MPONDOLAND, South Africa — The day the prospectors came, so did the storm. It was 2007, and clouds barreled toward the coast, driven by a wi
amaMpondo environmental defenders on South Africa’s Wild Coast bring the same spirit of resistance to extractive mining interests today as their forebears did to the apartheid state in the 1960s.
Their connection with the land, and the customs that underpin this, makes them mindful custodians of the wilderness.
The amaMpondo want economic development, but on their own terms, with many preferring light-touch tourism over extractive mining. Some families offer rustic catered accommodation for hikers trekking up and down the coast, such as here at the popular Mtentu River mouth.
Nature: Where the living and the spirit realm meet
It’s no accident that this place is well preserved, the locals say. Their custodianship has kept it this way.
The land is their mother, they say; it is their identity, something they respect. In their belief system, the land owns the people; the people don’t own the land.
When the amaMpondo speak of “the land,” they aren’t referring merely to the soil beneath their feet, which can yield X bushels of corn that can be sold for Y dollars at the market.
They’re talking about the rains that roll in on a storm, and the water filtering into the wetland where the grass aloes grow. They’re talking about the springs where they collect bathwater, the grasslands where their herds graze, and where they gather plants for medicines and mystical charms. They speak of the forests that burst with fruit, and offer firewood or timber. They mean the rivers that run into the ocean where they cast their fishing lines, and the fish that nourish them.
