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The fever tree felling, fence cutting and road blockades at iSimangaliso are not random acts of criminality but an explosive symptom of a failed co‑management deal: communities forcibly removed and promised meaningful access, benefits and decision‑making power instead face top‑down rules, harassment, restricted livelihoods and unpaid compensation.
As a researcher who has spent more than two years living in communities surrounding the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, I interpret the current drama in the park as an outcome of the failure of co-management. In this case, co-management has not responded to the daily needs of communities residing next to the park.
Co-management agreements are arrangements between parks and communities of settled land claims – as a form of restitution, they get to co-manage their land, rather than return to live on it.
The agreement provides that communities be involved in decision-making and gives them certain rights of access to resources. But in the case of iSimangaliso, it has left much to be desired. The recent cutting of trees in the park is a direct symptom of broken trust, a lack of consultation between communities and the park on decision-making, and the failure to consider local livelihoods in the day-to-day management of the park.
As early as June this year, people from the Ozabeni community who live next to the iSimangaliso Wetland Park launched protests which led to the invasion of the park, and cutting down of fences. These actions were an expression of frustration after years of being ignored regarding benefit sharing, compensation and decision-making as promised by the co-management agreement.
During this initial demonstration, residents cut down fences in the northern part of the park, tore down park signs and started food gardens in the park as a form of protest.
Following this demonstration, 52 of those who were involved in the initial demonstration were arrested, which led us to the current juncture. Community members closed the R22 road towards Hluhluwe and caused a four-hour standstill on the region’s key route for coal and timber transport.
The main purpose of the protest was to demand the release of the 52 people who were arrested for “illegal occupations” as stated by iSimangaliso. In response to the protests, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority released a statement rebuking community demonstrations, while not directly addressing the grievances they had raised.
These protests and land invasions are happening against the backdrop of years of protests from communities which have not yielded much. The issues around consultation, compensation and co-governance have also been raised by the nearby Futululu and Dukuduku communities, who are also land claimants who are entitled to co-managing the park.
This has a long history and context that I will make brief: the Mbila and Ozabeni land claim is one of the biggest in iSimangaliso, followed by that of Bhangazi. These communities were forcibly removed from the park during apartheid to form what is now iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a Unesco World Heritage site.
As part of restitution, the claim was settled in 2002, while the Bhangazi claim was settled in 1999. The settling of claims led to a co-management agreement between the park and the communities, which includes communities as a partner in decision-making, rights for communities to access burial sites and certain natural resources, and other opportunities.
Our research in iSimangaliso Wetland Park shows that communities and the park’s authorities have been at loggerheads for a long time. Our policy brief makes the following recommendations, based on three years of research in the park:
The tensions currently evident in the region reflect the park’s shortcomings on three core problems.
The region is home to indigenous communities who still rely on natural resources as their main source of income. This includes fishing, grass cutting, medicinal plant harvesting and other nature-based livelihoods as they battle unemployment and access to higher education.
Strict policies result in regulations that prevent communities from accessing these resources. Although their rights of access are part of co-management and restitution of successful claims, communities continue to face injustices such as harassment, confiscation of tools, and even arrest when entering their own ancestral land.
iSimangaliso Wetland Park is a governance authority as mandated by the National Environmental Management Act, reporting to the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment. Its governance framework uses an integrated management plan that regulates and manages the operations of the park.
Yet communities were not adequately consulted on the 2023 iteration of the management plan. Communication from the park was mainly via the internet and other technology that communities don’t have access to. And where communities are in the rooms where decisions are made, their voices and inputs do not result in any substantive change in the daily lives of fishers and grass cutters in surrounding areas.
Most recently, there has been a growing outcry from communities about lodges inside the park on land that is under claim, and the park’s operation despite years of residents not receiving 8% compensation from commercial revenues as set out in their co-management agreement. Over and above this there has been no substantial effort to address youth unemployment, with only short-term, low-wage jobs offered through alien vegetation removal. These jobs also form part of the government-funded Extended Public Works Programme, which is available generally, and cannot be considered to be compensation for forced removal.
A total rethink is needed on how co-management agreements are designed and implemented where there are historical land claims on protected areas.
Professor Thembela Kepe shows in his work on co-management in the Eastern Cape that land restitution and the so-called community ownership and co-management committee do not always result in meaningful control of and access to resources. Neither does it mean that communities are adequately included in decision-making, or that their voices hold weight in such spaces.
There needs to be a serious in-depth dialogue between the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the community, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and the Department of Rural Development that revisits the history of governance of the park and past agreements and clarifies the following points:
The dialogue should also address the park’s future plans linked to the 30x30 target of the expansion of iSimangaliso northwards into Maputo National Park. It should predict possible threats to local livelihoods and implement measures to address them.
The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment also should take a much more active role in assisting both the communities and the park in proper implementation of co-management.
The department, working with the park, should conduct a review of their channels of communication with communities, assess their effectiveness and conduct an overhaul that caters to communities, their livelihoods and other challenges in the region.
In this way the park could establish productive spaces of engagement with communities for mutual benefit and see a productive move towards a balance between nature conservation and sustaining people’s livelihood and cultural needs. Otherwise, the vicious cycle of falling fever trees and park signage will be a permanent story of iSimangaliso. DM
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