An axe strikes the final blow to the trunk of a majestic wild frangipani tree, sending it crashing to the ground among the debris of other recently felled swamp trees. Yet another patch of forest is being cleared to make way for agricultural plots in one of the swamp forest tongues feeding the Kosi Bay Lakes system in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
For someone promoting the conservation of natural systems, this is an alarming sight. From the perspective of the swamp forest, which is recognised as one of South Africa’s most threatened wetland types, it is certainly life-threatening.
What is driving this tide of destruction and does it spell the ultimate death of the swamp forests of Kosi Bay, which form part of a wetland system recognised as being of international importance?
To answer these questions, we need to start with the people who are seen as ‘the problem”. Simply put, unless we see the situation from the perspective of the people using the system and understand how they make their particular land-use choices, we are going to be ill-equipped to stem the destruction or promote the conservation and wise use of Kosi Bay’s swamp forests.
As part of an integrated research programme on peatland swamp forests coordinated by the International Mire Conservation Group, I spent five days talking to about 40 swamp forest farmers on their plots at several locations around the Kosi Bay Lakes. With the assistance of two local guides, Patrick Tembe and Senzo Hobe, I visited sites from Kukalwe in the north to Siyadla in the south. The project involves several partners including the International Mire Conservation Group, Technical University of Munich, Ihlaphosi Environ Services, University of Pretoria, University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Eduardo Mondlane, Mocambique, Tembe Tribal Authority, and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.
We discussed the benefits that individual users get from natural swamp forests and from swamp forests converted to agricultural plots, as well as the difficulties they experience in cultivating inside and outside the swamp forests.
The farmers
Households vary greatly according to the scale and mode of production. At one end of the scale are those cultivating less than a third of a hectare, primarily for home consumption. These farmers tend to be women, often working on their own.
Next are those households cultivating medium-sized areas (usually one-third to two hectares) where, although abundant food is produced for home consumption, the majority of production is for sale. Bananas and madumbes (or taro, a traditionally grown root crop) are the most extensively sold, followed by sweet potatoes and sugar cane. Although some of these households employ additional labour, plots are worked primarily by household members.
Finally, there are a few larger-scale farmers cultivating several hectares for commercial purposes. Bananas are the most favoured crop among these farmers, who are typically males using paid labour.
In an area where formal employment opportunities are very limited, the income derived by medium- and larger-scale swamp forest farmers may be substantial from the perspective of the individual household. For the majority of farmers, the contribution of the swamp forest plots to household food security is significant.
Direct benefits
Most natural forest vegetation is not of great direct value to local people. Raffia palms are, however, harvested for a variety of purposes, including building, rafts and fences. Although many households use the forests for wood, only some households obtain other swamp forest resources such as medicinal plants.
As more and more households use modern materials like cement blocks for building, the demand for wood is declining. Wood can also be obtained from outside the swamp forests.
At best, the direct contribution to the livelihoods of local households by natural swamp forest is modest for some households and small for the remaining households. The forests are seen to harbour bush pigs and monkeys that cause crop damage. Bush pigs are particularly destructive — in one night a family of bush pigs can lay waste to a plot of madumbes.
The modest direct contribution of swamp forests to local livelihoods contrasts markedly with some other wetland types, particularly some of the herbaceous wetland types dominated by grasses, reeds and sedges. These wetlands often provide multiple direct benefits, including livestock grazing, especially during dry periods when cattle have little alternative grazing lands. These herbaceous wetlands may also supply unique and highly sought-after craft plants such as incema, and reeds for construction purposes.
Where a natural wetland provides a high level of multiple direct benefits to local people, there is a strong local incentive not to transform too much of the wetland to agricultural land. Unfortunately, however, this does not apply to the Kosi Bay swamp forests, where the direct benefits of converting the swamp forest to agricultural land are generally far in excess of the modest direct benefits derived from natural swamp forest.
Lying beneath most swamp forests in Kosi Bay are peat soils — organic gold to farmers. Peat consists of tiny fragments of leaves, stems and roots contributed, in this case, by the swamp forest trees and preserved by the prolonged swampy conditions.
The water-holding capacity, plant nutrient content and fertility of these peat soils are considerably higher than the very sandy, well-drained soils of the surrounding slopes. For any farmer, therefore, they are the most desirable locations in the landscape.
Tourism options
Tourism has been proposed by many as the most promising alternative to agriculture. The assumption is that if you stimulate the local tourism industry, employment opportunities will provide local people with an alternative means of generating income to that of cultivating in the swamp forests.
However, several key issues need to be addressed.
Firstly, people currently engaged in swamp forest cultivation may not look favourably on putting down their hoes for some occupation in the tourism sector and may not have the capacity to perform in this new role in an unfamiliar occupation. Future generations may be easier to attract into the tourism sector, however, as many of the present farmers are from the older generations.
Secondly, tourism enterprises need to involve a significant number of local people and mechanisms must be present to ensure that the agricultural lands that are abandoned for tourism will not become occupied by other people, either outsiders moving into the area or locals.
In order to reinforce the positive feedback effects of tourism in maintaining the integrity of the swamp forests, direct links are required like development of swamp forest trails. Trails need to be as extensive as possible, effectively linked to as many tourist nodes as possible and be built using the maximum amount of local materials and labour. Local people should be employed for maintenance and tour guiding.
It must, however, be remembered that tourism is certainly not without its own array of environmental impacts, particularly if not carefully managed.
Organic gold
The drainage and cultivation of a swamp forest area has three main environmental impacts:
Removal of indigenous trees and other vegetation, leading to the complete destruction of habitat for fauna and flora.
The gradual loss of the upper layers of peat.
These two impacts result in a secondary impact on the hydrology of the swamp forest system, which has potential consequences for the hydrology and state of the overall lake system, depending on the scale of swamp forest destruction.
It would appear, however, that swamp forests are fairly resilient – if agricultural fields are abandoned and drains blocked, the forest species re-establish fairly rapidly and the original peat forming processes are resumed.
In many respects the traditional low external-input agricultural practices found in the swamp forests have a high level of environmental sustainability. Biocides or artificial fertilisers are used sparingly or not at all, cultivation is totally by hand, external energy requirements (and associated CO2 emissions) are very low and levels of soil erosion appear to be low.
This contrasts with many mainstream commercial agricultural farms, which are characterised by a high level of external energy input associated with mechanised operations and high levels of artificial fertiliser and biocide application.
Nevertheless, the current scale of agricultural activity taking place in the Kosi Bay swamp forests is so great that even with low-impact traditional methods, the cumulative impact of the multitude of individual plots is considerable.
Many sections of swamp forest lying outside the Kosi Bay Nature Reserve have been almost totally transformed to agricultural lands. No space is left to allow the agricultural plots to rest while cultivation takes place elsewhere and no rejuvenation of the peat can take place, as was traditional practice.
Waterlogged (swampy) conditions and organic matter produced by swamp forest trees build peat – and it is the peat that provides sustenance for crops. Destroy the peat-forming processes and you destroy the fundamental basis for agricultural production.
This link is generally not clear to the swamp forest farmer because of the long time periods over which peat accumulates and the large amounts of peat now available. In many cases, the peat soils have been built up over thousands of years.
Formal protection
The Kosi Bay swamp forests include portions inside and outside the Kosi Bay Nature Reserve. The reserve, which falls within the land of the Tembe community, was proclaimed in 1987 and now forms part of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, where Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife has the responsibility of regulating the utilisation of natural resources. In those portions lying outside the reserve, the tribal authority has primary control over the allocation of land and utilisation of resources, but has very little restraining effect on the destruction of swamp forests.
The hard truth appears to be that if we want swamp forests to survive, areas of forest have to be set aside for formal protection. To be successful, this will require the buy-in and support of all stakeholders.
An integrated solution will encompass the following:
Build effective institutions for achieving reconciliation among the different stakeholders.
Revisit and resolve the issue of compensation for loss of land-use rights.
Raise awareness and understanding among swamp forest users about how peat is formed and how, in turn, it can be destroyed by particular land-use activities.
Promote best management practices for cultivation among farmers in the swamp forests, building on their enhanced understanding. Examples may include minimising the severity of drainage by confining crops (eg sweet potatoes) that require reasonably well-drained soils to the edge of the swamp forest; resting portions of plots; and blocking drains and filling them with organic matter to assist in the recovery of the peat.
Promote tourism operations closely and sensitively linked with the swamp forests.
Ensure effective protection of designated swamp forest areas and regulation of potentially harmful activities in these areas.
Provide effective extension support for improving agricultural production outside the swamp forest areas (eg through enhanced use of composting and nitrogen-fixing crops, which will help address the problem of low organic matter content and poor fertility in the sandy upland soils).
Address other potential impacts on swamp forests. It is not just cultivation threatening swamp forests. In future, activities in the water-supply catchments of the forests are likely to pose an increasing threat. Where the water supply is diminished, the peat may dry out and become vulnerable to peat fires. This is already taking place in the peatlands adjacent to KuShenga Lake, the levels of which have dropped as a result of pumping water to supply Manguzi town.
Dr Donovan Kotze is a researcher at the Centre for Environment and Development, University of KwaZulu-Natal