The ancient bus almost topples over as it negotiates a mammoth pothole at 100kph. Many of the passengers’ eyes are closed as their lips mouth prayers that they will complete the journey alive. A message written on the back window depicts their mood: ”In God we trust.”
No other force has done much to improve the lot of people in this area.
The destination is painted on the bus in bright purple: Mkambati. The small reserve is in the heart of Pondo-land, the wildest and most pristine area on the Wild Coast. The only way to the small reserve and the surrounding villages from the main tarred road is across 80km of potholed death track that snakes its way inland from Flagstaff to the coast.
But the Mkambati bus will soon travel a brand-new toll road along the coast if the government and a road consortium have their way. Group Five Construction, Grinaker-LTA, Hawkins, Hawkens and Osborn, Stewart Scott, WBHO Construction, Rand Merchant Bank and Kagiso Financial Services plan to rebuild and upgrade the 550km route between Durban and East London at a cost of R6-billion in exchange for road users’ tolls.
Their commercial interests will make the trip to Mkambati an expensive journey. Critics estimate the trip between Durban and East London will cost car drivers at least R150 in tolls. The dirt-poor rural villagers now travel for free.
Three huge suspension bridges and concrete road supports that will have to be built to cross the breathtaking gorges among the rolling hills will consume much of the construction costs.
Marilyn Aitken, an activist with the Save the Wild Coast campaign, says the suspension bridge at Mtetu gorge, south of Port Edward, will be the longest in the world. ”It will cost R1,5-billion to build the bridges,” she says.
A team of about 15 road workers has already set up camp at Mtetu gorge, though a final decision on the road has not yet been made.
The plan is to extend the N2 freeway from Port Edward in KwaZulu-Natal through Pondoland to Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape, from where it will join the existing road at Umtata. About 85% of the proposed route follows existing roads that simply need to be upgraded. Construction has already begun on the road between Lusikisiki and Port St Johns.
The remaining 15% will be bulldozed through untouched Pondoland, which has set off the furore.
Pondoland was part of the old Transkei and remains severely under-developed. Unemployment is rampant and most people live off pensions or government-sponsored welfare projects.
The area is the only true coastal wilderness left on the Indian Ocean in South Africa and is a vital part of the Pondoland botanic centre of endemism, one of the world’s 235 hot-spots of biodiversity. The grasslands and forested valleys are home to more than 150 endemic plants, including the rare Pondo Bushman’s teak tree that can live for 1 000 years. The threatened crowned crane is a common sight in this area and abundant rare ground hornbills delight tourists.
In winter vast numbers of dolphins and whales cavort in the waves as they trail the migrating sardines along the coast. Waterfalls plummet through exquisite gorges into the sea. Colonies of rare Cape vultures nest among the soaring cliffs. This is South Africa’s last untouched Eden.
Cathy Kay, conservation director of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa), is actively campaigning to stop the road.
”This pristine wilderness is under such threat that it might not remain wild much longer. The planned toll road will cut straight through an area of diverse and unusual flora that ranks alongside the Cape floral kingdom in its importance.”
The government and the road consortium claim the toll road will bring development and ecotourism to the impoverished region. Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa says the road and ecotourism will make good partners and that everyone in the region will benefit from their union.
The Save the Wild Coast campaign fears the project is being forced upon the local community in the interests of proposed mining projects in the area. But mining and the new road threaten all the planned ecotourism ventures because they will destroy the scenic wonder that the tourists pay to see.
Mineral Resource Commodities, an Australian company, plans to mine the rich titanium reserves in the dunes at Xolebeni, just north of Mkambati.
”Now don’t tell me the road and the mining are not related,” Kay says. ”Who exactly will benefit and how sustainable is the operation in the long term?”
The proposed mine will put R150-million into government coffers. The local government says people will profit from job creation, though the mine will last only 17 years.
”But only 270 people will be employed by the mines. Only 100 jobs will be local and most of the jobs will need skills that the local people do not have,” Kay says.
The community that lives in the area proposed for mining has filed a claim for the land. If they win it back, indications are that no mining will take place because they prefer to pin their future on ecotourism.
Simon Everitt, the consortium’s spokesperson, says the road will open this area of the Eastern Cape and support the Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative (SDI). The initiative aims to boost incomes and job opportunities by helping local communities to participate in tourism development and by improving their participation in existing initiatives.
Moosa must approve the project before construction begins. His department is still studying the environmental impact assessment (EIA), which includes a 13cm-thick folder on comments from opponents.
Wessa’s Kay says the road project’s EIA is fatally flawed. ”The consultants were only allowed to examine a 20km corridor. They did not examine alternative routes, but only focused on the proposed new route.”
Geoffrey Davies, Anglican bishop of Kokstad, agrees that the EIA’s scope was limited. ”The road transgresses basic development principles, which would support projects requested by the local people. This road benefits the engineers, but bypasses and isolates centres of Pondoland,” he wrote in the Mail & Guardian earlier this year
Wessa and other opponents support development of the Transkei, but oppose the route from Lusikiski to Port Edward.
”The existing R61 road through Kokstad, Bisho and Umtata to East London only requires an upgrade, which means that the road can still be used during the improvement,” Kay says. ”This road will be vital for the region’s forestry industry — a form of economic empowerment. Upgrading the road will ensure the economic survival of these towns.”
Davies says the new road ”will hammer the towns of Bizana, Flagstaff and Kokstad”. He says local people must be equipped to develop themselves. ”First develop the people and equip them with skills, and they will then bring development to their communities. Instead of putting money into concrete, educate and train the people.”
The developers say that upgrading the old road will be more expensive than the new route. Only 30km of the R61’s 176km can be used, says Everitt. ”The topography through Bizana and Flagstaff prevents the R61 from being economically upgraded.” Building a road inland of the biodiverse area is also not an option. ”An inland road cannot be economically constructed to the standards of a national road and will not offer the distance saving the current road offers.”
Kay disagrees: ”An engineer we consulted said the upgrading of the R61 could be done at a third of the cost of building the new road.”
Simon Sperring, a development worker involved in community tourism in the region, says the new toll road will devastate local towns. ”People will simply move nearer to the new road,” he says.
Kay agrees that development is needed for the area. ”But in building this road they are killing off the golden goose that is the key to sustainable development in the area,” she says.
”We are concerned about what the government is planning to do,” says Christopher Ngcwele, deputy chairperson of the Amadiba Tribal Trust. ”If they bring in a highway and start mining, it will destroy everything we have built up for our own long-term future.
”We are also worried that the mining will destroy our natural heritage. We do not want short-term jobs; we want to be able to continue to build our tourist industry for ourselves.”
Vela Sigcau, a member of the royal family in the region, says local people who understand the full effects of the road and the proposed mining activities are unhappy. ”We are crying about the roads. We are crying about the tourists. We need development, but this road is not the answer,” he says.
Livestock is an important part of the local economy. Sperring says the road will split grazing areas in two. ”The government has already vowed to fence off the road to restrict animals moving on to the high-speed toll road. There will be a crossing for animals every 15km. Members of the community are upset about that.
”Building this road is like letting a genie out of a bottle. No one knows what will happen. There is bound to be advantages for some communities, but the innocence and wilderness of the region will be lost for ever,” he says.
”The simple truth is that many people in the region would like a big road with a Kentucky Fried Chicken near their village, no matter what the cost to the community in the long run. The Pondoland communities are deprived of development and some feel that this is their chance to progress in life.”
Fishermen at Mkambati for the sardine run say they will find wildernesses outside South Africa if the Wild Coast is developed.
”We come here for the beauty, the tranquility and the good fish,” says a fishermen from Durban. ”If everyone and his mate come here, and a McDonald’s is just around the corner at the Ultra City, something rare and beautiful in South Africa will be lost for ever.”