Ndumo Game Reserve: 100 years of preserving wildlife

Declared in 1924, Ndumo Game Reserve has protected its wetlands and wildlife in a precious corner of KwaZulu-Natal for 100 years, at the confluence of the Usuthu and Phongolo rivers. In its long history, it has become emblematic of the triumphs and challenges of many of Africa’s game reserves. 

Early times

Ndumo is located in a region once called Tongaland by some, historically notorious for human and livestock diseases. Mostly ignored by the Zulus, the British and South Africa’s Union government for these reasons, it was visited by South African War hero Denys Reitz in 1921. He was impressed by the beauty and hippopotamus of Lake Nyamithi, and took his friend Jan Smuts there in 1923, having the area declared a provincial game reserve the following year. 

Northern KwaZulu-Natal, once famous for big game, had seen its herds decimated by hunters by the early 1900s and from the Twenties thousands of wild animals were shot to control sleeping sickness spread by tsetse flies. 

Aerial spraying with DDT after World War II, and campaigning by the province’s first wildlife societies, saved Zululand’s game reserves.  

Conservation and clashes

The Natal Parks Board was founded in 1947, taking over control of a reserve previously managed by a local chief named Catuane and the local police sergeant. 

The first resident ranger, Tom Elphick, arrived in 1951. He was succeeded by Ian Player, with the legendary Sigodhlo Mbazine as sergeant. They found an increasing number of people  (1 510 in 1954) with their livestock (740 cattle, 1 384 goats and others) were becoming problematic for the wildlife and natural vegetation. The reserve was fenced, and people were evicted, with the last evicted in 1966. 

While arguably necessary for wildlife protection, this was traumatic for those evicted, without proper consultation or compensation. This soured relations. People still harvested natural resources through illegal hunting, snaring and other methods, making for antagonistic relations between the parks board and surrounding residents throughout the Sixties, though gradually this dissipated. 

When crops failed, or remittances failed to arrive from the mines, locals relied on natural resources. As elsewhere in Africa, this made conservation difficult. 

Game numbers rebounded and the vegetation recovered after people were removed, with some species reintroduced. Efforts to improve relationships included selling culled animals’ meat (impala and nyala became too numerous) cheaply to locals. Demands for access for livestock to water sources inside the reserve were more difficult to accommodate. 

Plantation agriculture

In the early Seventies, the Pongolapoort Dam was built where Phongolo River breaches the Lebombo Mountains. The intention was to irrigate the dry Makhathini Flats and make it suitable for commercial agriculture, either sugarcane or cotton. This triggered fears about the ecological and social impact on the floodplain downstream, and a pioneering social and ecological study was undertaken, published in 1982. 

In addition to confirming the floodplain is South Africa’s most biodiverse, the study found that local residents were among the country’s best nourished rural people — despite being among its poorest — because of their skill in floodplain farming and fishing. 

Innovative arguments were made in support of ecosystem services provided by the floodplain. Unfortunately, the recommended measures regarding dam water control necessary to protect these have never been followed. 

Ndumo Game Reserve’s eastern wetlands depend on the seasonal flooding of the Phongolo. The dam negatively affected water quality and incorrect flood cycles interfered with the breeding cycles of fishes and crocodiles. Additionally, despite initial successes in controlling malaria, the disease is back and so is the use of DDT, which is bad news for wetlands habitats. 

Wildlife destination

Ndumo became renowned as a paradise for nature — particularly birds and wetlands species — in the Sixties. In addition to more than 390 bird species, the reserve hosts spectacular concentrations of waterfowl in summer. 

My father Tony Pooley’s LP record Wildlife Calls of Africa (1966) featured recordings of rare birds such as the buff-spotted flufftail, the evocative African fish eagle and Pel’s fishing owls, along with charismatic fauna including hippopotamus, bushbabies, leopards and hyenas. 

Ndumo became famous for its Nile crocodiles after Tony established an experimental crocodile restocking station on the Phongolo floodplain below Ndumo Hill in 1966. The plentiful newspaper coverage was amplified when the SABC screened a documentary about Tony’s crocodile work there in 1975. 

This restocking station became internationally renowned in conservation circles. Watching feeding time at the crocodile station and walks along the Phongolo River, with its dramatic swing bridge, became iconic experiences for visitors to Ndumo. 

Ndumo has been managed and protected by generations of game rangers and field rangers (formerly game guards) and has been a significant site of scientific research for more than 60 years. 

Research by scientists working in Ndumo, past and present, is surveyed in a forthcoming special issue of African Journal of Wildlife Management. This issue celebrates this rich legacy of scientific research and motivates for the reserve’s protection to support exciting ongoing and future research. 

It includes papers on the vegetation, crocodiles, frogs, spiders, fishes, hippopotamus, disease research, environmental education and stakeholders’ perspectives on the future of the reserve. There are papers on the history of research in the region and the reserve, on reserve management of more than 150 scientific publications and 85 dissertations up to the present. 

Alongside formal researchers, several field rangers were outstanding naturalists, for example, the all-round naturalist and master tracker Sigia Gumede. Tony Pooley learned about local crocodiles from Sigodhlo Mbazine and Sigia and Sijingo Gumede. His early experimental work was supported by Ben Gumede, and his right-hand man in his formal crocodile work was Philemon Mthethwe, whose son JJ Mthethwe later led environmental education efforts in the area. 

Generations of local conservationists have worked in this reserve. Its second officer in charge (Chief Catuane being the first), Abednigo Nzuza, arrived in 2008. Many know the “bird man” Sonto Tembe for his field knowledge and ability to mimic birdcalls and current guides, like Bongani Mkhize, have a deep field knowledge of the reserve. 

Difficult times

Ndumo has been buffeted by events since the Nineties, including rhino poaching, with all rhino removed by 2017. A land claim settled in 2000 has been a problem, with claims that two versions exist. One provides benefits and co-management but not occupation, the other (whereabouts unknown) being rumoured to include occupation or at least more access to reserve resources.  

The reserve’s eastern fences were cut in 2008 and, in 2010, the famous swing bridge was cut. Since then, there has been illegal farming, fishing, livestock grazing and tree-cutting inside the eastern section of the reserve. Unfortunately, this was historically the main nesting ground for crocodiles, key habitat for hippo and important for winter grazing. 

The Phongolo River floodplain and linked pans are why the reserve was proclaimed a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance in 1997. (Ramsar South Africa acknowledges current threats, but refuses international assistance.)

Further problems include the rerouting of the Usuthu River in 2005, leaving the northern reserve exposed to use by Mozambicans (technically, the river is the reserve and country boundary). In 2024, it also emerged that an application is in progress to prospect for minerals inside the western part of the reserve. 

Ndumo Game Reserve is an emblematic game reserve representing historical entanglements of conservation actions, scientific research and also evictions and conflicts with locals. It shows the difficulties of integrating biodiversity conservation, especially urgent for the planet’s fast-disappearing wetlands, with local communities’ needs, rights and values. 

Ndumo’s future

This small game reserve offers a manageably sized case study of the key problems facing many of Africa’s protected areas. How the current situation is handled has significance for their future in South Africa. Solving them would be a triumph. 

Solutions require acknowledgement of past events and injustices, clarification of existing agreements, and a mediated process to negotiate a way forward inclusive of all the key stakeholders. 

The reserve provides both protection for biodiversity and ecosystem services for locals. It is an important breeding ground for fish vital for floodplain dwellers’ diets, offers environmental education to schoolchildren, community funds through tourist levies and jobs in the park and through contractual work such as clearing alien plants. Not to mention the rights to existence of its many species of wildlife. The benefits can and should be worthwhile for everyone. 

Dr Simon Pooley is the Lambert lecturer in environment (applied herpetology) at the School of Social Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, and Honorary Research Fellow, School of Life Sciences, UKZN.