Niki Barker
The Dukuduku State Forest near the St Lucia estuary in northern KwaZulu- Natal used to be the largest and best- preserved remnant of lowland coastal forest in Southern Africa. It is now an important component of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, a proposed World Heritage site.
But it is being cleared and burnt systematically by illegal squatters who have invaded the forest and are felling the indigenous trees to fuel a lucrative charcoal industry.
The charcoal is made in the old- fashioned Mozambique method, brought down by illegal immigrants from Mozambique. It is a wasteful method, using a large amount of wood for a little low-grade charcoal.
But it provides a good living for people who need to pay for neither raw materials nor distribution. The owner of the Dolphin supermarket in St Lucia supplies them with bags bought in Pietermaritzburg and sells the charcoal to holiday-makers in his shop.
If those holiday-makers knew they were helping to burn a priceless national treasure, would they care? Probably not. The only people up in arms over the desecration of the forest are hard-core conservationists, and they appear to be fighting a losing battle.
The authorities have a bad record with Dukuduku. In the 1960s the government used vast tracts of the forest and its adjoining grasslands for timber and sisal plantations. The Ncube people who lived alongside the forest were compressed into smaller and smaller areas, until finally in 1989 they were compelled to invade the forest itself.
In conservation terms, their presence was a disaster. They practised slash- and-burn agriculture, snared animals and birds, stripped the trees and littered the forest. In July 1990, the Department of Forestry brought a charge of illegal invasion against them, but to date no one has bothered to enforce the ruling.
The settlement is a headache for KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Service staff. Rangers are ambushed and threatened by forest dwellers. The potential for conflict prompted MEC for the Environment Inyanga Ngubane to instruct the conservation service not to intervene any further. But this directive gave the settlers the impression they had won the battle.
The thousands of people now illegally inhabiting the forest live on large plots without having to pay rates and taxes. Local leaders sell potential homeowners a desirable piece of property for a reasonable sum – sometimes as much as a few thousand rands.
Some residents have acquired so much land that they are building cluster- housing developments, with the intention of becoming landlords.
The local and provincial governments are loath to take action. Ngubane has yet to acknowledge a problem exists. There seems to be official paralysis as far as Dukuduku is concerned.
ENDS