The Best Laid Plans

Abstract

The article documents the case of South Africa’s struggle to reconcile racially based poverty, a legacy of apartheid, and attempts to conserve the country’s unique and important biodiversity. We present an analysis of KwaDapha, a small village in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in northern KwaZulu-Natal, a protected area and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in terms of the capability approach. Despite South Africa’s strong human rights orientation, we show that the freedom, or agency, of local users and inhabitants to achieve doings and beings according to their own values and norms, is constrained by state-led conservation management at KwaDapha. We suggest that the intellectual cause of this failure might lie in the conflation of two distinct concepts: human rights and the capability approach, in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park’s predominantly market-based operationalization of sustainable development.

Assessing the Effects of Land Use on Surface Water Quality in the Lower uMfolozi Floodplain System, South Africa

“…The uMfolozi floodplain is situated in the vicinity of St Lucia, a town located in uMkhanyakude District Municipality (28 • 22 S and 32 • 25 E), KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa (Figure 1). This municipality is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped local authorities in South Africa [31]. The uMfolozi floodplain is approximately 19,000 hectares in extent [32].…”

“…The clearance of land for cultivation of sugarcane and commercial forestry dates back to 1911 [38]. By 1960, more than 50% of the floodplain had been converted to sugarcane farms whose establishment was made possible by the construction of canals, diversion of the uMfolozi River and the clearing of indigenous wetland vegetation [31,36]. The floodplain also supports subsistence farming of other crops wherein the dominant ones include sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), banana (Musa acuminate), and amadumbe (Colocasia esculenta).…”