Forestry + Water Conservation in South Africa History, Science + Policy Forestry + Water Conservation in South Africa History, Science + Policy Brett Bennett + Fred Kruger WORLD FOREST HISTORY SERIES Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au The World Forest History Series aims to produce rigorous histories of forestry that inform contemporary environmental policy debates and provide enduring scholarly landmarks for future generations of historians and environmental researchers. Each book, published in hardcopy and available as a free electronic copy for download, is available to scholars and the public around the world. The series is affiliated with the Centre for Environmental History at The Australian National University. Series Editors: Gregory A. Barton, Professor of History, Western Sydney University, Affiliate, Centre for Environmental History, The Australian National University; Brett M Bennett, Senior Lecturer in History, Western Sydney University, Affiliate, Centre for Environmental History, The Australian National University. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Bennett, Brett M., 1983- author. Title: Forestry and water conservation in South Africa : history, science and policy / Brett M. Bennett, Frederick J. Kruger. ISBN: 9781925022834 (paperback) 9781925022841 (ebook) Series: World forest history series. Subjects: Afforestation--South Africa. Forests and forestry--South Africa. Forest policy--South Africa. Water conservation--South Africa. Other Creators/Contributors: Kruger, F. J. (Frederick J.), 1944- author. Dewey Number: 634.9560968 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover image: Ethel Edwards, Jonkershoek Valley with exotic trees and indigenous flowers, date unknown (circa 1905-1920). Printed by Griffin Press This edition © 2015 ANU Press Contents List of Illustrations . vii Acknowledgements . ix Author Biographies . xiii Preface . xv Introduction . 1 1 . ‘Fit the Tree to the Climate’: The Cape Model of Forestry . 21 2 . Forestry in Reconstruction South Africa: Imperial Schemes, Colonial Realities, c . 1901–1905 . 53 3 . Educating a Nascent ‘South African’ Forestry Corps, 1880–1932 . 73 4 . Afforestation: Politics, Labour, and Science, c. 1910–1935 . 97 5 . Competing Agendas? Afforestation, Catchment Management and Indigenous Forests, c . 1910–1935 . 117 6 . 1935: The Fourth British Empire Forestry Conference in South Africa and the Origins of a Consensus Science Program . 147 7 . Jonkershoek as Fulcrum: The Forest Hydrological Research Program . 165 8 . Forest Hydrology in the Policy Domain . 199 9 . 1965 to 1995: Fluctuating Fortunes and Final Dividends . 219 10 . Devolution, Drift and New Directions, 1990–2014 . 243 Selected Bibliography . 253 List of Illustrations Figure 1. Timber supports in a mine on the Reef, 1920s. ............... 33 Figure 2. A plantation of Eucalyptus globulus in Braamfontein. .......... 35 Figure 3. A plantation of Eucalyptus globulus, George, c. 1910. .......... 37 Figure 4. H. G. Fourcade’s climatic maps for Natal, with temperature isolines derived from topographic analysis. 46 Figure 5. The landscape in the vicinity of Woodbush, c. 1910. .......... 65 Figure 6. A farmstead in the southern Orange River Colony, c. 1900, after destruction by the British military forces. 68 Figure 7. An example of an eroded gully at Ladybrand in the eastern Orange River Colony, c. 1902. ............................... 69 Figure 8. The Tokai forestry graduates, 1911. ....................... 91 Figure 9. Pit sawyers, Amatole region, Eastern Cape Conservancy, 1906. ...101 Figure 10. Rainfall variation during the period 1915 to 1946 for Westfalia, a station representative of the Transvaal escarpment. .............126 Figure 11. Woodcutters participating in the allotment of trees for their extraction, Knysna Forest, 1926. .............................136 Figure 12. John F. V. Phillips and Jeannie Phillips, Edinburgh, 1920. ......138 Figure 13. Members of the South African delegation entraining for Cape Town to embark for London and the September 1931 Centenary Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. ...143 Figure 14. Johan D. M. Keet at the foot of an enormous Stinkwood (Ocotea bullata), Diepwalle Forest, c. 1920. .....................146 vii Forestry + Water Conservation in South Africa Figure 15. The view of the Jonkershoek catchments from the mountain ridge that demarcates the south-western divide of the Eertse River catchment, c. 2005. .......................................176 Figure 16. A vectopluviometer. This raingauge was designed by Henry Fourcade to measure the inclination (the departure from vertical) of rain and its bearing (the direction from which it arrives), for the full characterisation of rainstorms. ........................186 Figure 17. The time series of rainfall at Jonkershoek and Cape Town, showing annual and running mean values and illustrating the climate variability and change that confronted experimental design. ...187 Figure 18. John Hewlett, Christiaan Wicht and Diek van der Zel at the high-altitude weather station in the Jakkalsrivier experimental catchment, May 1970, at the time of Hewlett’s visit to South Africa. ......................................230 viii Acknowledgements The authors contributed equally to this work and are given in alphabetical order on the title. I owe a great debt of gratitude to all those who infused in me the capacity to learn about my surroundings, forests included, beginning with my parents Barbara May and Cecil Eric, and including many from the Lebenya peoples of the Mount Fletcher district, the peoples of Kavango, forest workers from the Transkei, and elsewhere. For a time, I had as my neighbours the white labourers in the settlement at Jonkershoek, and from them too I learnt. Christiaan Wicht, as one of the professors in the Forestry Faculty at the University of Stellenbosch, taught me not only forestry and ecology but also to see the Cape landscapes through many lenses, and he was my promoter for the Master’s degree. J. D. M. Keet was my grandfather, and over time he shared much of his professional and tacit knowledge of South African forestry with me. This included a memorable excursion in the early 1960s, during his full-time engagement to provide technical support to the Westfalia forestry program. At an age of over 80 years, he took me on a strenuous excursion to the indigenous forests on the heights adjoining Woodbush, where, at times scrambling on our hands and knees, we found the sawpits of the woodcutters who supplied the mines 70 years before, 500 km away. I thank the Hans Merensky Foundation for the financial support that allowed visits to Stellenbosch, and travel to and from the United States in 2010 to access the libraries at Cornell University (whose librarians provided a marvellous service). While in the US, the Forest History Society bore my costs for a brief but very fruitful visit to their library in Durham, NC. The University of Western Sydney (now Western Sydney University) brought me to Australia in 2013 for a rewarding period of work in the libraries there. I thank the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for permission to access its forestry collections. ix Forestry + Water Conservation in South Africa My gratitude is also due to Susan Wicht Clarke for a correspondence that threw important light on her father Christiaan’s life and personality. Greg Forsyth of the CSIR in Stellenbosch has been unfailingly helpful and has kept a watchful eye on the Jonkershoek collection there, while Karen Eatwell has helped me to access the Pretoria collections of the Wicht Papers and the files of the South African Forestry Research Institute (collections that she has resolutely monitored as they were shunted from one location to another and another). Marius Bakkes of the Mpumalanga History Interest Group helped me with materials on the old Eastern Transvaal; Richard Green of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Nelspruit has provided key documents which otherwise would have been overlooked; Roger Godsmark of Forestry South Africa provided key data on the recent history of the industry; Rodney Constantine, at the Anglo- Boer War Museum, Bloemfontein, uncovered key facts on the internment camp at Tokai and drew my attention to accounts of woodcutters in the eastern Cape frontier territory; Desiree Lamoral of the Institute for Commercial Forestry Research in Pietermaritzburg provided me with key historical publications; Corine Viljoen of the Southern African Institute of Forestry helped me access important forestry literature; Tom Vorster of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Pretoria showed me the treasure trove of old forestry photographs and maps that he has carefully protected. To my son Laurence, my thanks for hospitality and support during a crucial period, and to his siblings, Alexandra, Oliver and Elizabeth, my gratitude for their constant support. My thanks go also to Caroline Stiebler and Stefan Mangos for their hospitality in Pretoria, and to Brett Bennett and Greg Barton for their hospitality while in Australia. And to Luzelle Naudé, for