WAk vısion

global, individual and fun: the search for new landscapes and mindscapes

[wakvision]

Makwani village, between Mbotyi and Magwa. Three homesteads (or households, each with a cluster of huts) remain. It is a beautiful, intensely resourced landscape that hides grinding poverty. As elder patriarchs die, their families depart for nearby villages with roads, schools and clinics. Further inland along this trail, the villages of Mzaba, Tsothsha and Mdeni are rapidly depopulating. Ndakane emptied out a decade ago.

Once a veritable paradise for a sedentary farming lifestyle, built around large families that provided the intense labour necessary to thrive, it would require a very different approach, based on modern information-dense methodologies such as permaculture, to meet modern needs. But it would still require sizeable communities and a willingness to develop autonomous schooling and health systems.

The area has been earmarked as a future national park for the last ten years.

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If the Wild Coast is an impact zone for the meeting of African continent and Indian Ocean, it has also been an impact zone for a dramatic human, cultural and ecological exchange between British colonisation and a last stand by a Mpondo culture that once had a fierce reputation for warrior independence. During the hundred years of battering wars initiated by the British against the neighbouring Xhosa, the Mpondo chose to stay aloof, becoming the last subjugated people of South Africa.

By 1900 British missionaries, administrators, traders and military enforces reigned. In their wake came the plants of other countries, such as these Eucalyptus (gum) trees. Huge plantations exist around Mtambalala (and in many other places), originally serving as a 'barrier' between human habitation and the large sprawling indigenous forests of this area. Hidden forever is the blood of countless human beings massacred here by the last aberration of the colonial order, South Africa's then bantustan Transkei, as it imposed these plantations against intense resistance.

Mtambalala contains one of the most depressing human rights violations of the old order, never properly exposed in the post-1994 Truth and Reconciliation Commission process.

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Edge. Indian Ocean meets Africa. Behind lies a vast expanse to Antarctica. The African continental plate is stabilised, in contrast to other tectonic plates, including the small East African plate that has resulted in the rift valley formation that will in time rip that world away from the African continent.

The wave forces rolling over this often dramatically stormy sea are humbled in comparison to the massive forces underlying deeper earth movements.

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Mostly inhabited by small, sparsely settled rural communities, northern Mpondoland - like most of the Wild Coast - plays host to small congregations of cottages. These cottages - here (above), at the mouth of the Luphatana river - originated as holiday homes for the small settler elite that inhabited the administrative and trading towns established in the wake of an intense missionary opening-up of the Eastern Cape during the nineteenth century, culminating in conquest by 1900.

In their wake followed the alien infestations such as these bugweed plants (below) now a serious pest everywhere.

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Rock is a canvass for natural art, for soulful beauty, for meditative tranquility. It is also a niche for strangulation and colonisation. It is an exhibition, a study in ecology.

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Start of a river

A fairly minor river, with its headstart about 5km from the sea. The surrounding grassland - Rhole, Lusikisiki area - is in excellent condition, sustaining large herds of cattle. The underlying bedrock ensures that agricultural cultivation is near-impossible, resulting in a very low human population. The erosion is not cattle (or human) induced; it is entirely natural, and a result of the heavy summer rains that drenches this area. The entire sequence of pictures were taken within a 2km length at most. The sand quality - very pure and white - surprised me. The bedrock gets exposed quite quickly; and shortly thereafter reeds and other soil-binding and filtering plant material start anchoring the soil.

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The Mzintlava (or Manteku, to locals) estuary is a magnificent site at any time. It is not a pristine site. A village is adjacent, and Drifters run the accommodation pictured below. But behind it the river flows though a significant stretch of forest, devoid of human presence, with all footpaths having yielded back to the forest, and with no roads - and thus no logging or other destructive impacts.

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Winter washes away; southern hemisphere. 

The tide rolls in, Mzintlava estuary, Manteku.

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Death of a trading store

The Manteku trading store is a very typical story in rural South Africa. These areas were opened up to colonial control through a chain sequence of missionaries, colonial administrators and then trading stores. Slowly the subsistence economy was undermined through taxation systems that forced young men to work on the mines, and a budding commercial indigenous farming culture (which outperformed the settler farming community) was destroyed (through legislation) by 1930. The trading store became the centre of the village universe. 

By the time South Africa's apartheid-era policy of segregating black people into so-called homelands reached its climax through the granting of 'independence' (for Transkei, which encompassed the Wild Coast: 1976), the trading stores passed hands to 'citizens'. An orgy of easy asset-grabbing by a rapacious homeland elite meant that many of these stores with their characteristic large gardens, geared towards settler self-sufficiency, quickly became run down. 

But as South Africa liberalised and moved towards democracy, another phenomenon dealt the death blow to the trading store. Spazas, small homestead-based shops trading in basic goods and alcohol, sprung-up everywhere, with far less overhead. Now these are in turn under threat, as particularly Somalian and Pakistani refugees and immigrants are undercutting local spazas with cheaper prices, better business techniques, better stocking and cheaper wholesale sourcing. In turn, this fuels much of the xenophobia that has simmered underneath the South African surface the last decade, now-and-then erupting with deadly violence.

I last visited the trading store in these pictures 8 years ago, having myself bypassed it in subsequent visits in favour of local spazas. The first picture shows  a dense bamboo hedge planted as a windbreak (but also impenetrable to human trespass). The second shows the now ransacked shop, complete with bent burglar bars; the third the front area where you used to sit and drink your beer; and the fourth the approach to the shop. 

Dead-and-buried; it probably closed its doors about 5 years ago. It still has something precious - a freehold tenure title deed; communal tenure (which is unbankable) dominates this area.

It should have been turned into a youth centre, complete with environmental education and career guidance resources. If only the state had the foresight to take over the assets before they ran aground.

What to do with the mirage assets of the once-powerful settler foot-soldiers of the colonial era?

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South Africa's Wild Coast is subject to heavy storms, which can have its origin in cold fronts sweeping in from Antarctica over a vast oceanic expanse, or in tropical cyclonic systems with the potential to unleash heavy rainfalls. Drfitwood, sometimes involving large dislodged trees pumping down flooded rivers, is a common phenomenon. The log in  the top picture is from an altogether different type of hazard - human shipping. Between 200 and 300 tropical hardwood logs, weighing up to 20 tons each, were lost overboard by the bulk carrier Lola during August 2008, and ended-up drifting ashore all along the South African coast, from Richard's Bay close to Mozambique, to well past Cape Town. A significant number ended-up on the Wild Coast, where the narrow continental shelf already cause a severe hazard to shipping through freak waves and stormy conditions. At least one bather was killed and several injured through accidental impact. Many of these logs were salvaged locally; the one in the picture was too inaccessible, and shows severe wearing-away five years later. 

Bottom pic: same coast; sensitive inter-tidal life!

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The post of 15 August dealt with the illegal cottage phenomenon on South Africa's Wild Coast; and the 20 August post looked at one of the understorey endemics found here, Haemanthus. These pictures illustrate the one remaining set of ruins. After protracted legal battles lasting a decade, these cottages were demolished and the environment rehabilitated - except this one. Closer examination indicates that it was probably a commercial venture, and likely built as a Backpacker establishment (where dormitory and budget accommodation dominates).

My guess is that the developer had neither the money nor the inclination to rehabilitate, and did a disappearing act. The structure pictured here was literally 1m from the beach, and was an ablution block. Cool idea to shower facing the sea - but the windows barely provide a decent view. So the developer lacked imagination too. More seriously, it shows the necessity of regulating such developments. It's a pretty daft idea to take a rare environmentally pristine spot and mess it up for every subsequent generation, and on top of that add insult to injury and put your ablutions in the prime spot!

Retards 101, or what?

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Edge effect: algae in the last stretch of saline water before its all ocean. Haemanthus albiflos en masse in the immediately adjacent coastal dune forest.

Top pic: Ingo estuary; a gentle opening out to the sea; a vast expanse of forest behind.

The rest: a riotous abundance of breeding - older plants of Haemanthus albiflos flowering, and last year's seed ensuring succession. It is rare to see such an outrageous massing of  young seedlings. Typically found in coastal dune forest or on very moist coastal cliffs with afternoon shade. Haemanthus is a genus endemic to southern Africa.

These photos were all taken adjacent to the Ingo estuary; nearest villages Lujazo and Manteku, Lusikisiki area.

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It is almost impossible to get freehold tenure on South Africa's 300km long Wild Coast - there is one (small, impoverished and poorly developed) town, Port St Johns. The rest of the coastline is primarily under communal land tenure, with deeply impoverished villages, usually somewhat away from the beach. (Salt spray and often intense wind does not make for ideal agricultural subsistence conditions. Villagers do harvest inter-tidal resources, and fish. But there is none of the boat-based fishing culture that is dominant on the east and west African coasts - the sea is too dangerous here.)

However, this is ideal tourist development space. Nearly twenty years of post-Apartheid democracy has brought intense pressure for development on this coast, but the state has so far absolutely failed to either provide an adequate regulatory framework, or initiate meaningful development. The main conundrum is the uniqueness of this coastline - it has exceptional biodiversity (within a global context); it is still in relatively good condition; and once you allow development on many of the untouched estuaries, you've permanently lost the sense of place. (Enormous amounts of money have been expended on policy initiatives and attempts at 'sustainable development', so it is not for lack of trying.)

These photos were taken adjacent to the Ingo estuary, the first one showcasing the sense of isolation. The second one, on the same site, is the first of the infamous so-called Black Sands cottages, photographed around 1998, that was established by land grabbers from the cities, who offered local chiefs less than a $100 and a few bottles of brandy. These cottages were demolished after a protracted decade-long court process, and generally no trace remains. However, the pressure of illegal occupation remains a constant threat. When I walked here now, there were signs of fresh excavations on this very site.

A decade ago this area made me rage, as I walked past countless houses, with their occupants not only defying the unique environmental public interest, but also flaunting their colonial-era mentality, complete with tea parties and servants on the beaches. Needless to say, they came from that strata that supported South Africa's apartheid past.

A current generation of new money developers would just as rapidly move in if they thought they could get away with it. What to do?

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Sustainable empathy

We reach out to each other in social movements, and that is good for breaking down barriers…

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The grass is greener below the earth...

Top picture: Inter-tidal plant forms exposed at a spring low tide. Imagine life where you have a terrestrial sun bath for an hour or two, four or five days, every two weeks (or every four weeks). Very high spring tides co-inside with full moon over the four winter months; and with new moon over the four summer months. The other four months show an intermediate pattern of relatively high tides at both full and new moon, as the pattern shifts.

This is reflected in tide time tables for South Africa's Wild Coast. Why this shift?

Bottom picture: a coastal red milkwood (Mimusops caffra) anchors the edge between the storm-lashed beach and the immediately adjacent dune forest.

Is this evolutionary defence of the terrestrial biome against the hooliganism of the sea, or what?