The Implementation of an Environmental Monitoring and Management System in the Wilderness Area of the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN THE WILDERNESS AREA OF THE HLUHLUWE-IMFOLOZI PARK By Paul Bernard Cryer Submitted in fulfillment of the academic requirements for the degree of Master of Science in the Centre for Environment, Agriculture and Development, School of Applied Environmental Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal Pietermaritzburg 2009 As the candidate’s Supervisor I agree/do not agree to the submission of this dissertation. Supervisor: Malcolm Draper ………………………………… Co-supervisors: Drummond Densham and Sonja Krüger ii ABSTRACT KwaZulu-Natal’s Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park has historically been prioritized for biodiversity conservation but it also has the oldest protected wilderness area in the country. For 50 years, conservation management, tourism and education within the Imfolozi Wilderness Area have generally been carried out using non-mechanized wilderness principles. The validity of the Imfolozi Wilderness is constantly questioned in terms of efficiency, equity and aesthetics and is consequently subject to a variety of pressures that those different ideologies can exert. The historical development and applicability of the wilderness concept is examined here against evolving South African social and environmental circumstances. Whilst this investigation confirms the findings that colonialism and apartheid resulted in the exclusion of local peoples from protected areas, it also takes note that Imfolozi’s history is characterized by organizations and individuals who ignored the racist laws of the time. Nevertheless, management structures pertaining to both politics and conservation tended to be top-down, such that the Imfolozi Wilderness retained an air of elitism, regardless of attempts to be racially inclusive. Modern trends in protected area management expose the necessity of refining the justification of wilderness areas, to simultaneously recognize localized priorities and the importance of such areas to the planet’s ecological wellbeing. Without attempting to resolve philosophical debates but, at the same time, recognizing their validity, protected area management requirements for the Imfolozi Wilderness are examined in terms of the legal mandate handed to the management agency. This leads to the selection of the Limits of Acceptable Change planning and management system which is implemented as an action research project in conjunction with the Imfolozi Management Team, over a three year period. This involved: defining legal mandates and area issues; defining the zonation categories for the wilderness area; selecting the indicators to measure human impact; compiling an inventory of conditions in the wilderness area; specifying standards; examining alternative zonation category allocations from stakeholders and selecting a preferred alternative. The desired outcome was the establishment of a system in which managers could receive ongoing collaboration from stakeholders and consultatively develop a defendable wilderness management strategy that would meet the legal requirements of the area’s proclamation. Through a descriptive narrative, this dissertation provides an account of the implementation process and discusses to what extent this has been achieved. iii DECLARATION I, Paul Bernard Cryer, declare that (i) The research reported in this dissertation, except where otherwise indicated, is my original work. (ii) This dissertation has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university. (iii) This dissertation does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other information, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. (iv) This dissertation does not contain other persons’ writing, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources have been quoted, then: a) their words have been re-written but the general information attributed to them has been referenced; b) where their exact words have been used, their writing has been placed inside quotation marks, and referenced. (v) Where I have reproduced a publication of which I am an author, co-author or editor, I have indicated in detail which part of the publication was actually written by myself alone and have fully referenced such publications. (vi) This dissertation does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the Internet, unless specifically acknowledged, and the source being detailed in the dissertation and in the References sections. Signed: Date ……………………………. …………………………… Paul Bernard Cryer iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisors Malcolm Draper, Drummond Densham and Sonja Krüger, not only for their time consuming support, but also for encouraging me to think in different ways. I am indebted to Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife who afforded me incredible freedom to conduct my research in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park and provided access to all the historic material regarding the management of the area. More specifically, I would like to mention the management team in Imfolozi who gave of their time and participated in the co-management of the project implementation: this includes Craig Reid, Dave Robertson, Paul Havemann, Sanmarie Ras, Emile Smidt, Lawrence Munro and Kim Gillings. I should like to thank the Regional Ecologists, Sue Van Rensburg and Dave Druce for their support and Geoff Clinning for all the long hours we spent compiling the maps. Thanks also to Jeff Cooke of Game Capture for allowing me to tag along on capture operations and for explaining the subtleties to me. Thanks to Erica Robertson for the assistance with the venues of the public participation workshops. Thanks too to Alison May for administrative assistance and coordination. I thank all the people that helped me with the monitoring: Paul Allsop, Mandla Buthelezi, Terry Cooper, Tim Davis, Britta Froehling, Carla Graaf, Gareth Griffiths, Mandla Gumede, Paul Jennings, Dick Lambert, Sicelo Mbatha, Phumulani Mthembu, Wayne Saunders, Duncan Tidbury, Mike Weerts, Brendan Whittington-Jones, Mike Wibberley and Denis Zondi. I am grateful to Larry Lamont and Janice McFarlane for the proof-reading. There are people who were not directly involved in the project but who had a profound effect on its direction. In this regard I should like to mention Bruce Dell and Ian Read who have taught me so much. I am grateful to Mark Dent and Rob Fincham for conversations and input that altered the focus of my thoughts. In 2007 I wrote to David Cole requesting advice. His guidance proved invaluable in confirming direction and also in gaining an understanding of the time scale involved in implementing a planning and management system. v I would like to thank the individuals and organizations who contributed to the funding of the project, including Paul Allsop Terry Cooper, Tim Davis and Mike Wibberley who assisted with the first year of field work. From 2008 the project was funded through the assistance of Koos de Koeijer, Bercan Gunel, Constance, Kann, Henriette, Lurvink-van Ogtrop, Elfrieke Van Galen, Searl Vetter and Africom (Antony Burgmans, Adriaan Nühn, Anthony Ruys, Robert Jan van Ogtrop and Karel Vuursteen). I owe huge gratitude to my wife, Roz. She has been so supportive during this entire project, putting up with my strange working hours, participating in or supporting my field trips as well as being a sounding board for my ideas and thoughts. Lastly, I thank the wilderness area of Imfolozi itself, including all of its plant and animal inhabitants - for allowing me to become one of them. AUTHOR’S NOTE The background and motivation for this work are covered within the introduction and literature review but what is not explained is how I came to be involved and, for that, some personal history is necessary. In 1991 I fulfilled a childhood dream of working in a game reserve when I became a trails officer for the Wilderness Leadership School which involved leading 5 to 15-day educational hikes, primarily in the wilderness areas of Imfolozi, but also iSimanagaliso and the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park. At that time, the guiding of such trails was almost completely unregulated so that I was afforded incredible freedom to explore those areas as I worked. Those years (fifteen of them) had a significant effect on my thinking and personal development. Within that period, from 1996, the management authority invited me to sit on the Wilderness Area Steering Committee for the park and it was that body that originally initiated this work. It soon became apparent that this project required full time attention and the members of the Steering Committee were eager for that work to be carried out by someone who was familiar with the land. There is a paradox here: at that time, in about 2004, I was starting to feel restricted by the regulations that were becoming an imposition to wilderness guides. I thought that the use of cell phones, GPSs and tick-box accreditation systems should be the burden of future vi generations of wilderness guides rather than mine. Consequently, I made myself available to conduct a research project to implement a monitoring and management system that could effectively regulate - and “trammel” - the wilderness area of Imfolozi or the experience of it. The awareness of that contradiction softened my approach to the task. Two other personal aspects are pertinent. Firstly, I did not approach this project with cold neutrality and objectivity: I started it because I wanted to protect an area with which I had developed a deep connection. I was aware of the danger of those sentiments and had to take steps to ensure, through regular consultation and self examination, that the functional credibility of the work was not being compromised by personal intentions. As I progressed with the research, I began to ask myself questions like, “From whom or what is the wilderness area to be protected?”, or “For whom or what is the wilderness area to be protected?” As one would expect after a three year research process, my thinking and views have shifted considerably. This project has been like many other life-changing ventures, where the reason for initiating it and the reason for perpetuating turn out to be very different.

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