, when the grass has a spring flush. This practice promoted the greatest diversity in the grasslands and left unburnt patches that acted as refuge sites for insects, reptiles and small mammals.

79 iSimangaliso’s coastal grasslands have a long history of association with fire and it is part of iSimangaliso and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s management strategy to retain the Park’s fire-maintained grasslands as habitat for game

After most of the people (and their cattle) living in the area were removed in the 1950s, this frequent, "point-source" burning stopped. Instead, to protect the new pine plantations, the area was divided into blocks that were burned at two to three year intervals in cool, low-wind conditions. Block burning led to an increase in woody plants and the outward expansion of forest margins. “Point source” burning requires fewer firebreaks and much less labour than block burning.

With the removal of commercial forestry from the Eastern Shores, there are no longer constraints on the use of fire as a management tool. It is has been possible to re-institute the traditional burning regime where fires are ignited at a "point-source", rather than on a long front, and are then allowed to burn out anywhere. The damage by fire burning into forest margins is not great, and in most cases the forests and forest clumps have been expanding.

Establishing carrying capacity From the mid 50's to the mid 70's, after the residents and their cattle were forced to leave the Eastern Shores, there were few grazers other than hippo (and even their populations were depressed). Then reedbuck populations began to grow. Since the 1980's, other grazers have been introduced. There are now significant populations of waterbuck, zebra, buffalo and warthog on the Eastern Shores. This multi-species wildlife system is fairly new, and may put the grasslands at risk. Good day-to-day management as well as long-term research is needed to measure grass biomass production and carrying capacity. Plants vulnerable to fire

80 Some plant communities, such as Swamp forests and mangroves are vulnerable to the effects of fire, and the wellbeing of Encephalartos ferox cycads, typical of the area north of Bhangazi, seems to be related to the burning regime. The distribution of cycads is linked to forest margins and bush clumps. It is thought that their seeds require a humid, shady environment for germination provided by trees. Where the forest margin has retreated, or the bush clump has disappeared, then cycads are left isolated in the grassland. The adults survive these exposed conditions, but there is unlikely to be recruitment in these fire and weather-exposed conditions. Although fire management is a factor affecting the cycad population, the main threat to cycads is poaching.

Management of clear-felled pine plantations Until very recently much of the Eastern Shores was covered by commercial pine forests. The pines are gone, and the wetlands are returning. However, when a pine plantation is clear-felled, the area is left with rows of trash. This takes several years to break down, and while doing so it protects pine seedlings and coppicing rootstock from herbivores. Woody plant growth is very rapid on the Eastern Shores. Re-establishment of plants happens quickly and if management is neglected the woody plants soon reach the stage where they are no longer affected by fire.

In some areas the tendency to “wood-up” is so strong there is little that can be done about it. To transform these areas to grassland would require too huge a management effort. These areas are left to go to forest. The pine trash is burned, to prevent it becoming a seedbed for alien plants.

Where there is a high water table, there is little chance of an area wooding up, and minimal management is required. The area is burnt to remove the pine-trash, and then periodically burned when there are dry conditions after a wet period.

In certain areas grassland is actively promoted, using frequent hot fires as soon after felling as possible. Rehabilitation activities, such as the cutting of pine seedlings, excessive indigenous plant coppice, weedy plants and alien plants is planned so that the cut branches are dry enough to contribute to the fuel load by the time the burning is implemented.

This article was drawn from Ezemvelo KZNWildlife’s Conservation Management Plan for iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

Check your understanding 1. Which plants tend to increase when animals graze? 2. How do hippos affect the grasslands? 3. What is “block burning’? 4. Why was it used? 5. What is “point-source burning’?

81 6. When and why did point-source burning stop being used as a grasslands management tool? 7. Name four grazing species that are now common on the Eastern Shores. 8. Name a plant community vulnerable to fire. 9. What conditions do cycads require for germination? 10. How is grassland actively promoted in some areas of iSimangaliso?

Apply your knowledge 1. Why is fire used as a management tool in the Park? 2. What are the advantages of point-source burning over block burning in terms of the management goals of the iSimangaliso Authority? 3. Refer to The formation of the grasslands. Draw on that article to prepare a presentation that integrates the Red, Green and Brown elements of the grassland story. Where in iSimangaliso would you choose to tell this story to a group of tourists?

82 The hippos of iSimangaliso

Hippopotamuses (hippo) are found in many of the water bodies of the Park .

"Hippopotamus" means “water or river horse” in Greek. Hippos have great barrel-shaped bodies, short stout legs and smooth naked skin. The skin of a hippo is thin, with no sweat glands. A hippo on land in hot weather loses water at several times the rate of other mammals, risking rapid dehydration and overheating. Hippos have very large, wide mouths, and their jaws are armed with tusk-like canines and incisor teeth. Amongst the hoofed animals, only hippos are truly amphibious (able to live both on land and in water), spending as much as two-thirds of their life in water. Hippos are unable to float. They move through the water with a jumping action. In deeper water they push themselves to the surface with their four-toed, unwebbed hind feet. Adults can remain under water for five to six minutes, but calves, although they can nurse underwater, normally submerge themselves for no more than two to three minutes at a time.

Hippos need fresh water deep enough to submerge in, and nearby grassland. Hippos are herbivores, feeding at night by plucking grasses and sedges with their wide lips. Each hippo eats between 10 and 14 kilogrammes of grass each night. Based on the Park population of about 1 000, hippos crop between 3 600 and 5 200 tons of grass (dry mass) every year.

Hippos spend most of the day in rivers or pans, in groups of up to a couple of hundred individuals. Such congregations can be seen at Tewati Bay, along the Eastern Shores of Lake St Lucia, in the Narrows, at Lake Bhangazi, Lake Sibaya, Muzi Pan, at Kosi and in the water bodies of uMkuze. At Lake St Lucia these day groups do not have a stable size or composition, and may change from day

83 to day. A group seems to form around a dominant and territorial male, and the structure and hierarchy is maintained by frequent squabbles and calls, squeals and grunts.

During the day, when they are in water or resting ashore, contact between individuals is very close - much closer than most other ungulates (hoofed mammals such as horses, cattle, buck, pigs and elephants) will tolerate. At night, when feeding, hippos are unsociable; each individual becomes an independent unit, except for the females with dependent offspring.

The resonant honking call made by submerged hippos to express threat and alarm is one of the most impressive African wildlife sounds. Dung showering also plays an important part in the social life of hippos. As they move along their paths at night from the water to their nocturnal feeding grounds, they deposit dung scent-markers at regular intervals by scattering dung on vegetation with their rapidly paddling tails. These dung scatterings act as signposts for navigation and communication. The full significance of dung middens and the differences in this behaviour between males and females is not yet understood.

Territorial bulls are intolerant of each other, and attacks on younger individuals and even calves are not uncommon. An analysis of 73 hippos killed at St Lucia by other hippos in recent years showed that 41 were adults, and 48 were males. If the animals died fighting for territory one would expect to find a higher number of deaths amongst adult males. The large number of young hippo and females killed might be the result of social stress, perhaps the result of overcrowding on grazing areas that have shrunk because of the current drought.

Hippos can become aggressive very quickly, especially the female with young, and there are numerous records of attacks on boats and canoes as well as on people on land that either approach them too closely, or find themselves between the animal and water.

84 Historical records indicate that throughout the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, white hunters greatly reduced hippo populations during the 19th century (links; Adolphus Delagorgue, The White Hunters of Zululand and the Eradication of Game). In 1980, the number of hippos recorded in the lake was only 682 animals. This was the highest number counted since 1883, when records of numbers of hippos began to be kept. Since they have been protected the population has steadily increased, and today about 1000 hippos are found within the major water bodies of the Park.

Glossary

Hippo middens are heaps of excrement or dung. Amphibious animals are able to live in water as well as on land. Herbivores are animals that do not eat meat. Territorial animals adopt a territory or space and defend it from other animals.

This article is based on a contribution written by Xander Combrink.

Check your understanding

1. What does the word ‘hippopotamus’ mean? 2. How much of their lives do they spend in water? 3. Where are hippos found in the Park? 4. What does ‘amphibious’ mean? 5. How do hippos move in the water? 6. How many hippos are there in the Park today? 7. How many were there in 1980? 8. How many tons of grass do the hippos of the Wetland Park eat in a year? 9. When do they eat? 10. What do hippos do during the day? 11. Why can they be said to be ‘unsociable’ at night? 12. How do hippos ‘shower dung’ and what is the reason for this behaviour? 13. What does it mean that adult bull hippos are ‘territorial’? 14. How do they behave towards human beings? 15. Where do hippos take refuge when they feel they are threatened?

Apply your learning

85 1. “…Of 73 hippos killed at St Lucia by other hippos in recent years 41 were adults and 48 were males”. Why do you think so many female and young hippos are found dead? 2. If you saw group of hippo making noises in the water – how would you interpret this to a group of tourists? 3. Would you encourage tourists to swim in Lake Bhangazi and Lake St Lucia?

86 iSimangaliso’s people: the precolonial period

Our story of the people of the iSimangaliso area is drawn from the colonial record, from reports written by Portuguese and English speaking travelers, hunters and traders, missionaries and settlers. The people of the area did not have access to writing at that time, and the new settlers did not record the oral histories of the indigenous people. Historians and anthropologists have begun to work in the area now, but they can only record the views of the past through the lens of the present. The voices of the original people are silent forever. We have no access to the history of the area from the local point of view. What follows, then, is a history that relies on an interpretation of the colonial record of the time in the light of contemporary scientific and historical theories.

Early international trade in southern Africa Apartheid historians insisted that "migration' was the engine of change in South Africa. Iron Age peoples, they claimed, migrated southwards from central Africa, reaching the Eastern Cape frontier only in the 18th century - so that the white settlers, expanding from the Cape of Good Hope at the same time, had an equal claim to the “empty” land as the “Bantu” with whom they came into conflict.

However, we have new theories based on archeological evidence about social change in the pre- historical period (the period before written records). The Portuguese travelers who preceded the Dutch sailors of 1652 were not the "first contact" with non-Africans for all indigenous southern Africans. From about 800AD there is evidence from the east coast of southern Africa of trade with the Arab world via the Limpopo River Valley. Glass beads, cloth and other exotic items were traded for ivory, and possibly slaves as well. By 1200 AD hierarchical societies with a centralised control of wealth had arisen on the edges of the Kalahari and in the Limpopo River Valley. Within a few centuries of initial commercial contact, early southern African states such as Mapungubwe and Zimbabwe were trading regularly with the Medieval Arab world. Just as gold was an essential standard for European and Asian trade, so beads and cloth were accepted tokens of wealth in southern Africa.7 Because of the scattered nature of the small groups of people living in the iSimangaliso area, as we shall see below, it is likely that this trade did not benefit them, although they might have been involved in the ivory trade as suppliers.

We know roughly how long "Iron Age" people - people who made iron tools, grew crops and domesticated animals - have lived in the area (many hundreds of years before the arrival of the white settlers), but the concept of distinct ‘ages’ (Stone Age, Iron Age) explained in terms of simple technological development was exploded in the 1980's by archaeologists such as Martin Hall. Hall explains how kingdoms arose in southern Africa: over a long period, and where climate allowed, people began to use and accumulate cattle within families or ‘lineages’, which slowly gave rise to a

7 Hall, M, 1987, The Changing Past: Farmers, Kings & Traders in Southern Africa 200-1860. Cape Town: David Philip.

87 different form of society with a different economy. Cattle acted as a mobile form of stored wealth, allowing larger groups of people to live together in a more complex way. When larger groups lived together, labour could become more specialised. Men could spend more of their time in the roles of warrior, ritual specialist, woodcarver, and blacksmith with the assurance that they would be fed by the agricultural labour of others. Wealth was counted as the accumulation of descendents, children and grandchildren; cattle were prized because they were essential for paying bride wealth or lobola. While women continued to gather and to cultivate annual crops - the basis of subsistence - men owned and controlled cattle, the basis of wealth accumulation and political power.

Political systems developed to control and direct labour and surplus production. Older men controlled the labour of younger men and all women. In some areas, for example the southeast coast of South Africa, a more hierarchical form of social organisation began to develop. Powerful patriarchs became local chiefs and then kings of larger areas. Regiments of military specialists were created to extract tribute (an early form of taxation) by force, from smaller and less powerful groups in the area, which in turn built the wealth and resources of favoured members of the larger group. The Zulu polity (state) developed in this way. This is the context within which to understand the relationship between the indigenous people living in the iSimangaliso area and the powerful, hierarchically organized cattle keepers to the south of them.

The term Thonga/Tonga refers to the people living in the area of what is today Mozambique south of the Sabi river down to northern KwaZulu Natal. People living in this part of southern Africa existed as separate groups that had little to do with each other apart from sharing various cultural practices and languages. There was no general term to describe people living in this region before they came into contact with the Zulu and the colonial settlers.8

In the area between the Phongolo River in the north (now the border of Mozambique) and the uMzimkhulu River in the south, contemporary historians9 have given an account of what pre-colonial African society along the south-east coast probably looked like. They suggest that in the mid eighteenth century the inhabitants of the Phongolo-Mzimkhulu region lived in many small-scale political units, that ranged over a few hundred to several thousand square kilometres, and in size from a thousand or fewer individuals to several thousand or more. In some, the ruling chief exercised a lightly felt managerial and ritual authority over the people who recognised his rule and

8 Klopper, S. 1992. The Art of Zulu-Speakers in Northern Natal-Zululand: An Investigation of the History of Beadwork, Carving and Dress from Shaka to Inkatha. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Witwatersrand.

9 Hamilton, C. and Wright, J. 1989. ‘Traditions and transformations: The Phongolo-Mzimkhulu region in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centruries’ in Duminy and Guest (eds) Natal and Zululand from earliest times to 1910: A new history. University of KwaZulu-Natal Press; Durban.

88 paid him tribute. In larger units, the dominant chief’s power was to a greater or lesser extent based on physical force.

Chiefdoms were made up of shifting clusters of homesteads. Ties of kinship, of clientship, and of marriage operated to bind households into communities. The acts of allegiance people made to a particular chief and the distribution of some of the tribute given to him to favoured individuals also provided some stability and political cohesion. But both communities and chiefdoms were generally fluid and unstable entities, enlarging, splitting, forming and reforming, sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently, as members quarreled over access to resources and power. This was because there were no institutions through which the chief could exercise more than a temporarily effective command over the armed men of the chiefdom. For the same reason, these chiefdoms of the mid- eighteenth century and earlier were not divided on class lines - permanently opposed groups of “haves” and “have-nots” - because a ruling group did not have the institutional means to seize exclusive control of a chiefdom’s basic resources. There was however inequality between men and women, and between older and younger people.

The history of the St Lucia area is marked by this fluidity of African communities and chiefdoms. A series of small migrations, often as a result of splits within surrounding chiefdoms, meant that the area became home to a number of communities with different origins and affiliations.

Check your understanding 1. Before the Portuguese arrived in southern Africa, who were the international trading partners of indigenous southern Africans? 2. What was the currency of this trade? 3. By when had hierarchical societies with a centralised control of wealth arisen on the edges of the Kalahari and in the Limpopo River Valley? 4. In pre-colonial societies, wealthy men had many…? 5. Why were cattle so important in the development of state formations? 6. What was the function of military regiments? 7. Of what were chiefdoms made up? 8. What bound households into communities in the pre-colonial period?

Apply your knowledge Why did apartheid historians insist that "migration' was the engine of change in South Africa? iSimangaliso’s people: the Zulu Kingdom

The rise and fall of the Zulu Kingdom, the arrival of white hunters and adventurers, the brief existence of the Voortrekker republic and finally the establishment of a British Colony in Natal radically transformed the politics of the region, and reshaped the living conditions of the

89 communities living in the iSimangaliso area. The rise and fall of the Zulu kingdom helped to shape the contemporary politics of the Park.

At the beginning of the 1800s, the African social and political system was being transformed from within. Historians do not really know why the long-established balance between small independent chiefdoms, usually made up of not more than four or five villages collapsed. Some historians think that it was the work of powerful individuals – notably Dingiswayo and Shaka, African kings who rose to great prominence in the early part of the 19th century. Others claim that the change was due to the presence of white colonials, who inspired these local rulers to adapt and expand their military tactics and quest for domination. There have been other suggestions too, including that certain chiefs sought economic control of trade networks extending up into what is now Malawi, or that an expanding population needed new land for settlement.

More recent accounts suggest that the international trade in ivory provided the initial dynamic. Studies in other parts of Africa have linked the revival of the European ivory trade at Delgoa Bay from the mid-eighteenth century onwards to political conflict and the formation and expansion of states, where previously there were no states.

King Shaka and the Mfecane

A series of conquests known as the Mfecane occurred when some of the chiefdoms along the south east coast and its interior began to absorb other more poorly defended chiefdoms and become large and powerful kingdoms. The most powerful and commanding of the polities to arise from these wars was the Zulu Kingdom, with its famous king, Shaka.

Shaka’s predecessor, Dingiswayo, made a crucial innovation near the end of the 18th century by bringing together two previously separate institutions: the school and the military. He conscripted all young men into a standing army organised by age regiment, and trained them into a force much stronger than any in the surrounding areas. Around 1808, Shaka was one of the young men to be conscripted into Dingiswayo’s growing army. He acquired a reputation as a formidable soldier and military strategist.

The small Zulu chiefdom, at the time a group of about two thousand people, was one of the many groups that came to recognise Dingiswayo as overlord. Dingiswayo sent Shaka to take over the Zulu chieftainship, which he did without opposition. Shaka began to develop a Zulu military system that included some of his own tactical inventions. He is credited with developing the short stabbing spear and body-length shield. The long protective shield allowed his soldiers to move in very close to their enemies and use the short strong spear to formidable effect. Shaka developed effective battle formations and strategies, and his soldiers were strictly trained and disciplined. He forbade

90 them to marry before the age of 40, devised punishing training regimes, and required them to go barefoot into battle. In 1818 his old enemy, Zwide, chief of the Ndwandwe, killed Dingiswayo. Shaka took over his command to become the strongest ruler north of the Thukela River.

The rise of the Zulu kingdom brought about mass displacement of people across the eastern coast and its interiors. Refugees from Shaka’s battles were forced into southern and northern territories. Others found refuge in the mountains to the west, or were absorbed into the Zulu nation. (See iSimangalio’s people in the 19th Century, which describes what happened to the people living in the coastal areas north of Shaka’s stronghold, in current northern KwaZulu Natal).

An Nguni chief of the Dlamini clan called Sobhuza successfully organised a northern resistance against Shaka. Sobhuza’s father had resisted both Dingiswayo's and Zwide's attacks and had already begun to strengthen his position by amalgamating smaller communities. Sobhuza continued this, drawing together Sotho and Nguni chiefdoms to lay the foundations of what was to become known as the Swazi kingdom, named after his son, Mswazi, who ruled after 1840.

But such resistance was rare. If smaller chiefdoms were not displaced or absorbed into the Zulu Kingdom, they could also have fallen victim to a second wave of domination: the large-scale displacement of Africans that occurred during this time. Some of the chiefs that had been defeated by Shaka’s armies, seeking new territories and the reconstitution of their political power, unleashed their own domination over local communities further afield. Ndebele speaking people in southern Zimbabwe, for example, are descended from the Zulu Mzilikazi, who took his troops to the north.

The Cobbing Controversy

Cobbing is regarded as the first historian to discredit conventional historical beliefs about the Mfecane. In a paper published in the Journal of African History in 1988, Cobbing argued persuasively that the Mfecane had been the construct of apartheid politicians and historians attempting to justify the longstanding oppression of black South Africans by their white colonisers. Instead of an internally induced process of black-on-black destruction, Cobbing argued that European slave traders and settlers, who had contracted local tribal leaders to capture slaves for sale at Delgoa Bay (now Maputo), had brought about much of the violence. The rise of the Zulu state, under Cobbing suggests, was thus more of a defensive reaction to the slave-trading activities of other tribes in the region than a process of active internal aggression, as some scholars argue. His views are still controversial.

Check your understanding 1. Give one explanation of the collapse of the long-established balance between small independent chiefdoms in the early 1800s.

91 2. In whose army did Shaka serve as a young man? 3. What were Shaka’s military innovations, and why were they significant? 4. What was the Mfecane? 5. Who was Sobhuza? 6. After whom was the Swazi Kingdom named? 7. From whom are the Ndebele speaking people of Zimbabwe descended? 8. Whom did Cobbing blame for the Mfecane?

Apply your knowledge Use this article and iSimangaliso’s people in the 19th Century to prepare a talk about Zulu influence on the iSimangaliso area.

92 iSimangaliso’s people in the 19th century10

Before the iSimangaliso region was incorporated into colonial Zululand it played an important political and economic role on the periphery of the Zulu state. It seems that in the pre-colonial period the area was dominated by several competing amakhosi. It was traditionally granted that the people along the shores of Lake St Lucia, stretching up to Maputo Bay, fell under the sway of the Mabhudu amakhosi. When the Mthethwa - led by Dingiswayo kaJobe - and subsequently the Zulu state of Shaka kaSenzangakhona (also known as Shaka Zulu) expanded into the ivory-rich coastal region, Tsonga/Ronga speaking people were forced to move away from the Mfolozi valley into the iSimangaliso area. The aggression of the Thembe inkosi to the north at the same time further concentrated Tsonga/Ronga speaking people around Lake St Lucia. Although the various communities would have spoken different dialects of the Tsonga/Ronga language, and would not have seen themselves as a ‘nation’ as we understand the term today, most would have recognised the political authority of the Mabhudu amakhosi.

While the centre of Mabhudu power was located north of Lake St Lucia, the iSimangaliso area was regarded as the southern reach of the territory. The early 19th century was marked by a series of squabbles for supremacy when several amakhosi and their brothers fought each other in succession struggles. By 1824 Shaka took advantage of these internal divisions and extended Zulu authority over the Tsonga/Ronga speaking people. The area was never formally incorporated into the Zulu state but the Mabhudu inkosi Makasana was regarded as having a ‘client’ relationship with the successors of Shaka. This meant that while the Mabhudu inkosi was free to reign in his own territory, he was expected to supply tribute to the Zulu kings in the form of cattle, trade goods and sometimes labour. This situation continued until the death of inkosi Makasana in 1853, at which point the reigning Zulu monarch (Shaka’s successor Mpande kaSenzangakhona) tightened his control over the Tsonga/Ronga speaking people of the coast.

James Stuart, an interpreter and administrator in Natal, Swaziland and Zululand, writing around the 1920s, records an interview with a Zulu man named Bikwayo kaNoziwawa that shows what the Zulu tributary control over Tsonga/Ronga lands implied, even in the late 19th Century:

I used to go to Tongaland with my father – as a mat-bearer. My brother Mnyaiza… used also to go. We used to go for genet skins for the warriors’ dancing girdles; blue monkey skin for the strips worn at the side of the face; leopard and otter skin for the warriors’ headbands; blue cloth to be worn by the

10 Most of this piece is taken from an unpublished paper by Steve Kotze, who drew on Guy, J, 1996, Political power and land distribution in the St Lucia area from the 19th century’ (unpublished research paper, History Department, University of Natal).

93 king’s isigodhlo [women’s enclosure in the king’s quarters]; large red beads, and lion and leopard claws worn by chiefs; elephant tusks for the king (who would send them on to the Europeans); rhinoceros horns for making snuff boxes of the type carried in the ear lobe (for the amakosikazi [older royal women]); beads, calabashes, gourds, etc; beer baskets, food baskets, ubusenga rings [worn around the upper arm and calf], ornamental sticks and knobsticks, and many other articles – ostrich feathers and amampabane beads worn by chiefs…. When the things were ready, the Tonga king would furnish men to accompany us with the things to Zululand, they acting as the carriers. Things were fetched from Tongaland year by year. No year passed without this being done.11

Mpande supported the claim of the 14-year-old Nozingile over Makasana’s heir Makasanyana. The new young inkosi was thus secured as an ally of the Zulu state, an alliance that was further cemented when Mpande presented him with a wife. Following the Zulu Civil War of 1856, Cetswayo kaMpande settled some of his followers around the Phongolo. The border amakhosi south of Kosi Bay became increasingly independent of the Mabhudu inkosi as Zulu power and influence over the Mabhudu amakhosi increased both north and south of Lake St Lucia. As the 19th century progressed the lower Mfolozi valley fell under the control of the Mphukunyoni amakhosi (the name has changed to Mkhwanazi in the course of the 20th century). The most significant of these, Somkhele kaMalanda, ruled in the second half of the 19th century. An inkosi of considerable power, he came from a family that had first risen to authority when his grandfather Velane was an induna of Dingiswayo kaJobe. During the reign of Shaka his father Malanda kaVelane was ‘raised’ to become an inkosi and was given the important role of guarding the eastern coastal region and keeping any southward Mabhudu harassment in check. Although beholden to the Zulu state for the power they held, the Mphukunyoni amakhosi were far from the seat of royal power and acted as a powerful regional force, particularly once Malanda kaVelane married into the royal household.

Imperialism influenced the lives of Tsonga/Ronga speaking people in the early 1870s when Britain and Portugal came into conflict over the crucial question of trade rights on the southeast coast. Finally the French president, MacMahon, was asked to arbitrate and without any consultation with the people who lived there, the territory of the Mabhudu inkosi was carved in two. All the land from Delagoa Bay (modern Maputo) to 26’30’’ (just north of Lake St Lucia) was granted to the Portuguese while everything south of that, and as far west as the Mkhuze River, became part of the Zulu kingdom, therefore in the general sphere of British interest.

11 Webb and Wright in Klopper, S. 1992. The Art of Zulu-Speakers in Northern Natal-Zululand: An Investigation of the History of Beadwork, Carving and Dress from Shaka to Inkatha. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Witwatersrand.

94 In 1876, the year after the MacMahon arbitration, the Mabhudu inkosi Nozingile died and his brother Muhena became regent with the support of Cetshwayo kaMpande. After the Zulu defeat at the hands of the British in 1879 there was an extraordinary palace coup when Nozingile’s Swazi widow Zambili secured the throne for her juvenile son, declared herself Queen-Regent and forced all other claimants into exile. By agreeing to assist in their suppression of Zulu authority, she engineered British support for her position. The Anglo-Mabhudu ‘treaty of friendship’ was signed in July 1887. The Queen-Regent was a formidable character and quite capable of holding her own in international relations. When the British refused to extend her territory south of the Mkhuze River she swung her allegiance to the Portuguese. In 1888 the British annexed Zambili’s land to the new colony of Zululand to prevent the extension of Portuguese claims. With the new dispensation the northern shores of Lake St Lucia fell under the minor Mabhudu amakhosi Sibonda and Ncamana. The British claimed that all the people living along the shores of Lake St Lucia were henceforth to be considered “Zulu” subjects of the British crown.

The annexation of 1888 has probably had some influence on the “Zulu” ethnicity claimed by people living around iSimangaliso today. After two generations of Mabhudu political leadership, the Tsonga/ Ronga-speaking people of the area found themselves under new political masters. The Mphukunyoni inkosi of the day, Somkhele kaMalanda, had great standing with Zulu royalty. His mother was a full sister to King Mpande ka Senzangakhona and he kept his personal umuzi on the same lines as an ikhanda (Royal Homestead). After the end of the Zulu Kingdom in 1879, Somkhele became a firm supporter of the royalist cause. He fought several times in the uSuthu ranks, was imprisoned for “public violence” and finally died in 1907. His personal identification with Zulu power and his increasing sway over the iSimangaliso region no doubt played an important role in the development of a “Zulu” identity.

The Zululand Lands Delimitation Commission of 1902-1904 sought to break the old focus of royal power in the east and moved the Mphukunyoni inkosi west. Smaller groupings of Mnqobokazi, Nibele and Gumede were left in place, but most of the Mphukunyoni territory became Crown Land.

Tonga as a first language Today, the term ‘Thonga’ or Tonga, is hardly used amongst the current inhabitants of the area, who may identify themselves either as Zulu or as belonging to diverse smaller chiefdoms and communities. Very few people today speak Thonga/Tonga as a first language, but an interest in its revival has begun to surface among some young people (and chiefly families) as part of a claim to land and resources in the area, or even as part of an argument for secession to Mozambique.

Check your understanding 1. To whom did the people along the shores of Lake St Lucia, stretching up to Maputo Bay owe allegiance in the pre-colonial period?

95 2. Which modern capital, of which country, takes its name from the Mabhudu family? 3. When did the Mabhudu inkosi Makasana die? 4. Name five articles that the Zulu of the 19th Century received as tribute from the people from Tonga/Tsonga speaking people of the iSimangaliso area. 5. How did King Mpande kaSenzangakhona tighten his control over the Tsonga/Ronga speaking people of the coast? 6. Which Zulu amakhosi was sent to rule over the lower Mfolozi River Valley? 7. This prominent family’s name changed during the course of the 20th Century. What was it then, and what is it now? 8. When was the territory of the Mabhudu inkosi carved in two, and to whom were the two territories given? 9. Who was Zambili, and why did she make a treaty with the British? 10. Why did Zambili swing her allegiance to the Portuguese? 11. Why did the British annex Zambili’s land in 1888, and what was the effect of this annexation on the people of the area? 12. Who was Somkhele kaMalanda, to whom was he married, and in what year did he die? 13. What happened to the influential Mphukunyoni inkosi and his land at the beginning of the 20th Century?

Apply your knowledge 1. How would you use this piece to explain the re-introduction of elephant into the iSimangaliso Wetland Park? 2. Prepare a presentation that draws on this piece as well as iSimangaliso’s people: the Zulu Kingdom to explain the different histories of people living in the iSimangaliso area today.

96 The creation of poverty in the iSimangaliso area

After the arrival of the European settlers, people in the iSimangaliso area were slowly absorbed into the cash economy. Contact with Europeans was made via the Portuguese settled at Delgoa Bay. The travelling traders of the 19th century offered industrially produced goods, beads (from Venice and the East), hoes, axes and knives, in exchange for local goods (ivory, skins) of more value, so that the balance of trade was skewed from the start. Guns, though very expensive, were extremely attractive to men, both as a means of effective hunting and as a way of establishing independence from older kinsmen.

In the early days young men occasionally went to the diamond mines in Kimberley to earn the money for a gun, but most men were absorbed into the round of annual production at home. After the fall of the Zulu Kingdom in 1898, when land and cattle were lost and taxes imposed, jobs in the cash economy for younger male members of a household became essential. The central social process of the 20th century in southern Africa was the creation of the migrant labour system. Men's commitment to long periods of absence turned rural areas into impoverished ‘labour reserves’. Migrant labour gradually destroyed the remains of the old rural economy.

Taxes were an important way of controlling the residence and movement of Africans in colonial space. The imposition of ‘hut tax’ - an amount of money levied on the head of the household for every house within his homestead by the colonial government - was designed to force African men to enter the cash economy as wage labourers. The young men of the household were sent away to work in the cities as migrant labourers. These young men – and later, young women –- sent part of their wages back to the homestead to pay the hut tax, which in turn paid for the British administration of the area.

The 1913 Land Act After the destruction of the Zulu Kingdom in 1898, the British took most of the fertile land in Natal for white agriculture and created ‘native reserves’ in Zululand, north of the Tugela River. This meant a great loss of land for African communities. In 1910, after the Anglo Boer war, the two British colonies (the colonies of the Cape and Natal) and the two Boer republics (the Republic of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic) were unified under the British into the Union of South Africa.

One of the first actions of the new government of the Union was to pass the 1913 Native Land Act (see The Shaping of the Land Claims on iSimangaliso for more detail). The Act was the first stage in the drawing of a permanent line between black and white spaces in South Africa. Some 8.9 million

97 hectares of South Africa were defined as ‘Native Reserves’. Africans were not allowed to buy or lease land outside of these reserves.

The land allocated to Africans, fractured into small pieces all over the country and of generally poorer quality than that allocated to whites, was a small percentage of the land that was at that point actually inhabited by blacks. The Union government embarked on a programme to ‘resettle’ Africans living in areas recently declared "white" into Native Reserves, particularly those who were not considered necessary to the supply of labour to white-controlled industry.

By 1936, the land ‘released’ for black occupation was only thirteen per cent of the surface area of South Africa.

In Natal, the farms owned by Africans were appropriated over time by the state. These farms and other smaller areas inhabited by Africans were referred to as ‘black spots’ that the state wanted "cleared from the map". Today claims for restitution of land take 1913 as the cut-off date. Land seized before 1913 is not considered for restitution. The areas set aside by the British for "preservation" in Zululand, including the St Lucia Reserve, formed part of the broader system of "game reserves" in the Union of South Africa.

Migrant labour and the creation of rural poverty During the Second World War the manufacturing industry in South Africa received a massive boost from overseas imports and the factories demanded greater supplies of labour. But in order to control the rate of black urbanisation, Africans entering urban areas for work were required to carry ‘passes’ that controlled their movement and forced their return to the 'reserves'. These areas were never intended to become self-sufficient. Africans were forced to leave for the cities, where they lived in ‘locations’ and hostels, in search of wages to feed their families. Old or sick workers were sent home to be cared for at little or no expense to government.

The Native Reserves, (later called "bantustans" and then "homelands") thus became labour reserves, providing white-owned urban business and industry with a steady flow of cheap African labour. Most of the able-bodied members of the rural population, in particular men, were absent for most of the year and thus unable to contribute to any economic development at home. It was a system that forced poverty and stagnation upon rural areas.

Check your understanding 1. In what is now northern KwaZulu Natal, how did young men first become absorbed into the cash economy?

98 2. What exchanges took place between early colonial traders and local people? 3. What were young men particularly keen to obtain, how did they do this, and why? 4. When did the British defeat the Zulu Kingdom? 5. When did the British establish the colony of Natal? 6. What was the territory north of the colony named? What was the ‘hut tax’? 7. When was the Union of South Africa set up? 8. What was the purpose of the Native Land Act of 1913? 9. What were the areas called that were allocated to Africans? 10. By 1936 what percentage of South Africa was allocated to black people? 11. What was the government’s intention in creating these areas? 12. What impact did the migrant labour system have on the rural economy? 13. What were ‘black spots’ and how did the government deal with them? 14. What was the effect of World War 2 on South African cities? 15. How were black industrial workers prevented from settling in the cities?

Apply your learning 1. Explain to a group of visitors how the absence of large numbers of young men (and women) from an area creates poverty.

99 White settlers enter Natal

In 1830 there were very few white settlers in the area that became the colony of Natal. In 1822, William Owen, a captain in the British Royal Navy, had started a survey of the southeast African coastline for the British Admiralty, beginning with the Delgoa Bay area. Owen reported that there was good agricultural land available, and whites began to trickle into the east coast area. Thereafter a small and fluctuating group of British adventurers made their headquarters in the Bay of Natal. Their focus was not agriculture but the collection and export of ivory. For a time they were cut off from the outside world by the loss of a ship, stranded on the sand bar at the entrance to the bay. 12

Although this small community of whites attracted some others, including missionaries intent on the religious instruction of Africans, it was only in 1837 that a major influx of whites - Afrikaner emigrants from the Cape - started arriving in Natal, from both the Port of Natal and from inland, over the Drakensberg.

The Voortrekker Republic From 1837 to 1842 a wave of Afrikaner emigrants from the Cape streamed into northern Natal over the Drakensberg mountains seeking land that could be settled and farmed. The origins of this mass migration were to be found in the Cape, at the close of the 18th century. After the British had occupied the Cape in 1795 (as part of the British government’s occupation of all Dutch possessions abroad) a deep anti-British sentiment permeated much of the Afrikaner burgher community.

These burgher grievances in the Cape Colony included uncertainty about land tenure, the British prohibition of slave labour, and the troubling presence of several Xhosa chiefs that were fiercely resisting the encroachment of white farmers and settlers. The burghers complained bitterly of the lack of government protection against the subsequent Xhosa cattle raids.

The first wave of departures from the Cape began as early as 1820, when individual burghers and single families (‘trekboers’) started moving beyond the boundaries of white settlement frontiers in the Cape. In the wake of these small-scale manoeuvres, a larger movement began to develop, resulting in the mass migration of thousands of Afrikaners, later to become known as the ‘Voortrekkers’, out of the Cape and into the interior. This exodus, known as the ‘Great Trek’, catapulted the relationship between settlers and indigenous Africans into a new era 13.

12 Wilson, M and Thompson, L. 1969. The Oxford History of South Africa I: South Africa to 1870. Oxford University Press; London.

13 Giliomee, H. 2003. The Afrikaners: Biography of a People. Tafelberg Publishers; Cape Town

100 The frontier of European contact with Africans

When the trekkers began to leave the Cape Colony in the 1830s, intensive contact between Europeans and Africans had only occurred along a line of approximately two hundred kilometres near the Fish River, known as “The Border” in what is now the Eastern Cape. Beyond that there were only a few places where Europeans were in contact with the indigenous people. One of them was Port Natal (the present Durban), where a few English traders, hunters and missionaries were living among a large indigenous population. But by the early 1840s the picture had changed. A dramatic extension of the frontier of European contact with Africans had occurred.

The Voortrekker leader Piet Retief took a party to meet the Zulu King Dingane in October 1837, seeking a treaty from him to allow Afrikaners to settle in his territory. Dingane’s soldiers killed Retief and his negotiating party. In retaliation, the Voortrekkers took up arms against the Zulu. On 16 December 1838, in one of the most famous battles in South African history, 468 Voortrekkers, assisted by three Englishmen and sixty Africans faced between ten and twelve thousand Zulu soldiers. The short Zulu stabbing spear and the long shield were no match for the guns of the Voortrekkers. In just two hours, three thousand Zulu lay dead, and an Afrikaner victory had been secured. The encounter was so violent that it became known as the ‘Battle of Blood River’.

The Voortrekker’s victory led to the establishment of an Afrikaner Republic in Natal in 1839, with Pietermaritzburg as its capital. Some 6,000 Afrikaners spread out across the countryside, establishing farms as their parents and grandparents had done in the Cape Colony. The Voortrekkers declared that St Lucia Bay was their northeastern boundary.

When Adulphe Delegorge, a French naturalist and hunter, visited the St Lucia shores in the early 1840s he recorded the principal clan leader in the area as Nqoboka kaLanga, chief of the Sokhulu people. KaLanga was evidently fairly well respected further afield as he is recorded as having been a member of King Dingane’s great council at the time of the Great Trek. Such council structures would have assisted the King in deciding how to confront the intentions of the Voortrekkers to acquire Zulu land. In order to establish their footprint in the new territory, the Voortrekkers needed labour. The easiest way in which to acquire labour was to seize women and children, as the first white colonists had done to the Bushmen in the Cape Colony on the pioneer frontier. In the follow- up expedition against Dingane after the Battle of Blood River the military council authorised every member of the commando to seize four children. The children had to be formally registered and indentured by officials of the republic, with boys released at the age of twenty-five and girls at the age of twenty-one.14

14 Gilomee, 2003

101 But the British government, to which the Voortrekkers were still bound as legal subjects, took objection to such flagrant abuse of Africans. While quite willing to tolerate the expansionist actions of the Afrikaners, the British began to question their methods and freedoms. This probably had little to do with a real concern for Africans. Rather, the British feared that the aggressive practices of the Voortrekkers would destabilise the precarious relationships between coloniser and colonised in the region and undermine their own security and colonial future in southern Africa. Thus, in May 1842, a British force marched into Port Natal, occupied it, and decided to annex (join by seizure) the territory to the British Crown.

Check your understanding 1. Who was Captain William Owen? 2. Where, and between whom, was ‘The Border’? 3. When did the Great Trek begin in earnest? 4. Name some of the grievances experienced by the Boer farmers that caused the Great Trek. 5. Who was the Voortrekker killed by King Dingane? 6. What was the Battle of Blood River, and when did it take place? 7. When was an Afrikaner Republic founded in Natal, and how long did it exist? 8. What was the northern boundary of this Republic? 9. Who was Adulphe Delagorgue? 10. Who was the principle clan leader in the 1840s in the St Lucia area? 11. How did the Voortrekkers “acquire labour” in Natal? 12. When and why did the British annex Natal?

Apply your knowledge 1. What public holiday is celebrated in South Africa on the 16 December each year, on the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River?

102 The impact of HIV and AIDS on the iSimangaliso area

In 1994, after the first democratic elections, the legacy of social and economic underdevelopment and rural poverty in the region remained starkly clear. In the Umkanyakude district there were few economic opportunities, bad roads, poor communications, few schools and clinics, no public provision of clean water or other essential services. The migrant labour system of the colonial and apartheid dispensations turned ‘homelands’, the old native reserves, into labour reserves that provided white-owned urban business and industry with a steady flow of cheap African labour. Many of the younger members of the rural population, in particular men, were absent for most of the year and thus unable to initiate or contribute to any economic development at home. It was a system that forced poverty and stagnation upon rural areas. People living in rural KwaZulu depended more and more on remittances from family members working in town, and, increasingly, on old age pensions, either their own or that of an older family member.

In the last fifteen years this already low developmental base has been greatly weakened by the AIDS epidemic in the area. KwaZulu-Natal has the highest prevalence of HIV of any province in South Africa15. Nationally, the percentage of women testing HIV positive at public health clinics in South Africa averages out at 29.5%. In KwaZulu-Natal, 40.7% of women attending public health clinics have tested HIV positive. uMhanyakude district, which surrounds the Park, is one of the poorest parts of KwaZulu Natal. Life expectancy in uMhanyakude has been severely affected by HIV/AIDS. The epidemic causes around half of the adult deaths in the area. Life expectancy at birth declined between 2000 and 2001 by two years for females and 1.5 years for males. In 2001, female life expectancy at birth was 47 years. Male life expectancy was 42 years.16 In South Africa as a whole, the respective figures were 59 and 52 years.

Infant mortality is defined as the number of deaths of infants (one year of age or younger) per 1000 live births. The infant mortality rate is a proxy indicator of community well being. In uMkhanyakude it is 74 per thousand live births, much higher than in South Africa as a whole (54 per 1000 live births). As a comparison: Afghanistan’s infant mortality rate is 157 per 1000, the second highest in the world after Sierra Leone; the USA’s rate is 6.3 per 1000, and Cuba’s infant mortality rate is 5.1 per thousand. Iceland has the lowest infant mortality rate at 2.9 per 100017.

The HIV epidemic in KwaZulu-Natal has also resulted in parallel epidemics of diseases associated with HIV such as TB. The impact of AIDS on infant mortality and life expectancy has been dramatic.

15 Draft HIV and AIDS Strategy for the Province of KwaZulu-Natal 2006-2010 16 Africa Centre Policy Briefing 5 17 United Nations Population Division, 2008

103 Death from AIDS-related causes has increased rapidly over the last 15 years, with KwaZulu-Natal having the highest percentage of 2–18-year-olds who are orphaned.

In addition to the burden of care that falls to families and communities affected by HIV, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park’s goals are also compromised by the epidemic. Costs to business increases and productivity falls as staff losses occur. Anecdotal evidence from organisations active in the area indicates that as much as 10% of the labour force is lost every year due to HIV/AIDS.

One of the most serious anticipated impacts of the loss of economically active adults is the creation of AIDS orphans. Already, South Africa has seen the emergence of many child-headed households where both parents have been lost to AIDS. Poverty will increase as children lose the support of breadwinners to care for and educate them and the age distribution will become even more skewed toward the youth and elderly. Currently, in the former KwaZulu areas, more than half of the population is under the age of 14 years.

Check your understanding 1. What is a man born in uMkanyakude’s life expectancy at birth? 2. How much lower is it than the South African average for men? 3. What is infant mortality? 4. What is the infant mortality rate in uMkhanyakude? 5. What is South Africa’s infant mortality rate? 6. Which country has the lowest infant mortality rate in the world, and what is that rate? 7. What epidemic disease is associated with HIV? 8. What proportion of the population of the former KwaZulu areas is under the age of 14 years?

Apply your knowledge 1. Infant mortality is one “proxy indicator” for community wellbeing. Read Poverty amongst plenty together with this article and suggest two other important proxy indicators that might be used to measure community wellbeing in the uMkhanyakude area.

104 Lake St Lucia

Lake St Lucia

Lake St Lucia is the largest estuarine system of the African continent, covering about 36 826 hectares. It is a shallow system with an average depth of less than one metre. Water in Lake St Lucia is predominantly saline (salt). When water inputs are high, only the extreme upper sections and the mouths of the rivers that feed it are fresh water. Under dry or drought conditions, salinity levels rise and may result in very high levels of salinity being recorded in the upper sections of the system.

Because the Lake St Lucia system has a high surface area to volume ratio it is very sensitive to the effects of evaporation. Water enters the system as rainfall, dune seepage and stream-flow. Water is lost through evaporation and discharge to the sea. The amount of water lost by evaporation exceeds the amount received from rainfall, even in years of average or above-average rainfall.

Lake St Lucia obtains its freshwater supplies from five river systems. These are the uMkhuze (catchment approximately 6,000 km²), Hluhluwe (catchment approximately 1,000 km²), Mzinene (catchment approximately 800 km²), Mphate (catchment approximately 65 km²), and the Nyalazi (catchment approximately 7,000 km²). The uMfolozi River (catchment approximately 10,000 km²) formerly had a common mouth with the St Lucia estuary. (These two systems are deliberately kept separate to protect the St Lucia estuary from high sediments that typically occur in the uMfolozi

105 River). Most of the rivers are seasonal, flowing during the wet summer months, and are reduced to isolated pools and subterranean seepage through bed sediments in the winter. Because the St Lucia system is downstream of all the five major rivers that feed it, the system is very vulnerable to activities upstream in the catchments. Lake St Lucia has outstanding ecological significance, World Heritage listing, and is central to regional tourism and socio-economic development. However, its importance is not reflected in how freshwater supplies to the system are being managed. Historical and current human manipulation of the Lake’s water supply is bad for the ecological health of the system, and it is currently (2009) experiencing unprecedented environmental extremes. The reason for this is acute dehydration. This disaster was set in motion in 1914 when extensive swamplands on the uMfolozi floodplain were drained, and the uMfolozi River was canalised so that farms could be established to grow sugar cane. These changes, and others that flowed from them desiccated the Lake by depriving it of its most important water source, and also removed the filtering effect of vast reedbeds which kept the river water free of sediment.

Commercial agriculture has led to the canalisation of the Umfolozi River and the loss of extensive reedbeds on the Umfolozi flats, causing negative impacts on the Lake’s hydrology

While many factors interact to determine the Lake’s health, the great danger faced by South Africa’s first World Heritage Site is the loss of clean, fresh water from the uMfolozi River. Only the re-supply of this water can correct a trajectory of progressive deterioration and biodiversity loss. The iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife are currently exploring permanent solutions with funding from the World Bank’s Global Environmental Facility. An ideal solution would be to allow the uMfolozi River to re-link to St Lucia, but before that can happen we need to restore some of the floodplain swamps so that water entering the Lake is filtered of damaging sediment. St

106 Lucia is a resilient ecosystem, and if we can counter the negative human impacts that have altered its natural functioning, it will recover. But the situation is now critical - we cannot afford to wait any longer to address the fresh water requirements of South Africa’s most important wetland ecosystem.

Check your understanding 1. How many hectares does the biggest estuarine system in Africa cover?

2. Why is Lake St Lucia so sensitive to evaporation?

3. Why is the mouth of the uMfolozi River kept artifically separate from the St Lucia Estuary?

4. From which five rivers does Lake St Lucia receive its water?

5. Why is the Lake system so vulnerable to upstream water use?

6. When were the extensive floodplains of the uMfolozi River drained in order to grow sugar?

7. How did the great reedbeds of the uMfolozi help to protect Lake St Lucia from dehydration?

8. What does the article suggest is “the ideal solution” to the drying out of the Lake St Lucia system?

9. On what does this ideal solution depend for its success?

Apply your knowledge 1. You are driving past Lake St Lucia with a group of visitors. They are shocked to see how dry the lake is. Prepare an explanation which draws on this piece to explain the crisis and the suggested solution.

From an article written by Professor Alan Whitfield, Principal Aquatic Ecologist, South African Institute for Aquatic biodiversity for the iSimangaliso News.

107 The Lala Palm

The Lala Palm (Hyphaene coriacea, ilala), also known as the vegetable ivory palm, is the reason why the huge area which extends southwards from the Mozambique border along the coastal plain of KwaZulu Natal for 156 000 hectares is known as “palmveld”. The highly leached, infertile soils of the area make agriculture difficult or impossible, so wild plants are very important to the local people, for both household subsistence and as a source of income. iLala is a vital part of the local economy, providing a source of weaving material for craftwork, palm wine, edible fruit, ornaments, building materials, and medicine. Lala Palms are among the most frequently used plant species in many African, Asian and South American countries. Unopened leaves of the Lala Palm are harvested both for commercial and subsistence use in Sudan and Botswana, as well as in South Africa.

The Lala Palm (Hyphaene coriacea) iLala is also nutritionally important. The phloem sap is tapped for a highly nutritious drink rich in riboflavin, vitamin B and nicotinic acid. It is an essential part of the diet of local people. An intoxicating wine is also be made from the sap and sold. Palm wine is a widely consumed beverage in northern KwaZulu Natal.

108 iLala may grow up to nine metres high, but in KwaZulu Natal it mainly occurs as a short-stemmed cluster of plants. Older and longer stems tend to recline, and suckering occurs from the base to allow clump development. Female plants can bear up to 2000 fruits on a branch. Fruit can take approximately two years to reach maturity and another two years to drop from the plant. Elephants, monkeys and baboons disperse them.

Lala palm fruits. iLala produces three or four new leaves a year, and leaves are harvested throughout the year. Lala Palms are resilient, recovering even after they have lost many leaves. If the plant loses too many leaves in a short period of time, it may lose vigour and productivity, but the loss of some or all its leaves may also stimulate growth and reproduction over time.

Harvesting ilala can generate substantial economic returns to rural people by providing alternatives to more destructive forms of land use, while having minimal impact on the ilala resource because harvesting does not involve destruction of the plant. However, good harvesting methods are vital. The survival of ilala is threatened if harvesting methods involve cutting the plant down so that

109 people can reach the fruits or leaves more easily, or leaves and large proportions of stem are removed to make sap tapping easier. If ilala is to survive for future generations to use, it is very important that harvesting (how much, and how often) is regulated and managed.

Managing ilala for sustainability In the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, the Ozabeni area of palmveld - some 13 659 hectares - is subject to increasing Lala Palm leaf harvest pressure. More and more people live in the area, and many people continue to depend on natural resources for their livelihood.

Research conducted in Ozabeni18 made recommendations about how often and how much leaves should be harvested and stems tapped to ensure sustainable use. The study was initiated in response to a request from rural communities neighbouring iSimangaliso to harvest leaves from inside the Protected Area. They claimed that people from outside the area were overexploiting the ilala resource outside the Park. When traditional management of the resource is weak or non- existent, destructive harvesting practices and overexploitation increases as harvesters attempt to maximise profits and out-compete other collectors in a classic “tragedy of the commons” scenario.

Lala palm leaf bundle for sale at Mbazwana

In addition, leaf harvesters are women (who use the leaves for weaving craft), while palm tappers

18 McKean, S.G, Resource management and harvesting of hyphaene coriacea (ilala palm) in Maputaland, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, Institute of Natural Resources, July 2001

110 are male, and there is a conflict of interest between leaf harvesters and sap tappers in the same area. Women complained of excessive palm tapping, with people harvesting leaves and palm sap from land with no clear ownership. (As we see in the description of palm tapping below, all the leaves of the chosen ilala palm are burned as part of the palm tapping process). An added complication in terms of resource use is that cattle owners burn the palmveld from time to time to stimulate the growth of grass for grazing animals, damaging or destroying the ilala plants.

Tapping Most of the palmveld in northern KwaZulu Natal is communally owned. It is divided into “tapping concession areas” that are under Traditional Authority control; palm wine tappers, who are overwhelmingly male, have individual rights to particular palms for tapping.

Tappers tend to be concentrated in high palm density areas to enable them to tap as many palms as possible in the shortest time, particularly in areas close to palm wine marketing points. About 17 600 hectares are considered close enough to sale points to supply the palm wine industry.

Palm wine tappers select stems with a leaf blade size longer than one metre. On average, a palm wine tapper taps 902 palm stems, producing 4846 litres of palm wine over twelve months (Keane, 2001). It takes six to eight years for a new coppice shoot to attain a suitable size for tapping. Keane suggests that if the average full time tapper taps 902 stems per year, between 5 400 and 7 200 stems are required to support a single tapper on a sustainable basis. Stems would need to be rotated on an eight-year cycle by each tapper to ensure sustainable use. Given an average density of approximately 300 usable stems per hectare, one tapper would require approximately 24 hectares of palmveld to implement an eight-year rotation system. The area under commercial tapping could therefore support a maximum of approximately 735 full time tappers using existing tapping technology and without any decrease in palm size and sap yields.

Leaf harvesting New leaf production decreases with increasing leaf harvest pressure. Palm stems are less likely to produce good quality, usable leaves if subjected to frequent, high levels of leaf picking. Research in Ozibeni on the effect of leaf harvest on leaf production showed that a maximum harvest rate of two leaves per stem per year is sustainable. However, harvesting one leaf per stem per year is preferable, because it is likely to have minimal effect on the plant, ensuring continued plant vigour and leaf production. At an annual harvest intensity of one leaf per stem, approximately 300 leaves per hectare per year could be harvested sustainably. iLala palm wine Traditional beverages made from indigenous products still have an important place in the lives of many South Africans, and even though they do not normally have a high alcohol content, drinks

111 such as Ilala wine and traditional Zulu beer can easily encourage as much singing and dancing as their commercial equivalents. It is unlikely that a traditional ceremony or celebration will take place without traditional beer, even though commercial brands may also be provided. But while traditional beer is brewed almost everywhere in rural KwaZulu Natal, ilala winemaking is limited to the iSimangaliso area, where the ilala palm occurs naturally.

Tapping ilala wine (ubusulu) is the business of men, although more women are becoming involved. In the past women were more involved in transporting the beverage and selling it, carrying the Ilala wine or sap in 25 litre containers to market points, usually on foot. Ilala wine is mostly sold near to where the ilala palms grow.

Although the industry is growing and large quantities of sap are sold annually (contributing substantially to the economy of the immediate region), tapping ilala wine is extremely labour intensive and provides a mere subsistence income for individual tappers. A limiting factor for tappers is that the price of ilala wine is set by the local tribal authority to ensure that it remains affordable to most of the community. For people with no other form of income, ilala palms are a valuable resource. In theory, palms are allocated to (male) individuals by the tribal authority and may not be harvested by anyone else, but this traditional resource management system is under pressure in some areas.

Tappers erect temporary shelters adjacent to their allocated area of palmveld. They select a healthy clump of ilala plants and then burn their leaves to concentrate the sap. The plant is left for about two weeks before it is cleared of the burnt leaves and undergrowth. The stem is then trimmed with a very sharp knife, and a hole or a V-shape is cut into the stem, into which a funnel shaped leaf is inserted. The sap drips down into a calabash, tin or bottle placed under the leaf funnel. The plant is trimmed by a tapper about two or three times a day over a period of five to seven weeks. To prevent insects getting into the sap and to protect it from the sun and rain, a woven cover made from the Ilala leaf, called isiskhabakela, is used. Tappers discard sap diluted by rainfall because this negatively affects the quality of the wine.

Ilala wine does not need time to ferment. Like Zulu beer, it becomes stronger the longer it is left. On visiting a household in the Kosi Bay area, one is quite likely to be offered palm wine. But be warned: it looks like litchi juice, and tastes sweet and refreshing, but it should be approached with caution. This article was based on the following references: 1. McKean, S.G, Resource management and harvesting of hyphaene coriacea (ilala palm) in Maputaland, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, Institute of Natural Resources, July 2001 2. Derwent, S. Brew African Style, South African Country Life, July 2000.

Check your understanding

112 1. How many new leaves does the ilala plant produce each year, and what time of the year may these leaves be harvested? 2. How many hectares of palmveld are there in the Ozabeni area of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park? 3. About how many hectares of ilala supply the palm wine industry? 4. How many palm stems, on average, does a palm wine tapper tap each year, and how many litres of wine does that tapping produce? 5. Once an ilala palm has been tapped, how long does it take for a new shoot to attain a suitable size for tapping? 6. What is the maximum sustainable harvest rate for leaves per stem per year? 7. Who sets the price of ilala wine? 8. Why do tappers burn the leaves of the ilala plants they plan to tap? 9. How is the sap protected from insects, sun and rain during the tapping process? 10. Why should ilala wine” be approached with caution”?

Apply your knowledge 1. Choose a place in the Park to stop and explain the many uses of the Lala Palm to a group of visitors. 2. Explain why the use of ilala as a resource causes much conflict.

113 The shaping of the land claims on iSimangaliso: the national framework

The land that currently makes up the iSimangaliso Wetland Park was gathered together through many different legal mechanisms and political processes over the last hundred years. Dispossession through colonial conquest, however, is the central political event that has shaped the use and ownership of the land.19 Parts of iSimangaliso were set aside as a nature reserve as early as 1895 – it was the first Game Reserve to be proclaimed in Africa, along with Imfolozi (in the same year that Yellowstone was proclaimed a National Park in the USA). Many of those who had lived on the coastal plain for centuries were forcibly relocated in the middle of the 20th Century when large tracts of land became commercial plantations of fast-growing alien tree species that became props (for the gold mines), paper and pulp; yet others were removed to provide secure testing grounds for new South African military technology in the 1980’s20. Each of the categories of forced relocation that were used across Natal and KwaZulu by the governments of the day remains important in shaping the way in which claims to the Park and its benefits can be made. Land claims are currently limited in law 21 to the dispossession of land dating from the Natives Land Act of 1913 in which 8,98 million ha of land were scheduled as “native reserves”, with provision for more land to be “released” in the future. This Act was based on the existing reserves and locations established during British colonial rule, but was also a landmark act of legislation for the new Union of South Africa, which was a political settlement, brought about (after eight years of negotiation) in 1910 by Britain after the end of the Anglo-Boer War. The Act was intended to preserve a limited rural subsistence base for Africans that could reabsorb retired workers in old age without cost to the new captains of industry. The Act was not designed to support an economically independent black peasantry. The imposition of hut taxes and other pressures that were imposed to force men into the cash economy was an attempt to draw cheap labour into white-owned industrial and agricultural concerns while preventing Africans from obtaining a stake in cities and towns.

The 1936 Native Trust and Land Act was one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the history of 20th century South Africa because it touched the lives of all African people. Drawing on the system of Trust tenure developed in colonial Natal, the Act created a legal body called the South African Native Trust that later became the South African Bantu Trust, and then the South African Development Trust. This Trust became “the owner” of all the African reserves. The 1936 Land Act marked out the geographical dimensions of the reserves and created a new category of reserve land called “released land” which had the effect of removing more Africans from their land.

19 This article deals with targeted and planned removals, rather than the forced mobility of South Africa’s rural population in response to migrant labour demands over the last hundred years. See The Creation of Rural Poverty. 20 See The Ndlozi peninsula and the military. 21 The Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 of 1994

114 The 1936 Land Act sharpened the divide between freehold property inside reserve areas and freehold land outside of reserves. Although most freehold land (land owned as private property, rather than communal property through the chief) owned by Africans was incorporated into the reserves through the 1936 Act, a significant amount of freehold land was excluded. These areas became known as “black spots”. The freehold land that was not “released” (that is, confiscated and put under the ownership of the South African Native Trust) in 1936 became increasingly vulnerable because it consisted of isolated holdings surrounded by white farmers hostile to their black neighbours.

After 1936 the white supremacist Nationalist Party (NP) began to grow and exert political influence, and in 1948 it won a white General Election by a tiny margin. In government the NP began to shape the role of the reserves as “political units to house, control and administer the vast bulk of South Africa’s workforce” (SPP 1983: 37). Central to this process was the passage of the Bantu Self- Government Act of 1951 and the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959, which introduced the concept of ethnic Bantustans, to be based on existing reserves. While there was no serious programme of removal of “black spots” before the NP came to power there was an explicit statement of intent after 1948 to eradicate all “black spots” as quickly as possible, limited only by the shortage of land on which to relocate people.

Black Africans, Indians, Coloureds, and anyone that the apartheid government determined to be “non-white” were increasingly subject to a vast array of laws and extra-legal tactics designed to curtail movement and control labour. From a distance, the removal of groups of people from particular areas in South Africa and particularly within the apartheid demarcations of KwaZulu and Natal may seem like the coherent and unified strategies of “colonialism” or “apartheid”. In reality it was a dynamic and uncertain process that varied from area to area according to the resistance that this large-scale social engineering inspired. The Surplus People Project22 collected evidence from all over South Africa from 1980 to 1983 on the various relocations that the Nationalist Party government had engineered since 1948. The SPP report on Natal, which included KwaZulu, provides one layer of this history. It details the history of land tenure in Natal and traces the historical development of the “fragmented, confused and confusing” pattern of black land allocation and land occupation that had been established by 1960 when forced population removals began on a large scale (SPP, xvii).

In the 1960s and 1970s, when former reserves became “homelands” and then “black national states”, more land was “released” (removed from African ownership and occupation) in order to consolidate homeland areas. Freehold farms in these areas were again marked as “black spots” and were given the term “badly situated area”. While some powerful rural families were still able to

22 The Surplus People Project (1983), Forced removals in South Africa, 5 volumes.

115 exert claims to land through blood relations to customary authority, many more people became landless.

The forced removal of Africans from their land continued as the homelands were consolidated. The Surplus People Project estimated in 1985 that between 1960 and 1983, over 1.7 million people across South Africa were displaced by government removals policy. The human impact of these forced removals should not be underestimated.

A priest, Cosmas Desmond, from a mission in the Dundee district (due west of Lake St Lucia Estuary) writes of these impacts: 'Black spots’ are places outside the tribal Reserves (‘homelands’) where Africans live, whether as tenants, in the case of the people on our Mission, or as owners of land they have held for generations, or as labour tenants on White farms. The apartheid system demands that all ‘Black spots’ must be removed and the people from them concentrated in the ‘homelands’. I had heard talk of such removals for ten years past, and during that time I had seen some of the effects: the insecurity caused by the threat of removal among the people in the Missions where I lived, and the sad waste of Mission schools having to close. But, like all White people in South Africa, I had no real awareness of the full impact of these removals until the people among whom I was living…were moved to Limehill. From them I learnt of the heartbreak involved in being arbitrarily uprooted from home. The survival of family or community life is precarious at the best of times for Africans in South Africa. Wherever they live, they are forced into the white social and economic system, where they occupy the lowest and most despised status. Even in the ‘homelands’, overcrowded and desperately backward, Africans cannot survive without sending male members of the family as migrant labourers. Wherever they go, they are expendable, half chattel, half enemy to the White man, and harassed continually by the pass laws and countless acts of arrogance to keep them in their place.

The starkness of life under the shadow of apartheid is greatly increased by removals. I have seen the shock of simple rural people told that they must leave their homes, which were the homes of their kinsmen for generations, to go to a strange place…I have seen the sufferings of whole families living in one tent or in a tiny hut, of children sick with typhoid, or their bodies emaciated with malnutrition and even dying of plain starvation. I have seen all this in the richest most advanced and most rapidly growing economy in South Africa. It is said that the whites in South Africa, if they are taken alone, enjoy the highest standard of living in the whole world (Desmond, The Surplus People).

116 The Surplus People Project identified ten categories of relocation that affected all non-white people in Natal from 1948. The major categories they identified are: eviction of farm workers and tenants from farms in the white countryside; removal of “black spots” (both African freehold and missionary properties); removals for consolidation of reserve areas; urban relocations; influx control and repatriation; destruction of informal settlements; Group Areas removals; removals relating to infrastructural, other development and conservation schemes; removals for strategic reasons (including the establishment of a missile range, and the security of the northern boundaries and the coast); and removals caused by the implementation of betterment planning within Kwazulu. The SPP estimated that in Natal between 1948 and 1983 (the publication date of their report), 745 500 people had been removed from their land through these techniques. A further 606 000, probably more, faced the threat of removal in the 1980s.

Check your understanding 1. When were parts of what is now iSimangaliso first set aside as a nature reserve?

2. What did the Natives Land Act of 1913 aim to achieve?

3. Why is the 1936 Native Trust and Land Act considered one of the most significant pieces of legislation in the history of 20th century South Africa?

4. When did the white supremacist Nationalist Party (NP) first win a white General Election?

5. When did forced population removals began on a large scale in South Africa?

6. What was a “black spot”?

7. To which area were the people with whom Father Desmond worked forcibly removed?

8. Name five of the ten categories of relocation identified by the Surplus People project.

9. How many people across South Africa were displaced by government removals policy between 1960 and 1983, according to the Surplus People Project?

10. How many people had been removed from their land in Natal between 1948 and 1983?

Apply your knowledge 1. Prepare a presentation for a group of visitors that explains why land claimants have won the right to co-manage iSimangaliso. Refer to the history of forced removals from the area, and explain how this history has shaped the way in which claims to the Park and its benefits can be made.

117 118 The shaping of the land claims on iSimangaliso: Events in KwaZulu Natal

“No more black South Africans”. This was the goal and the logic behind relocation in Natal from the 1960s to the 1980s. The logic that drove forced removals was based on the Tomlinson Commission’s notion of “ethnic heartlands”. Ethnic groups were identified along the lines of language; those who spoke a particular language as mother tongue were grouped together into separate territories - "bantustans" and later ‘homelands’ - each with its own governing structure. Seven blocks were imagined: a Tswana block, a Venda-Tsonga block, a Pedi block, a Swazi block, a Zulu block, a south-eastern Nguni block, and a South Sotho block.

The production of a “Zulu nation” was central to the logic of forced removals. The Homeland Citizenship Act was passed in 1970. A huge population with many local differences - forms of association, linguistic dialects and political loyalties – was subjected to the strategic creation of a simple, one-dimensional ethnic identity that justified forced removal to an ‘ethnic heartland’. However, for many reasons it was difficult to “consolidate” land into one homeland area. The sheer numbers of black Africans in the province of Natal made this separation impossible to effect in any pure form. “The Zulu” were the largest single grouping in South Africa. In the Natal region, including Kwazulu, over 77% of the population was African and over 90% were Zulu-speaking. As the largest and most populous homeland, KwaZulu occupied only 38% of the land in Natal but contained 55% of the total population in Natal. An overwhelming black African majority in the population meant that the apartheid state found spatial control increasingly difficult.

The difficulty of implementing the Bantustan plan in Natal was not only because of black resistance to removal. There was also great resistance to the attempt to consolidate “a more rational and unified geopolitical entity” (SPP 1983: 56) from organised white-owned agriculture, the sugar industry and the Natal Chamber of Industries as well as the Kwazulu (“homeland”) government itself. The Mbila triangle is a good example of how difficult it was for the apartheid government to legally excise small areas from one administrative system and place them in another, the homeland system. Having set up an official “homeland” KwaZulu government, legality required the permission of many committees and much bureaucracy. The Mbila triangle was removed from African occupation in 1979 in terms of the 1913 Land Act, and was finally removed from Natal in 1981. Sodwana was also affected in this way. The Kwazulu government did not approve these “excisions”, including those that affected Reserve Four (which included Sokhulu) in 1979; however, neither was it ignorant of them. Instead, it put up resistance that slowed the legal process down for years. The complex history of the relationship between Kwazulu and the apartheid government has had a profound effect on the social fabric of the region. In 1978 the Kwazulu Bantustan consisted of 48 major pieces and 157 small pieces scattered through the province (Thorington-Smith et al 1978, cited in SPP 1983: 2). It was highly fragmented as a political entity, “a consolidationist’s nightmare” (SPP 1983: 2). The northernmost area of

119 KwaZulu (stretching from the Mozambique border in the north to the St Lucia estuary in the south) became known as Maputaland, and was handed over to the KwaZulu legislative authority in 1976. A large number of black African people in Natal still had access to agricultural land outside the scheduled or “released” reserve land, either as labour tenants, rent tenants and squatters on State or private white land, or as landowners and their tenants on black freehold farms. When labour tenancy (black sharecroppers living on and working white farms in return for occasional labour and part of the crop) was abolished by national legislation at the end of the 1960s, there were massive evictions of farm workers and tenants. Many “closer settlements” were established in this period in northern Natal to soak up this flood of displaced people.

The creation of the KwaZulu “homeland” was not the first time people had been forcibly removed in the iSimangaliso area. In the 1960s poorly documented removals took place in the northern coastal regions of KwaZulu Natal where large commercial forests were developed on land once owned by the State (See Commercial forestry), and people were also removed from the Western Shores when the military constructed a missile testing range on the Ndlozi Peninsula. In addition, people from Ngwenya, Nsinde, Mnqobokazi, Makhasa and KwaJobe were moved to consolidate the uMkhuze conservation area.

Strategic security considerations became important for the State during this period, spurred by the fear of the Frelimo victory over Portuguese rule in Mozambique in 1975. This accelerated the programme of removals in the militarily sensitive areas along the northern coastline and the borders with Mozambique and Swaziland (See Resistance to removals in Kosi Bay).

“Consolidation” provided the justification for the removal of people from Reserve Six, in 1976, and Reserve Four in 1977/8, to make way for the establishment of the town of Richards Bay and the Richards Bay airport. In this instance the land was excised from Kwazulu.

Group Areas legislation also powerfully shaped the social landscape in which the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is situated. Proclaimed in 1950, the Group Areas Act enforced a system of ethnic residential segregation in urban areas and supported the rigid race classification system refined by apartheid policy. While nationally the act affected Coloured and Indian South Africans most severely since the Urban Areas Act already controlled black African occupation of land, it shaped the entire field of social relations in cities and small towns. These laws shaped the towns around the Park. For example, Shakaskraal was proclaimed “Indian” in 1980; Ifafa Beach “coloured” in 1981; Richards Bay “white, coloured and Indian” in 1981; Mtubatuba “white, coloured and Indian” in 1982, Gingindlovu “white, coloured and Indian” in 1982, and Eshowe “white and coloured” in 1982. These laws shaped the spatial arrangements of towns as well as the economic and social relations between towns and rural reserves. While these spatial arrangements persist, they are not set in stone, and even at the time were not uniformly enforced or policed.

120 The Surplus People Project was not able to record the exact number of people removed from the areas around St Lucia, Lake Bhangazi, Sodwana Bay, Ndlozi or Nyalazi as the forced removals process did not require officials to record the numbers of people evicted, (Cheryl Walker, who was the Regional Land Claims Commissioner for KwaZulu Natal from 1995 to 2000 has undertaken this work in respect of the Bhangazi)23. Very little documentation in the press or by the government of the day exists, so that the oral testimony from the 1983 SPP reports is an extremely important source for capturing the general historical experience of the removals in the iSimangaliso area as well as a valuable record of the legal machinations of the State as they unfolded from the 1960s to the early 1980s. The possibility of securing the facts of these removals after thirty years is slim. However, interviews with older people who were removed, conducted in 2008 in the iSimangaliso area by the anthropologist Thomas Cousins (See Experiences of Loss) confirms the experiences of removals reflected in those reports. These experiences powerfully shape the contemporary moral and political terrain in which communities neighbouring iSimangaliso understand their scope for action.

Check your understanding 1. How did the apartheid government identify “ethnic groups”?

2. When was the Homeland Citizenship Act passed?

3. How many large and small pieces of land made up the KwaZulu Bantustan in 1978?

4. What was the northernmost area of KwaZulu (stretching from the Mozambique border in the north to the St Lucia estuary in the south) known as when it was handed over to the KwaZulu legislative authority in 1976?

5. Name the five areas from which people were moved to consolidate the conservation area in uMkhuze conservation area.

6. Where did the military construct a missile testing range in what is now iSimangaliso?

7. What provided the justification for the removal of people from Reserve Six, in 1976, and Reserve Four in 1977/8?

8. Why was the Surplus People Project not able to record the exact number of people removed from the areas around St Lucia, Lake Bhangazi, Sodwana Bay, Ndlozi or Nyalazi?

9. Who was the Regional Land Claims Commissioner for KwaZulu Natal from 1995 to 2000?

23 Walker, C, Landmarked; Land claims and land restitution in South Africa, Ohio University Press/ Jacana 2008

121 Apply your knowledge 1. Explain why the apartheid government found spatial control in KwaZulu increasingly difficult.

2. Prepare a brief explanation to a group of visitors of the background to land claims on iSimangaliso.

122 The land restitution process

During the negotiations before the first democratic election in 1994, land reform was seen as one of the most pressing issues the new government needed to address. During the resistance to white minority rule and the struggle for democracy “the land question” was a potent symbol for the disempowerment and oppression of the black majority. The blatant inequality between whites and blacks was both accomplished and demonstrated in terms of the violent alienation of land from native South Africans, first by military conquest during the colonial period; and then, during the rule of the apartheid government, through the forced removals of many millions of uncompensated black men and women from their land and their investments in housing, education and community to remote ethnic “bantustan/homelands” (see The shaping of the land claims on iSimangaliso: the national framework and The shaping of the land claims on iSimangaliso: events in KwaZulu Natal).

After the elections, Land Claims Courts and Regional Land Claims Commissioners were established in every province of the country. The new policies dealt with three major areas of land reform: restitution (justice for those who had lost their land since the 1913 Land Act); redistribution (awarding land to black people who has been deprived of the opportunity to access land); and tenure reform, which dealt with justice for farm workers and labour tenants who had no rights to the land on which they lived. Those who had been removed from their land were invited to lodge claims for restitution. The Land Claims Commissions then began the long, slow and difficult process of researching the history of each land claim in order to restore the land to its former owners. At that point the land restitution process offered three possible outcomes: people could go back and live on their land, alternative land might be provided, or the government would pay financial compensation for the land.

The people of the iSimangaliso area responded by lodging fourteen land claims that covered the entire Park. As Cheryl Walker, the Regional Land Claims Commissioner in KwaZulu Natal at the time of the Bhangazi claim argued: …What needs to be recognized is that the foundations of the Park rest on an historical injustice… It took place within living memory and is remembered by many who were dispossessed, who are still alive today, as the cause of their current poverty and recent hardship (Walker 1997).

The following claims were lodged: 1. Bhangazi on the Eastern Shores of Lake St Lucia (settled in 1999) 2. Mabaso on Ozabeni (settled in 2002) 3. Mbila (Emandleni) on Ozabeni (settled in 2002) 4. Sokhulu on Maphelane (settled in 2007) 5. Mdletsheni on False Bay (settled in 2007)

123 6. Makhasa on Mkhuze (settled in 2007) 7. Mnqcobokazi on Mkhuze (settled in 2007) 8. Nsinde on Mkhuze (settled in 2007) 9. Jobe on Mkhuze (settled in 2007) 10. Mbila (Triangle) on Sodwana Triangle (not settled in 2009) 11. Coastal Forest Reserve on the Coastal Forest (not settled in 2009) 12. Dukuduku on Dukuduku Forest and surrounding area (not settled in 2009) 13. Western Shores on the Western Shores of Lake St Lucia (not settled in 2009) 14. Ngwenya on Mkhuze (not settled in 2009).

The three largest claims - the Bhangazi claim on the Eastern Shores, and the Mbila and Mabaso land claims on Ozabeni - affected seventy five per cent of the land area of the Park. The Bhangazi land claim was settled first, in September 1999. The Mbila (Emandleni) and Mabaso claims on Ozabeni were settled in 2002. In 2007, a further six claims were settled. By 2009, nine of the fourteen land claims on iSimangaliso had been settled.

The Bhangazi claim, the first to be settled in iSimangaliso, had taken time and significant resources to be settled by the Regional Land Claims Commission. It was agreed by both the claimants and the Regional Land Claims Commission that because of iSimangaliso’s conservation significance, its listing as a World Heritage Site and its great potential value for eco-tourism as a wealth creation strategy, it was in the public interest that the successful claimants would not reoccupy their land. Instead, five hundred and fifty six families were financially compensated, and a range of other rights and benefits were negotiated with the conservation manager of the time, KZN WildLife (See The Bhangazi Land Claim for the history of the claim and the details of the settlement).

A new approach to restitution In 2002 approaches to land restitution changed when National Cabinet produced a framework within which all land restitution claims on protected areas, World Heritage sites and state forests were in future to be resolved. This framework recognised24 the rights of people to social redress while affirming that the State’s role was to manage protected areas in perpetuity (forever). Successful claimants were awarded title to the land, but no physical occupation of land in a protected area was permitted. The land was to remain an open ecological system, managed as an integrated part of the protected area by the responsible state conservation agency. Title deeds to the land were to be registered, but with restrictions of use. Compensation for the loss of the use of the land was provided for in the form of a household solatium (payment for “loss of beneficial” occupation”), and significant development and planning grants were awarded to community-led trusts for investment

24 This framework integrates both the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas and Restitution of Land Rights Acts.

124 in community projects. As part of the land claim settlement, successful land claimants were required to enter into a co-management agreement with the relevant conservation authority.

Land claimants and Minister signing the agreement

The current (2009) framework for settling claims in iSimangaliso is in line with the National Cabinet decision of 2002. The Regional Land Claims Commission settles the land claim. After a claim is settled the land claimants enter into a co-management agreement with the iSimangaliso Authority that provides a framework for their relationship. For each settled claim a benefit package is developed that includes economic, training and job opportunities through land care and infrastructure programmes, revenue sharing, equity partnerships in tourism facilities, rights of access, use of natural resources and the establishment of an education trust to educate land claimant youth. The benefits acquired by successful land claimants through a co-management agreement include those that flow from the natural resource base as well as those that flow from tourism, infrastructure and local economic development. The delivery and implementation of the benefit package is co-managed by the land claims trusts and iSimangaliso.

The co-management framework for the iSimangaliso Wetland Park can be explored in terms of asset ownership, asset governance and secondary enterprises (See diagram).

§ Asset ownership: Land claimants have formal ownership in the productive assets of iSimangaliso, such as equity partnerships in commercial enterprises and revenue sharing, as well as access to natural resources through Local Area Plans. § Asset governance; Land claimants are involved in the core activities of iSimangaliso, including the co-management of the Park and its associated commercial enterprises. Co-

125 management structures are established; land claimants are represented on the Board of the iSimangaliso Authority; land claimants participate in capacity building initiatives to facilitate their entry into formal tourism and conservation management jobs; land claimants have mandatory partner status for contracting and job opportunities. § Secondary Enterprise: The Authority encourages suppliers of goods and services from the target community to service Park activities and development, and actively supports local economic development programmes, such as the Craft Programme.

The land restitution process is challenging for both land claimants and for the government. Much has been learned since 1994. Cherryl Walker was the first Regional Land Claims Commissioner in KwaZulu Natal, from 1995 to 2000. In 2007 she reflected on the challenges of the land restitution process in 2007: I think it is only possible to make sense of the demand for and response to land reform by placing it in context historically, not only nationally but also at the local level, where the issues play themselves out in very specific ways. It is just not possible to apply a national template to them. So one of the issues…is the gap between national and local expectations of and demands for land reform which I think needs to be factored into the analysis far more carefully than it usually is. There is also a difficult tension that has to be managed between showing evidence of delivery at the national political) level and working effectively with groups and communities at the local level, which is time-consuming and requires attention to process. This is especially the case if one wants to involve women in projects…

We also started without operational policies in place that could assist us to translate the broad constitutional principles that underpinned the programme into consistent, equitable, implementable settlements at the claimant level, for instance how to calculate the value of very different types of historical land rights or how to determine the ‘public interest’ when there was a clash between land claims and housing development projects. …Too much of the assessment of what we were doing was based on very crude numerical indicators that measured quantity rather that quality – how many claims were “settled” overall in a given period, for instance…I think much of my experience of that time was of being caught in a dense web of constraints which collectively made it very hard to move effectively in any direction25.

Check your understanding

1. After the elections, where were the Land Claims Courts and Regional Land Claims Commissioners established?

25 Interview with Professor Cherryl Walker, in News from the Nordic Institute, No 1, Jan 2007

126 2. Name the three major areas of land reform. 3. How many claims did the people of the iSimangaliso area lodge on the Park? 4. Under which pillar of the land reform legislation were these claims lodged? 5. Which were the three largest claims, and what percentage of the land area of the Park was affected? 6. Which claim was settled first, and when was it settled? 7. How many land claims had been settled by 2009?

8. How did approaches to land restitution change in 2002?

9. How was compensation for the loss of the use of the land was provided for? Who is responsible for settling a land claim? 10. Who is responsible for managing the delivery and implementation of the benefit package? 11. What does “asset ownership” mean? 12. What does “asset governance” mean?

Apply your knowledge

1. Why does Walker think that it is difficult to manage the tension between showing evidence of delivery at the national (political) level and working effectively with groups and communities at the local level?

2. “What needs to be recognized is that the foundations of the Park rest on an historical injustice… It took place within living memory and is remembered by many who were dispossessed, who are still alive today, as the cause of their current poverty and recent hardship.” How does this statement by the former Land Claims Commissioner for KwaZulu Natal throw light on the current framework within which land claims on iSimangaliso are settled?

127 Land claims in the iSimangaliso area: memory, community and kinship

While many people suffered the experience of being removed from land that now forms part of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, very few of their stories have been officially recorded. Those who experienced the removals themselves are growing old. In 2008 the iSimangaliso Authority commissioned an anthropologist to interview older people who had been subjected to forced removal from the Eastern Shores, the Western Shores and Ozabeni26. The interviews capture particular, unique experiences but there are common themes that run between these accounts of the removals and life before and after the removals. A strong feeling of loss remains with many of the people interviewed in 2008. (See Experiences of loss; the Mngomezulu family in Mbila).

In order to understand the deep feelings about the past aroused by the land claims, even in those who did not directly experience the cruelty of forced removal, it is important to acknowledge the everyday concerns of people who live around the Park as they try to sustain themselves today. Such concerns as obtaining enough food for the day, finding grazing for one’s cattle, or maintaining intimate relations with relatives and neighbours need to be included in the history of the Park, and understood as an important element of how histories of loss are retold and re-experienced in the present. The resources offered by the Park in the form of grazing land, food sources, wages and as an ongoing archive of memory and symbol make it a potent source of claims to “community.”

“Community” and land claims Former Regional Land Claims Commissioner for KwaZulu Natal, Cherryl Walker27, notes that one of the difficulties of settling land claims in South Africa comes from the way in which the idea of “community” is used in government legislation and by chiefs, men, women, and many other categories of interested people. It has been difficult to reconcile values of inclusion and justice with old institutions and lived experiences of displacement and violence. Who, exactly, should be counted as “community” and thus benefit from land reform? Should only land claimants and their descendants benefit from the Park’s efforts to “develop to conserve”? Who should be recognised as a legitimate land claimant in relation to the Park sets up a number of tensions between people living around iSimangaliso, some of whom were removed from what is now the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and others who do not have “direct ancestral ties” to conservation land but as local residents look to the Park and its potential benefit flows for improved livelihood opportunities (Walker 2008: 515).

26 Cousins,T: Land Claims on iSimangaliso: problems of kinship, history, memory, Unpublished report, October 2008.

27 Walker, C, Landmarked: Land claims and land restitution in South Africa, Ohio University Press/ Jacana 2008.

128 Many hope that transferring ownership of the land to “the community” will solve the problems that very poor people in Kwazulu Natal face today, and that the wounds suffered from past violence and injustice will be healed at the same time. The idea of an essential Zulu identity tied to a geographical space is also a powerful part of the story of “community” and adds its own flavour to the debate over competing claims and visions for the land now within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

Kinship and land claims Kinship (family) relations play a vital role in the politics of land claims around the Park. Who is to be counted as kin, for the purposes of potential benefit flows? In the 21st century there have been shifts in the way anthropologists view Zulu kinship. In Western ideas about “kinship”, people are related either “by blood” or “by law”. Western anthropologists have used these ideas to understand non- Western ways of being related. The Zulu kinship terms that early anthropologists (such as Eileen Krige, Max Gluckman, and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown) described was shaped by their own assumption that the nuclear family grouping (mother, father, brother, sister) provides the basis for all terms of relatedness. More recent scholarship on kinship suggests that there are other ways of exploring how people are related, and how these relationships operate within their social context. When people get together to talk about their memories of their lives before being removed from their land, they often discover many more relations than they thought they had. Trying to work out exactly how people are related for the purposes of defining the limited group who have a “legitimate” claim on land does not have a simple solution. While many people have a strong idea about how family relations should be defined, in practice the definition of family is less clear and subject to much more argument and revision than “the rules of kinship” would suggest. The story of Thabile, Nondumiso and their relations, given below, tells us much about how claims to land based on family genealogies are not easily settled, and do not have clear boundaries for where “family” begins and ends. “Direct descent”, as a principle of inclusion and exclusion from land claims made on the Park does not provide sharp, clear lines of relatedness. Capturing family histories and mapping out webs of relations reveal that family relations are not a timeless and static set of rules and structures. Rather, the act of mapping out kinship relations reveals many unseen connections, and opens up the space for potentially infinite lines of relatedness between people. The mapping of kin relations linking Thabile and Nondumiso is an example of how maternal and paternal lines are available as resources for such a mapping.

When Nondumiso, accompanying an anthropologist, visited Thabile’s family one day in Khula Village in 2008, Nondumiso and Thabile were strangers. However, in the course of helping the anthropologist to draw up a genealogical chart (see the diagram) they discovered that they share many relatives on both their mother and father’s sides. For example, they discovered one line of relations through Nondumiso’s mother: Nondumiso’s mother is Doris. Doris’s mother is Thokozile.

129 Thokozile’s mother is Zikhali. Zikhali’s husband is Siphiwe. Siphiwe’s father is Mthethwa. Mthethwa’s sister is Getsina. Getsina’s daughter is Thabile. Siphiwe has a son, Sibusiso, who has been able find work as a contractor for iSimangaliso on the land care programme clearing alien vegetation. His capacity to secure this work depends partly on his ability to claim recognition from the land claims committee as a member of the group moved from the Park.

Mapping out the ways in which Thabile and Nondumiso are related shows how claims to compensation based on kin relations are not limited to a static boundary that defines who is a descendent of a person removed from their land, and who is not. Thabile and Nondumiso both agreed on the rules that define who is family and who is not family, yet in practice the lines of family relations are quite flexible. This supports the iSimangaliso Authority’s decision to continually widen the net of those who are entitled to compensation for historical injustices beyond those that depend only on kin-based claims to the Park’s resources.

Walking the land There is very little documentation of the numbers of people who were removed from what is now the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. There were many different experiences of the removals too, which makes it difficult to summarise the long history of land dispossession in the area. Different methods for finding out that history offer different kinds of answers. One powerful “way of knowing”, walking the land, was used during the settlement of the Bhangazi land claim: In 1997, on the Eastern Shores, Bhangazi community elders, a lawyer, a surveyor, an anthropologist, and members of government-appointed land agencies walked the land together. Much of the mapping of sites had to rely on the oral testimonies of elders, alongside careful reference to aerial maps taken at various points in the area’s history. In the Eastern Shores, all the earlier African homesteads had been made of wattle and daub with thatch roofing. Because it was 25 years after the most recent removals, there were no obvious signs of walls or even floors remaining when the land claim group walked the land in 1997. As there was no time for serious archaeological excavations, the team had to rely on oral testimony and visible clues. In the northern part of the Eastern Shores, where the grasslands had been allowed to grow again, the Bhangazi guides remembered clearly where homesteads had once been. But in the southern part of the Eastern Shores, where indigenous vegetation had been cleared and pine forests planted, the old men became disorientated: They were quite able to recite to us household heads’ names, all listed in the order in which their homesteads had been situated on the ground…They were able also to specify the times when each homestead had been cleared…. And when we went up onto the dunes overlooking areas of plantation, and later into the air by helicopter, they were able, in a general way… to point towards where various domestic sites had been situated. But on the ground itself they were lost…As one man complained

130 as we stood on a dune top and looked down over the trees: ‘From here I can see where the houses were, but once we get down there in the trees I cannot even see where the hills are. The trees hide everything’…. Ploughing up the land, planting and cultivating it, and then cutting down the exotic vegetation only to have it all grow again in straight line upon line of trees all of one species and one approximate height is…itself a cultural process. And it is one quite powerful enough to destroy the possibility of memory. (Spiegel, 2004)28

Check your understanding 1. Who was the former Regional Land Claims Commissioner for KwaZulu Natal? 2. According to the article, which current circumstances fuel claims to “community” in the iSimangaliso area? 3. Which rules of kinship did the early anthropologists use to understand Zulu family relations? 4. Why is it difficult to work out exactly how people are related for the purpose of defining those who have a “legitimate” claim on land? 5. Why did the members of the Bhangazi Trust who were ‘walking the land” in 1997 on the Eastern Shores as part of the settlement of the Bhangazi land claim become disoriented? What “destroyed the possibility of memory”?

Apply your knowledge How does anthropology help us to understand the way in which different people may have a claim to the resources, benefits and opportunities offered by the Park.

28 Spiegel, A, Walking memories and Growing Amnesia in the Land Claims Process, Lake St Lucia, South Africa, paper presented at the Trauma and Topography Colloquium, University of the Western Cape, 1999.

131 Experiences of loss: the Mngomezulu family in Mbila

The Emandleni Trust, which represents land claimants living around Mbila near the town of Mbazwane, settled a claim on the Park in 1997. The Mngomezulu family was one of those moved from Ozabeni who now live outside the Park. In 2008 Mrs Mngomezulu was more than 8o years old and lived in Mbila, near Mbazwane, with her son and his five wives and their children. The homestead housed Mrs Mngomezulu’s son’s two wives and their eleven children, with another three wives living in their own homesteads nearby. What follows is taken from an interview with the Mngomezulu family in Mbila in 2008:

When we arrived at the Mngomezulu umuzi, Mrs Mngomezulu was pounding together bark and herbs (igovu) collected from the veld in order to sell them in nearby Nongoma and Mbazwane. Mrs Mngomezulu’s husband had been a healer (inyanga), although he passed away before their removal from Ozabeni. She had learnt which herbs to collect from her husband, and now that her son had become a healer, selling the herbs is an important source of income for the household. She told us that until the 1970s she had lived in Ozabeni, next to Ndlebeni, on land that is now incorporated into the Park. For Mrs Mngomezulu the pain of the forced removal is deeply etched into her memory. It is marked for her by the terrible violence of having a home destroyed, furniture abandoned and splintered, livestock stolen or lost along the way, and the graves of ancestors untended and inaccessible. Ozabeni is remembered as a time of easy living, plentiful crops, numerous cattle, and the thickness of family and community relations.

The GG trucks remain a powerful image in many of the stories of those we spoke to. For the Mngomezulus, the sheer surprise of the move remains strong, despite having been given advance warning by government officials that they were to be moved, although for reasons unknown or not remembered (See Experiences of loss: Mr Zikhali of the Mbila Land Claims Committee for a slightly different view). Houses burned, a prized wardrobe bought for her son destroyed, and families splintered: there just wasn’t time to prepare for the impending journey. Those at Ozabeni were given one week to move and the following week those from Endlebeni had to move. Not everyone could move at the same time, so some were left behind and had to find their families later. They were first moved to Ezinqeni – near the beach – where they stayed for two months in tents provided by the authorities. That was a difficult time not least because of the thunder and rain, although they were given food parcels. From Ezinqeni, they moved to Entabeni, and then looked for a place in Hangaza. They were given wood to build their houses but no material for the roof. They were able to employ others to build their house in Hangaza. Having established the house in Hangaza, they were able to move all the members of the family together, having been granted permission to allow them to live in the area from the Induna, Mr Zikhali.

132 Mrs Mngomezulu’s son was much clearer about the story of their removal, the pain of that time equally etched into memory, showing in the terseness and shortness of the answers to my naïve questions. They were moved in 1974 on trucks that brought with them violence and destruction. He had four wives at that point; his first had six children, his second had four children, his third had two children. Moving all of them together was difficult, given the short notice – his mother, four wives, and seventeen children (people were surprised that he was travelling with so many people in one bakkie, but what else could he do, he asked). A meeting had been called to discuss the move, but before they could do anything, the trucks arrived and they were packed off. Those from Kwandakazela and Ekhohlwe, at Ozabeni, couldn’t all be moved together in the allotted week, so they were mixed up with the people from Entlabeni. They were just too surprised to really do anything about it. They stayed at Izichelo, which is near Embete (near Ezinqeni) for two months before moving to Entabeni, where they were able to stay together as a family in the tent provided for them. It was “a terrible tick-ridden place” and it was a relief to finally leave it. They started building their house at Hangaza and completed it two months later before moving there all together. Mr Mngomezulu now has close to thirty children, although he has lost count.

In 2008 the Mngomezulu family relied on many different activities to support themselves. They grew their own maize, peanuts, imbumba and indlumbu, and sold off surplus produce for extra income. Mrs Mngomezulu received a government pension, her son’s wife received a Child Support Grant for each of the three grandchildren they look after, and her son would qualify to receive the Old Age pension towards the end of the year (2008). One of her son’s wives had a government job, and her grandson’s wife was a teacher. Another wife is the daughter of the Inkosi at Mbila, Mr Zikali. Mrs Mngomezulu attended the Zion Christian Church Mission but was not a member of other local associations or savings groups. She has never had the opportunity to visit Ozabeni again since the time of their removal, but would love to do so.

The family has had various means of sustaining themselves over the years. At one point Mr Mngomezulu had a full time job at the Riverview tourist lodge, working in the kitchen, where he learnt how to cook the meals that white tourists liked. He earned about R12 a month at that time. He would often use the money to buy cloth for his wives from which to make dresses. After the move, he started selling vegetables, as well as fish and bread that he could find cheaply. In 2008 Mr Mngomezulu generated income by selling vegetables to pensioners on the day of the monthly government pension payout. He bought vegetables wholesale in town and repacked them for sale in smaller units (ukudayisa). He had been doing this for many years now. He had a vehicle he used for delivering his produce. He also

133 used the vehicle to transport wooden planks from KwaMahlati for sale in KwaJobe. The money from this business paid for his children to go to school.

Cattle remained important to the social life of the Mngomezulus. Although the cattle from Ozabeni did not survive the move (the eight head that he had were killed, he says, by jealous neighbours who fed them Jik, a household solvent), he paid thirty six cows for the chief’s daughter and has been able to give each of his sons one cow towards their own lobola payments.

Check your understanding 1. Where did Mrs Mngomezulu live before she was removed?

2. When were the Mngomezulus moved?

3. Where did the family stay before moving to Entabeni?

4. Name the various ways the Mngomezulu family generate an income.

5. In what way do cattle remain important to the social life of the Mngomezulus?

Apply your knowledge 1. Why do you think “the GG trucks remain a powerful image” in many of the stories of those the interviewer spoke to?

134 Experiences of loss: Mr Zikhali of the Mbila Land Claims Committee

The Emandleni Trust, which represents land claimants living around Mbila near the town of Mbazwane, settled a claim on the Park in 1997. Mr Zikhali was one of those moved from Manzibomvu in Ozabeni who now live outside the Park. What follows is taken from an interview with Mr Zikhali in Mbila in 2008: Mr Zikhali has been central to affairs of the Mbila Land Claims Committee, and his story of the Mbila removal from their land is slightly different from the Mngomezulu’s story (See Experiences of loss: the Mngomezulu family of Mbila). He remembers the removal as taking place in 1972 or 1973. People were asked where they wanted to go next, and could choose. He chose to come to Manzibomvu because he had been born in iNkosi Zikhali’s area – the chief, Moses Zikhali, is his brother. It took two years to build their house here, during which time the whole family stayed in a tent. They had two tents because his father, the former chief, had different houses and several wives. During the move they had to abandon their cattle to fend for themselves, and some of them were stolen. From his current residence, grazing land is about three kilometres away, and he is able to graze the cattle he has acquired since the move. Mr Zikhali had one wife before the move from the old Manzibomvu to the new Manzibomvu (the area took its name with it because of the school that was moved and around which the group congregated). He now has two wives and eleven children. Although he does not have a formal job, he has a number of sources of income: cutting pine trees and transporting children to school in his bakkie. He now lives in (the relocated) Manzibomvu where he has lived for twenty years. (His old home was called Ntanenkosi, and it was near the old Manzibomvu near the Lower Mkhuze River).

Mr Zikhali remembers having been told that they were to be removed, and that the move would happen in a year’s time. All the houses were counted; each house had a number. Despite the time they were given to get ready, it still felt insufficient. The counting of houses was done by a group of people not from their area and it caused a great deal of unhappiness. When the time came for the move, the community had not yet organised a meeting to discuss it. People did not really believe it would happen, he remembers. The trucks arrived, but instead of allowing the furniture to be packed for future use, it was destroyed. Those who committed these crimes were Sotho speakers who knew no Zulu, and had no common language with those who were to be removed. The move occurred in about 1972 or 1973 (or was it 1974 - the same vagueness that all those we interviewed expressed about the date). He remembers people were moved in three phases: those moved in the first phase had their houses burned and soldiers destroyed the building materials. Those in phase two were able to take their household building material with them in the trucks. Mr Zikhali was part of the third phase. The houses of this group were not burned, and people

135 were allowed to move with all their belongings. Having been given the opportunity to choose where they wanted to move to, he chose to come to the area of his brother the inkosi Moses Zikhali. For two years they all stayed in a tent while building their homestead.

Using his bakkie as a taxi, he has purchased a harvesting machine that he rents out. Since the move he has been able to marry a second wife, and his children all have secure employment or prospects (one in the Boxer Cash and Carry, one in the Mbazwane Bakery, one in Johannesburg working in Absa Bank. None of them are married, and they don’t send money home. One child is at the University of Zululand, and another three are at Manzibomvu Primary.

Where they had come from was a place of sufficient food and good soils; this place had poor soils, life had been hard, and it had been a struggle to support the children. The 1994 elections gave some of them the hope that the President would take them back to their homes – an expectation unfulfilled. According to Mr Zikhali, they have never accepted the move and have never had the opportunity to visit their old homes.

Check your understanding 1. Where did Mr Zikhali live before he was removed?

2. When was Mr Zikhali moved?

3. Why did he choose Manzibomvu?

4. Name the various ways Mr Zikhali generates an income.

Apply your knowledge 1. Why do you think the government of the day used Sotho speakers to carry out some of the removals?

136 Marine Protected Areas

Most of the coastline of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is proclaimed under the World Heritage Convention Act. Additional protection of the iSimangaliso’s marine environment is also given under the Marine Living Resources Act 1998, in the form of a Marine Protected Area (MPA). Currently (2009) there are two MPAs in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park - the St Lucia MPA and the Maputaland MPA. The southern section of the Park’s coast (from Cape Vidal to the southern boundary of Park near the Cape St Lucia Lighthouse) is not yet an MPA, although in future the MPA may be extended to match the proclaimed Park boundary.

Marine Protected Areas The IUCN definition of a Marine Protected Area is:

‘Any area of intertidal or subtidal terrain, together with its overlying waters and associated flora, fauna, historical and cultural features, which has been reserved by legislation or other effective means to protect all or part of the enclosed environment’. Marine Protected Areas are designed to conserve marine biodiversity, maintain the productivity of marine and coastal ecosystems, and contribute to the socio-economic welfare of human communities.

Each area has a set of regulations that control use and management of various zones within the MPA, depending on the specific conditions in each area. In some areas the focus is on preservation of wildlife whilst in others it is the subsistence or tourism use of the resources.

According to the Marine Living Resources Act, the Minister may, by notice published in the Government Gazette, declare an area to be a Marine Protected Area: • For the protection of fauna and flora or a particular species of fauna or flora and the physical features on which they depend.

• To facilitate fishery management by protecting spawning stock, allowing stock recovery, enhancing stock abundance in adjacent areas, and providing pristine communities for research.

• To diminish any conflict which may arise from competing uses in that area.

137 Powered by Honda’s engines and the support of WWF, iSimangaliso’s new patrol boat has 220 kms of coastline to keep an eye on

Ecological importance of the marine environment of iSimangaliso The dominant oceanographic feature of iSimangaliso is the Agulhas Current, which is the primary determinant of the incredible biodiversity of the coastal marine environment as well as the climate of the coastal strip. Sediments that are transported by the current are trapped by the submarine canyons on the continental shelf, resulting in very clear water that is ideal for the development of coral reefs. A total of 325 seaweeds have been recorded in iSimangaliso - 78% of the total seaweeds found along the coast of Kwazulu Natal. Several new species have recently been discovered in iSimangaliso.

Marine and estuarine invertebrates are considered to be the most important group of aquatic invertebrates present in iSimangaliso. The coral inhabited reefs are some of the southern-most reefs in the world and are highly significant in terms of their conservation and scientific value. They range in depth from 8 m to just over 35 m and they are found almost exclusively (in South Africa) in the marine reserves of iSimangaliso. They occur sporadically along the coastline between Cape Vidal and the Mozambique border. One hundred and twenty nine species of coral (including several new and endemic species) have been recorded in iSimangaliso. Sponges and tunicates are also a prominent feature of the reefs.

A total of 812 species of marine and estuarine molluscs have been recorded in iSimangaliso, 72% of the species recorded along the entire KZN coast. Species of commercial importance (such as cowries) are present in iSimangaliso, together with giant clams, which are of international conservation concern. iSimangaliso contains several rare species and three species, which are listed in the International Red Data Book. The rocky intertidal outcrops are important for the protection of certain endemic molluscan species such as Chiton salihafui and Siphonaria dayi.

138 Crustaceans are also well represented in iSimangaliso, with 115 species (39% of known South African species) of benthic amphipods, 76 species of isopods (26% SA total) and seven species of Penaeidae. The reserves provide the only protected habitat for the shore ghost crab (Ocypode madagascariensis), which has a limited distribution. Ghost crabs, in particular, are significantly affected by vehicular activity in their habitats and it would appear that populations have begun to recover since the introduction of controls on recreational vehicle driving in the coastal zone.

Almost 85% of the reef fish species in the area are endemic to the West Indian Ocean region. A few species of Atlantic Ocean origin are also present. The close proximity of marine, freshwater and estuarine environments has led to a high diversity of fish species - nine hundred and ninety one species of fish are found in iSimangaliso. Coral reef species are particularly abundant, with 399 species having been recorded, including 25 elasmobranchs and six species of billfish (Isthiophoridae). Important species of elasmobranch that are rarely found south of the Maputaland region occur in the area, these include the Lemon Shark (Negaprion acutidens), the Blacktailed Reef Shark (Carcharhinus wheeleri) and the bluespotted stingray (Taeniura lymma).

Coelacanths (Latimera chalumnae) were discovered in Jesser Canyon in October 2000. The canyons are thought to represent very important habitats within the MPAs.

The St Lucia system is an important nursery ground for the Zambezi Shark (Carcharhinus leucas). Zambezi Sharks are not highly mobile and have been exploited by recreational anglers. They have also lost a large amount of habitat due to estuarine degradation in southern KZN. They are often caught in shark nets that protect the swimming beaches and also in the gill nets of artisanal fishermen.

Breeding populations of several commercially important endemic fish species occur in iSimangaliso, as well as the Whale Shark and Ragged Tooth Shark.

The species diversity of marine icthyofauna is partly due to the close proximity of the St Lucia Estuarine system, which is the most important nursery on the coastline for fish and other marine organisms, such as crabs and prawns.

There are three estuarine systems in iSimangaliso. The shallows of Lake St Lucia and Kosi, together with the offshore marine reefs, sustain large concentrations of larval and juvenile forms of marine life, including fish, prawns, crabs and other aquatic organisms. The lakes are the most important nursery areas for these aquatic organisms on the South African east coast. iSimangaliso provides the principal breeding grounds in Southern Africa for both the Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) Turtles. These are considered to be

139 habitats of global conservation importance. The Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) is a non-breeding resident and the Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricate) and Olive Riley (Lepidochelys olivacea) Turtles are frequently seen in iSimangaliso.

Habitat of global ecological importance – a typical MPA coastline in iSimangaliso

A total of 32 marine mammals occur in iSimangaliso, including the Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), Humpback Dolphin (Sousa plumbea), and Spinner Dolphin (Stenella longirostris), which are resident in iSimangaliso. In winter, migrations of the Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaengliae) and Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis) occur. All of the 32 marine mammals that occur in iSimangaliso are listed in the International Red Data book and CITES appendices.

The diverse wetland types in iSimangaliso are also considered to be a ‘habitat of global importance’. The wetlands extend across the complete salinity gradient from freshwater to marine. Several of the wetlands are included in the MPAs.

Check your understanding 1. How many Marine Protected Areas are there in iSimangaliso? 2. What kind of water does coral need to develop? 3. At what depths can coral be found in iSimangaliso? 4. How many species of coral (including several new and endemic species) have been recorded in iSimangaliso?

140 5. Which crab species has begun to recover since beach driving without a permit was banned in iSimangaliso? 6. How many coral reef species have been recorded in iSimangaliso? 7. For which shark is the St Lucia system an important nursery ground? 8. How many fish species are found in iSimangaliso? 9. In which year were Coelacanths (Latimera chalumnae) were discovered in Jesser Canyon? 10. Name the three estuarine systems of iSimangaliso. 11. For which aquatic organisms are the lakes and estuaries of iSimangaliso the most important breeding grounds on the east coast of South Africa? 12. Name the five turtle species that frequent iSimangaliso. 13. How many marine mammals occur in iSimangaliso? 14. Name three Dolphin species that occur in iSimangaliso.

Apply your knowledge 1. Briefly explain why there is such a high diversity of fish and other species in iSimangaliso.

2. Explain to a group of tourists what an MPA is, and what it is intended to achieve.

141 The Ndlozi Peninsula: conservation and the military.

During the apartheid years the links between conservation and the military were strong. Some conservation areas were used by the apartheid state for explicit military activity. Land within proclaimed national parks was used for weapons testing, training specialist military personnel, training private armies, as a springboard to destabilise neighbouring countries, and as a base for smuggling weapons, rhino horn and ivory. Evidence emerged during the hearings of the post- apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission that certain conservation areas were used as secluded retreats by security operatives.

Military personnel have been implicated in poaching and smuggling rhino horn and ivory, the proceeds of which were intended to finance the destabilisation of neighbouring countries during the final decade of the Nationalist Government’s rule. Many of these activities were carried out with the assistance of conservation personnel, using routes through conservation areas.

While conservation agencies in Africa and particularly in South Africa have traditionally perceived their role as one of law enforcement, patrolling vast tracts of land fenced to keep animals in and people out, nature conservation in South Africa became increasingly militarised as the South African political crisis grew. It was argued that the only effective way to protect game was to arm conservation staff and provide them with some form of paramilitary training. By the 1960’s conservationists in South African parks and protected areas were trained and equipped by the South African Defence Force. The size and isolation of many of the reserves – and their location on the borders of the country - made them ideal for clandestine activities. The Defence Force was given, or demanded, full access to conservation areas that remained off limits to the general public. The emotional appeal of “saving an endangered species from extinction” and the well documented viciousness of rhino poaching lent cover to military presence and involvement in conservation areas.

In the 1960’s the South African military (under Defence Minister P.W. Botha) began to rapidly expand. The numbers of both Permanent Force and Citizen Force soldiers increased along with a similar expansion in the length of compulsory National Service (for whites only). The Rivonia trialists, including Nelson Mandela, had been imprisoned for life. A host of political organisations (including the ANC, the PAC and the South African Communist Party) had been banned. The new Republic of South Africa was beginning to feel the pinch of increasing international isolation. The United Nations had declared apartheid “a crime against humanity” and in 1963, requested a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa that became a UN Resolution in 1967. The Nationalist government began to gear itself up for decades of both foreign and domestic conflict. Unable to rely on the importation of weapons from the North, the South African state turned to its own manufacture of military technology. Armscor was founded in 1968 as a parastatal weapon

142 producing conglomerate which oversaw a vast military, industrial and technological empire that consumed tens of billions of rands.

In the same period change was occurring at South Africa’s borders. Anti-colonial movements in Angola (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA) and Mozambique (Mozambique Liberation Front, FRELIMO) arose, dedicated to ending Portuguese colonial rule. South Africa committed troops to assisting the Portuguese to maintain control of their colonies. South African troops were sent to Mozambique and a joint command centre was created in Angola to strike against the “rebels” from the air. As the government feared, these liberation movements served as an inspiration to the South African liberation movement.

In 1968 South Africa created a missile testing site at Hells Gate on the Ndlozi Peninsula on the western shores of Lake St Lucia. Under the auspices of Kentron, a subsidiary of Armscor, test missiles were fired into what is today called “the Wilderness area". Located close to the Mozambican border, the St Lucia conservation area provided a buffer zone against Mozambique as well as the isolation to maintain national security around the development and testing of arms. In addition to the missile base at Hells Gate, the iMfolozi/Hluhluwe corridor, Mkhuze and Kosi Bay were also used for the training of Special Forces soldiers who were sent to Angola and Mozambique.

The open air church at Hell’s Gate on the Ndlozi peninsula

Set up on the Ndlozi Peninsula, the missile base reached over the northern portions of Lake St Lucia to Sodwana Bay. Thousands of people resident in the area lost their ancestral homes when the military decided to “remove” them from the area. Between 1972 and 1979 about 3,400 Africans

143 were forcibly relocated, most of them to Mbazwana. Little had been done to prepare the area for their arrival. Tents had been hastily erected, but the camp was distant from water supplies which, in any event, were unsafe.

The association of the military with nature conservation areas drew unwelcome publicity in the 1990s when the transition to democracy was marred by ethnic and political violence. In 1995 the director of KwaZulu-Natal Department of Conservation (KDNC), Nick Steele, admitted that the Mlaba reserve had been used to train IFP paramilitary (“Third force”) groups during the transition to democracy. The Port Durnford forest reserve had also been utilised for “48-hour flash training” where temporary camps were set up for two days of extreme training and subsequently disbanded. This made such abuse of a conservation area difficult for the conservation authorities to track, let alone prevent.

In 1996 Armscor stated that it had closed down the missile testing site on the Ndlozi Peninsula a decade earlier, almost two decades after it had been established. Kentron left the site in 1992 but, by 1997, it still controlled enormous areas of land within the iSimangaliso area. The South African National Defence Force finally left the area in 2008. The iSimangaliso Authority is removing the buildings and rehabilitating the site.

Check your understanding

1. Which four explicitly military activities were carried out in land within proclaimed national parks during the apartheid years? 2. Military personnel have been implicated in poaching and smuggling rhino horn and ivory during the last decade of apartheid rule. What did they do with the money they earned through these activities? 3. By the 1960’s, which institution trained and equipped conservationists in South African parks and Protected Areas? 4. In what year did the United Nations pass a Resolution that imposed an arms embargo on South Africa? 5. The South African state began to manufacture its own weapons in 1968. What was the name of the parastatal that was formed to produce this military technology? 6. Where in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park did the South African government create a missile testing site? 7. Which areas in iSimangaliso were affected by the testing of the missiles? 8. How many people resident in the area were forcibly relocated because of the missile testing site? 9. Where were they sent?

144 10. Which reserve in KwaZulu Natal was used to train IFP paramilitary (“Third force”) groups during the transition to democracy? 11. When was the missile testing site on the Ndlozi Peninsula closed down, according to Kentron? 12. When did the South African National Defence Force finally leave the area?

Apply your knowledge

1. Read this article together with A new model for Protected Area development. Use them to explain to a group of visitors the shifts that have taken place in conservation management in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park since 1994. 2. A “pristine” natural area means an area unaffected by human activity. Explain why the Wilderness Area in iSimangaliso is not “pristine”.

145 Turtles of iSimangaliso

Both the gigantic, warm blooded Leatherback Turtle and the smaller Loggerhead Turtle breed along the shores of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

Loggerhead Turtle

The best known of the five species of turtles that breed on or visit the sandy shores of iSimangaliso are the Leatherback Turtle and the Loggerhead Turtle.

Leatherback Turtle This gigantic turtle can weigh over 800 kg. The Leatherback Turtle has a deep, narrow, barrel- shaped shell that lacks horny scutes (horny scales), but is instead covered with thick, smooth skin like vulcanised rubber. The flippers are long and clawless, and in the adults the shell and flippers are black, usually scattered with white spots. Leatherbacks undertake long journeys and frequently enter colder currents to find food. They are adapted to conserve heat in cold water. They are the only living reptiles that are warm-blooded, generating their own heat. The adult turtles feed only on jellyfish, but the juveniles may also eat other floating organisms. They dive to feed and are able to reach depths of over 350 metres, and can stay under the water for up to 37 minutes. Long spines that project backwards cover the inside of the Leatherback's throat to stop slippery food from escaping.

A Leatherback turtle becomes sexually mature at between 3 and 5 years old, when the carapace is approximately 1400 mm long. Mating between Leatherbacks takes place at sea. Leatherback

146 males never leave the water once they enter it, unlike the females, which crawl onto land to nest. Both Loggerhead and Leatherback turtles nest in summer and at night. The female emerges from the surf and rests in the wash zone, looking out for danger. Then she moves above the high water mark to find a suitable site to lay her eggs. Around a thousand eggs are laid altogether during a breeding season, at nine to eleven day intervals. A high percentage (70-75%) hatch successfully.

After 60 to 70 days, the hatchlings emerge at night and make their way to the sea. Up to 12% may be taken immediately by ghost crabs. For the first couple of months the tiny turtles are prey to many marine predators. It is estimated that out of every 1000 eggs only one or two hatchlings survive. Females breed every two to three years and often return to nest on the beaches on which they were hatched.

Leatherbacks can be found nesting from Maphelane in the south all the way along the coast of iSimangaliso into Mozambique. Most breeding occurs between Manzengwenya and Bhanga Nek.

Leatherback turtle after laying her eggs

Loggerhead Turtle

This turtle is much smaller than the Leatherback Turtle. The Loggerhead weighs between 80 and 140 kg. The large head and carapace are uniformly red-brown in juveniles and adults and their extremely strong jaws are able to crush giant clams. In southern Africa they mainly breed along the sandy shores of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, with very small and isolated breeding patches along the coast of Mozambique. They come ashore every two to three years to lay about 500 eggs

147 in batches of 100 to 120 every 15 days. This usually takes place at high tide during moonless nights.

Loggerhead hatchlings

Green Turtle This is a large turtle, weighing between 125 and 200 kg. In the Atlantic, turtles of up to 300 kg have been recorded. In southern Africa they breed (in small numbers) on Bazaruto Island, Mozambique. They are found throughout the year along the coast of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. They can be seen from vantage points on the high, forested dunes, and from Black Rock and Dog Point. Snorkel and scuba divers often encounter these turtles.

Hawksbill Turtle This is a relatively small turtle, often weighing less than 50 kg. The beak is bird-like. In adults the upper section of the shell is translucent amber, beautifully patterned with irregular, radiating streaks of black, yellow and light red-brown. The curio trade has caused the decline of this species. The scutes - the horny scales on the shell - are made into jewellery and sold on the black market. In countries like Singapore and the Philippines, it is estimated that up to 100 000 hatchlings are killed for the curio trade annually.

The Hawksbill Turtle can be encountered while diving along iSimanagaliso’s coastline. Snorkel divers within the protected bay at Cape Vidal have seen them. They breed in Madagascar, the Tromelin Islands and Mauritius. Although their growth is relatively rapid, they only attain sexual maturity after about 10 years.

148 Olive Ridley Turtle This is the smallest sea turtle in the world. It weighs up to 45 kg. The dorsal shell of adults is dark to olive-green. This rare species enters the waters off iSimangaliso, but it is seldom encountered. Where they are more common they sometimes form large groups, migrating between feeding and breeding grounds. Olive Ridley Turtles were once famous for breeding in massive numbers, up to 46 000 in one kilometre of beach in a single day. Because of habitat destruction and ecological change these great gatherings no longer occur. They lay two to three clutches of 105 to 116 white, soft-shelled eggs, and may return to nest again at one- to two-year intervals.

Turtle conservation in iSimangaliso The number of nesting loggerhead and leatherback turtles has been recorded in the iSimangaliso area since 1971, and turtles are have been measured and tagged. This research has shown that because turtles are protected along the shores of iSimnagaliso, the population is on the increase. Throughout the rest of the world turtle populations have been virtually destroyed due to human activity.

During the course of the five-month nesting season, from October 2006 to March 2007, scientists monitored leatherback and loggerhead nesting sites at Rocktail Bay near Mabibi in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, trying to understand the factors that lead to reproductive success. The scientists found and marked 92 leatherback nests, 222 loggerhead nests, 152 aborted loggerhead nests, and five aborted leatherback nests, using a GPS. Of the marked nests a total of 15 nests were predated - 11 leatherback nests and four loggerhead nests. The honey badger, Mellivora capensis, was the main culprit, predating nine leatherback nests and all four loggerhead nests. Ghost crabs were seen predating eggs from a leatherback nest and a dog or jackal predated another. Average clutch counts, based on excavations for both leatherback and loggerhead nests, were 70.8 and 99 eggs respectively.29

Turtle viewing tours during the breeding season are available to visitors to the Park.

This article is based on a contribution written by Xander Combrink.

Glossary Predator: a carnivorous (meat-eating) animal that hunts, kills, and eats other animals in order to survive.

29 Boyes, C and Leslie, A, Nesting Ecology of Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacae) and Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) Sea-turtles along the Maputaland Coast of South Africa, Seasonal Report 2006 / 2007

149 Check your understanding 14. Name the five species of turtle that are found along the shores of iSimangaliso. 15. Which two turtles are best known? 16. Which species of turtles lay their eggs along the shores of the Park? 17. Which three species only visit the waters of the Park? 18. What does the huge Leatherback turtle weigh on average? 19. Where is the main breeding area of the Leatherback in iSimangaliso? 20. How many eggs does the Leatherback Turtle lay? 21. How many of the hatchlings survive? 22. What do adult leatherbacks eat? 23. How are they able to swim through cold waters to find food? 24. What is the average weight of the Loggerhead turtle? 25. In what environment does this turtle like to lay its eggs? 26. Where does the Green Turtle breed? 27. Where does the Hawksbill Turtle breed? 28. How do the Green Turtle and the Hawksbill Turtle get their names? 29. Which is the smallest turtle and what does it weigh? 30. Which rare turtle is found along the shores of iSimangaliso? 31. What has caused the drastic reduction in the numbers of the Hawksbill Turtle? 32. What were Olive Ridley Turtles famous for in the past?

Apply your learning

1. Discuss how you would convey to a group of visitors the value of the Park as one of the last remaining areas in the world where turtles are found and are increasing in number. 2. Although it is a wonderful experience to see turtles laying eggs, how could visitors contribute to the decline in turtle numbers? 3. Using turtle conservation as example, how could you convey to visitors the importance of research in the Park?

150 Wilderness in history

The total extent of land defined as “wilderness” - areas where no permanent structures and no human habitation is allowed, and where human beings do not dominate these landscapes but are only temporary visitors to a rich community of life forms – is shrinking very rapidly.30 In South Africa, only 0.1% of the land surface can be called wilderness, and wilderness makes up only about 2.1% of the existing protected areas of South Africa - which themselves constitute only a small (4,7%) percentage of the country’s land. Because more and more land in South Africa is likely to be subjected to some form of development in the next decades, wilderness areas are increasingly scarce and precious, and need to be fiercely protected. Forty percent of iSimangaliso is managed as a wilderness area.

The idea of wilderness has changed down time, and has been created by many different historical and cultural experiences.

Wilderness in the Bible "Wilderness" is a powerful idea with a long and complex history in Western culture. In the biblical creation story God gives the first man (Adam) dominion over the earth and the rest of creation; Adam is made in God's image. The early European, Christian settlers who colonized both South Africa and North America brought these ideas with them. "Wild nature" was theirs to be transformed. The people they found living in "wild nature" in the new territories - hunters, herders and farmers - were viewed as part of wild nature, not as “human” as they were. All women were seen as "closer to nature’, less human than men. Women did not have a natural capacity for rational thought, and, like “the savages”, required benevolent but firm government.

The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 can be seen as expressing the historic conflict between settled farmers, intermeshed with various cities and states, and semi-nomadic herders and shepherds31. "The wilderness" in the Bible represents the shepherd's opposition to civilization, the detested city, and the exodus from slavery into the desert to face Yahweh's challenge. Cain, the farmer, offers sacrifice from the fruit of the ground; Abel, the semi-nomad, offers the firstling of his flock. Abel's gift is the nobler one, but Cain the farmer wins the competition, by murder and deception. The wilderness offers both refuge from the Egyptians and a setting for the handing over of the Ten Commandments. It is also a place of hardship, suffering and punishment. The Prophet Ezekiel explains to the Israelites, speaking as Yahweh:

30 Only 10.9% of the world's land mass is currently a Category 1 Protected Area, that is, either a strict nature reserve (5.5%) or protected wilderness (5.4%) (IUCN/UNEP: 2003).

31 Cousins, T, Wilderness and identity: healing or suture, BSoc Sci Hon thesis, unpublished, UCT 1998.

151 I swore to them in the desert that I would not bring them in to the land I had given them - a land flowing with milk and honey, most beautiful of all lands - because they rejected my laws and did not follow my decrees (Ezekiel 20: 15 -16)

When God's blessings showered down, the landscape was transformed into one suitable for human habitation (and settled agricultural pursuits): The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom…the desert becomes a fertile field…My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes…how blessed you will be sowing your seed by every stream and letting your oxen and cattle roam free. (Isaiah 32: 15 -20, 35:1)

For the American colonial settlers, "the wilderness" was the opposite of what God had originally intended for His people. The biblical account of humanity's expulsion from an earthly paradise into a wilderness as a result of Adam and Eve's disobedience and sin helped frame wild areas and pioneering experience as intrinsically evil and immoral, while "civilization" and the victory it had won over nature was equated with the Garden of Eden. Wilderness and Paradise were spiritual and physical opposites. The wilderness was a perilous place where hunger, thirst and dangerous animals endangered people's lives.

African concepts of wilderness This view has many echoes in traditional African philosophy and cultural practices. "Wilderness" was not identified with natural resources, "the land (umhlaba)", where people lived and farmed, herded cattle, hunted and fished, and gathered plants for food and fuel. The wilderness, as a concept, represented a certain danger to the health and sanity of people living together in community. Ancestors and other spirits, both positive and negative, lived in the wilderness; the initiation of young men required a period of isolation in the wilderness because it was a borderline place, outside society, where with expert help and correct ritual practices a person might undergo a radical change of social role. Those who lived in the wilderness alone, too far from the humanising influence of the group, might cause harm to others. "The wilderness" was not a place of recreation and relaxation32.

Wilderness as healing The concept of wilderness created in the twentieth century differed from the notion of “sacred space” as presented in the Bible, and also from traditional African beliefs. It arose in response to the processes of colonial conquest, industrialisation and urbanisation in the 19th century.

32 Cousins, ibid

152 As the cities grew and industrial production and the growth of wealth removed the settlers from the harsh realities of frontier life, a more romantic notion of "the wilderness" became popular. The rapidly growing cities also brought overcrowding, social alienation, personal insecurity and forms of mechanised work experienced as unnatural and unhealthy. In North America, as the colonial wars for the land drew to an end, troublesome natives became noble savages. For the wealthy, regular retreats into "the primordial wilderness" - now empty of those who had previously lived there - were seen as beneficial to one's personality, quality of life and relationships with others. Increasingly, wilderness became a metaphor for the unexplored qualities and untapped spiritual capacities of every individual. Wilderness was a place to retreat to from industrial society. (These ideas were popularised by the nineteenth century American philosopher, Thoreau, and the early twentieth century Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, who deeply influenced the Wilderness movement in South Africa and one of its founders, Ian Player).

David Henry Thoreau

The first nature conservation areas were established in both South Africa (St Lucia Reserve was established in 1895) and North America (Yellowstone National Park) in the 19th century, when great species loss through uncontrolled hunting using firearms had already occurred, and most of the land had been alienated from the native peoples.

Wilderness and ecotourism In the 21st century the concept of “wilderness” is a mixed masala of many ingredients. Ideas about personal development; a desire for a return to "the natural order of things"; a heightened sense of the fragility and value of certain ecosystems and environments for the functioning of the planet as a

153 whole; and greater scientific knowledge and interest in species, biodiversity and natural systems all contribute to the growing popularity of ecotourism in “wild” areas of spectacular beauty, high species diversity and low population density.

While wilderness areas bring in little money directly since these areas are so lightly used, a Wilderness area in the context of a Park such as iSimangaliso adds great value to the visitor experience. Skilled and knowledgeable professionals enable visitors to safely enter and use a pristine natural area. Before and after a wilderness experience, tourists visit other places in the Park and the region, helping to pay for the management of World Heritage sites such as iSimangaliso and bringing much-needed jobs for local people to the area.

Check your understanding

1. According to this article, to which historical conflict does the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 refer?

2. How did the American colonial settlers view the wilderness?

3. When was the first nature conservation area in South Africa established?

4. Name two writers who deeply influenced the Wilderness movement in South Africa.

5. Why did people who were formerly seen as “troublesome natives” became “noble savages” in 19th century North America?

Apply your knowledge 1. Explain to a group of visitors how traditional African philosophy views the concept of “wilderness”.

2. “Wilderness is…a place of hardship, suffering and punishment”. Explain to a visitor how current ideas of wilderness have changed, using stories from the Bible to illustrate your point.

3. Why did “the wilderness” become “a place to retreat to from industrial society”, and what does that tell us about people’s attitude to industrialisation in the 19th century in North America? In your opinion, how similar or different are these attitudes from the way contemporary South Africans regard industrialisation?

154 Managing wilderness in iSimangaliso

Forty percent of iSimangaliso is zoned and managed as a wilderness area.

Wilderness areas in Protected Areas protect the natural character of a landscape. They have no permanent structures and no human habitation is allowed. Human beings do not dominate these landscapes; people are temporary visitors to a rich community of life forms.

The Protected Areas Act protects wilderness areas in South African legislation. The Act states that wilderness areas are declared ‘for the purpose of retaining an intrinsically wild appearance and character or capable of being restored to such and which is undeveloped and roadless, without permanent improvements or human habitation’.

The concept of “managing wilderness” seems to be a contradiction in terms. Wilderness philosophy conveys a strong impression of no or little human interference or impact. Management suggests control, manipulation and human intervention. In reality, wilderness cannot exist within a social vacuum. It can only be preserved by strategies to minimise and mitigate human influence and use. Management involves a range of options, including ‘no action’. One of the concepts used by wilderness managers to guide their decisions is the ‘minimal tool ’. Which tool will have the least impact, in achieving a particular objective? For example if one of the management objectives is to remove invasive alien plants from the wilderness area, mechanised machinery and chemical herbicides could be used. These would, however, have an unacceptable impact on the wilderness’s intrinsic values, so a good manager will explore the use of methods that have a lower level of sophistication, such as cane knives or hand pulling. (In addition, labour intensive hand pulling offers job creation opportunities for people living adjacent to iSimangaliso).

The real challenge is to balance impact and sophistication. For example, black rhino are managed in order to achieve the global goal of rhino conservation. This strategy involves the periodic removal of rhino from the Park to start founder populations elsewhere, within their natural range. However, a significant number of iSimangaliso rhino live within the wilderness area. The ‘minimal tool’ to capture rhino would be the use of land based vehicles, but the impacts - tracks and damage to vegetation - are long lasting. Instead management chooses to operate at a higher level of sophistication and make use of a helicopter to carry these animals out of the wilderness area. Higher sophistication, higher short term impacts (noise), but no long-term impacts. Once the helicopter has left the area, the area’s sense of place is unaltered.

Wilderness Management Principles

155 Internationally accepted wilderness management principles include the management of wilderness as a distinct resource with inseparable parts. Wilderness management is guided by written plans with specific area objectives, which accept that human carrying capacity must be set to prevent unnatural change. Management applies the principle of using the “minimal tools and least regulation” to achieve wilderness area objectives.

Values Wilderness management principles are based on a set of values to which South African wilderness managers subscribe. Wilderness is a unique and enduring resource. It creates opportunities for solitude and a primitive recreational experience. Wilderness, then, has an experiential value; people can visit and enjoy an area where natural processes prevail, and can derive benefits such as emotional and spiritual renewal, improved self-esteem, and improved physical and mental health. The wilderness experience is particularly valuable because “natural” wilderness areas are under great pressure. More and more land in South Africa is likely to be subjected to some form of development within the next two decades. The total extent of wilderness remaining in South Africa is no more than an estimated 0.1% of the land surface. Wilderness makes up only about 2.1% of the existing protected areas of South Africa - which themselves constitute only a small (4,7%) percentage of the country.

Wilderness has great scientific and ecological value because these areas contain intact ecosystems that provide valuable opportunities for scientific study. Wilderness areas are used as benchmarks to measure planetary ecological changes. These areas often have great historical and cultural value, too; numerous historical and cultural sites are located – and preserved - within the iSimangaliso wilderness area.

Wilderness areas contribute economically to the local, regional and national economy by creating ecotourism opportunities and jobs. Natural resource harvesting (such as reed harvesting) provides important economic benefits to local communities. Apart from the economic value of guided wilderness trails, wilderness provides exceptional opportunities for environmental education through interpretation of the biology, ecology and archaeology of the wilderness area.

Zonation: an important management tool iSimangaliso has a pristine wilderness zone, which is the ‘purest’ form of wilderness with no external impacts and no visual evidence of human manipulation of the landscape. Management is not permitted chemical control of vegetation, no reclamation or erosion control takes place, and there is no bush control.

156 Visitors may only enter a wilderness area with an official guide, on foot, horseback or canoe. Visitor numbers are strictly controlled, and visitor groups are small. Not even law enforcement patrols may use motorised transport in a wilderness area.

Visitor management and control Many visitors enter a wilderness area to experience solitude and a pristine environment. One party of visitors bumping into another spoils everyone’s experience of wilderness. Conflict of this nature is avoided by setting visitor carrying capacities for each zone within the wilderness area, and by careful visitor scheduling.

Management of the Zone of Influence (Buffer Zone) One of the greatest threats to wilderness areas is development outside of or adjacent to the wilderness area. This includes visitor infrastructure within the protected area itself. Any development within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is planned to avoid visual and noise impacts on the wilderness area. Developments outside the protected area are more challenging because many interest groups are involved. Legislation allows the Park the right to vigorously engage with local and national stakeholders in defence of wilderness values outside of the boundaries of the Park in what is known as the Zone of Influence, or Buffer Zone. This includes not only the right to challenge development in the areas surrounding the Park (that may, for example, threaten the Park’s water supply) but also extends to the control of airspace over the Park. Aircraft may not overfly wilderness areas.

Monitoring Monitoring of management actions, as well as visitor experience, campsites, litter, paths, the effect of peripheral developments and resource use such as firewood collection is an essential element of any adaptive management program, and is particularly important in maintaining wilderness values and character. Monitoring provides the feedback we need to modify management actions, standards and objectives so that we can achieve the most pristine form of wilderness possible. This articles is based on a contribution by Peter Hartley.

Check your understanding

1. What percentage of iSimangaliso is zoned and managed as a wilderness area?

2. What defines a wilderness area?

3. Why are rhinos airlifted out of wilderness areas, when necessary, while alien plants are cleared by hand?

157 4. What percentage of the land surface of South Africa could be called “wilderness”?

5. How does wilderness contribute economically to the people of the iSimangaliso area?

6. Why do scientists value wilderness?

7. Name the three types of wilderness zoned within iSimangaliso.

8. What is “visitor carrying capacity”?

9. What is the Zone of Influence, and why does it exist?

10. How do wilderness managers know that they are doing a good job?

Apply your knowledge

1. What determines how wilderness is zoned in iSimangaliso?

2. Explain how the concept of “the minimal tool” helps to guide the decisions of wilderness managers, and give examples of how it is used in iSimangaliso.

3. What would you tell visitors to expect if they were visiting a “pristine” part of the wilderness area in iSimangaliso?

158