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Hard Wood Utilization in Buildings of Rural Households of the Manqakulane Community, Maputaland, South Africa

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Hard Wood Utilization in Buildings of Rural Households of the Manqakulane Community, Maputaland, South Africa Hard Wood Utilization in Buildings of Rural Households of the Manqakulane Community, Maputaland, South Africa Research J.Y.Gaugris, M.W. van Rooyen, J. du P. Bothma and M.J. Van der Linde Abstract An analysis of the structure and composition of household With a human population still predominantly rural and buildings in the rural community of Manqakulane, Maputa- poor, the South African conservation authorities in 1994 land, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, is presented. This bio- endorsed the principle that sustainable utilisation of re- diversity-rich area forms part of the Maputaland Centre of newable natural resources was a legitimate form of con- Plant Endemism, currently under threat from land trans- servation (Els 2002). This principle forced conservation formation and human utilisation outside conservation ar- authorities to manage rural areas for the benefit of the eas. The demand for natural resources as building mate- communities with the primary objectives of improving the rial by people of the community is evaluated through a standard of living (Els 2002). This approach is however faced with the major problem of establishing a sustain- survey of the structure of 42 randomly selected house- able level of utilisation (Borrini-Feyerabend 1997). holds. A sample of 226 buildings used for habitation or other purposes was conducted. The results revealed a Manqakulane in northern Maputaland, KwaZulu-Natal change in structure types from round reed hut observed province, South Africa is a poor, rural community with in the 1980s towards durable structures made with brick high unemployment levels and a low annual household or wooden walls and corrugated iron roofs. Round struc- income. Subsistence farming is a reality for the commu- tures are replaced by square ones, and thatched roofs are nity people and reliance upon natural resources directly no longer the majority. Materials used for construction are available in the surrounding environment is heavy. Wood identified and quantified, and an attempt is made to plan is a main resource that is utilized for the building of hous- utilisation for the next eight years. es, fuel, and the manufacture of tools for the household. Wood is also utilized by local artists to manufacture an Introduction assortment of music instruments, carvings and curios (Els 2000). Poverty is considered as the primary enemy of sustain- ability in the developing world, as it places the empha- sis on solving today’s problems without any thought for tomorrow’s welfare (Kennedy 2001). A widespread and growing environmental degradation usually accompanies Correspondence poverty, and they both work in a mutually reinforcing spi- J.Y.Gaugris & J. du P. Bothma, Centre for Wildlife Management, ral. However, it has been shown that economic develop- University of Pretoria, 0002 Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA. ment cannot occur when the environment is destroyed [email protected] and quality of human life is neglected (Dernbach 2001). M.W. van Rooyen, Department of Botany, University of Pretoria, Ruda (1998) argues that for the sustainable development 0002 Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA of rural settlements, at least four characteristics should be protected: balance between nature and built-up area, his- M.J. Van der Linde, Department of Statistics, University of Pre- toric traditional entities, local communities, and the coun- toria, 0002 Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA. tryside as an own culture. Ethnobotany Research & Applications 5:097-114 (2006) http://hdl.handle.net/10125/224 98 Ethnobotany Research & Applications In 2000, this community took the initiative to establish the rent choices of the local people to build their households. Tshanini Game Reserve on their land to generate income Basic projections are formulated to evaluate future needs and to create employment. In the past, this communal of the local people. land was utilized by the people for a substantial amount of basic resources and they expressed the need to retain Study area access to the natural resources contained within the re- serve. The land of the rural community of Manqakulane covers a rectangular area approximately 6,000 ha in size (the cen- The land of the community of Manqakulane lies in the ter of community is at S 270 07’05.9”, E 0320 24’ 08.6”.) of core of the Maputaland Centre of Endemism (van Wyk which 2,420 ha to the west of the land form the Tshanini 1996) where the rare Licuati Forest (Izidine et al. 2003, Game Reserve. The area consists mainly of a sandy plain Myre 1964) or Sand Forest occurs (Kirkwood & Midgley that is interspersed with three ancient littoral dunes. It is 1999, Matthews et al. 2001, Mucina et al. 2003, van Rens- covered by an open to closed woodland with patches of burg et al. 1999, van Wyk 1996, van Wyk & Smith 2001). short to tall Sand Forest in the west, and the southern end The Sand Forest is home to many rare and unusual plant of the Muzi Swamp in the east (Gaugris et al. 2004). and animal species (many of them endemic) and it has a high biodiversity value (Kirkwood & Midgley 1999, van Approximately 800 people lived in the community at the Wyk & Smith 2001). Cattle grazing, firewood demand, el- time of the study. This population is spread out in the east- ephant (Loxodonta africana) utilisation, and fire, are the ern portion of the communal land where a safe water sup- main identified threats to the Sand Forest (Kyle 2004, van ply had been installed in 1999. The members of the com- Rensburg et al. 1999, van Wyk 1996). The patchy distribu- munity live in households that consist of a range of one tion of this rare forest type combined with the fact that few to thirteen structures utilized for different purposes. The people and organizations have the knowledge and inter- community of Manqakulane is ruled by a local iNduna est to manage it, results in it being subject to uncontrolled representing the iNkosi (king) of the Tembe Tribal Area. utilisation (Izidine et al. 2003, Matthews et al. 2001). The households are dispersed in the forest and wood- lands around the Muzi Swamp and follow a broad north Little scientific information is available for the KwaZulu-Na- - south axis along the water line (Gaugris 2004). tal forests in general and sand forests in particular (Eve- rard et al. 1995, Kirkwood & Midgley 1999). If the recent increase of the human population in northern Maputaland Methods is taken into consideration (Lewis & Mander 2000), eco- logically relevant questions need to be answered soon. The present work forms part of an ecological study of One way to evaluate how much the local people utilise the Manqakulane community Tribal ward. The study was the vegetation is to analyze the quantities (Cunningham seeks to evaluate the potential of the Tshanini Game Re- & Gwala 1986) and size class distributions of the species serve in terms of ecological capacity and the possibilities that have been incorporated into the households (Wall et to use the natural renewable resources contained within. al. 1998). In this manner the targeted species and the total The community households needed to be evaluated in or- volumes of wood utilized can be estimated. Forest man- der to have a reliable estimate of the natural resources util- agers can use these estimates of the potential needs to isation level. Through a series of meetings with the com- make projections on the future prospects of utilisation with munity’s steering committee and iNduna, and then with the current demographic increase. the whole community, the aims and methods of the study were presented in order to obtain the consent of everyone An ecological study was requested by the people from for conducting research in the households. Once approval the Manqakulane community to evaluate the potential of for this part of the study was granted by the steering com- the Tshanini Game Reserve for the envisaged sustainable mittee, all of the households within the community’s land utilisation of its natural renewable resources. The main boundaries were mapped with a Global Positioning Sys- forms of utilisation are the extraction of posts, beams and tem. The general composition and structure of the build- laths, for the construction of houses by villagers as well ings of each household were recorded. The department as the harvesting of medicinal plants by traditional heal- of statistics of the University of Pretoria used this initial ers. To determine the level at which sustainable utilisa- data to present the researchers with a methodology to tion can be maintained, the supply and demand of natu- sample statistically representative households. A total of ral resources have to be balanced, we therefore need to 42 households were selected, and these were then inten- know how much do the local people utilise the vegetation? sively sampled by means of field sampling and question- In this paper we present data on the plant species and naires (for details see Gaugris & van Rooyen 2006). A list quantities of wood products utilized for the construction of alternative and similarly representative households was of households. The species are analyzed and classified also presented in case an originally selected household by order of preference, the quantities of wood elements could not be sampled for any reason. are estimated, and information is presented on the cur- http://hdl.handle.net/10125/224 Gaugris et al. - Hard Wood Utilization in Buildings of Rural Households of 99 the Manqakulane Community, Maputaland, South Africa Zim babw e e u q B otsw ana i b m N am ibia a z o Sw aziland M M ozam bique N Lesotho South Atlantic Africa O cean Indian O cean Swaziland 27ºS M aputaland Center of Endemism Tem be Elephant Park Manqakulane Com m unity South Africa 28ºS Figure 1.
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