South African nature lovers were thoroughly alarmed when a large mining company announced its plans to mine the ancient dunes of Lake St Lucia for titanium and related minerals in the early 1990s.

A massive anti-mining campaign ensued, and it became one of the first major environmental issues the new African National Congress government had to face after being voted into power in 1994.

In 1995, the new government made a watershed decision to reject mining in favour of conserving the biodiverse natural system.

But the rejection of mining meant two things. Firstly, conservation had to offer as many or more jobs than mining did. Secondly, the area had to be protected from any further threats.

First World Heritage Site

Real action started in 1999, when the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park was listed as South Africa's first World Heritage Site, and the Wetlands Authority was established to manage it.

This meant first consolidating 16 parcels of land - a mix of state-owned land, former military sites and commercial forests. The park, a great national park in the making, is now one of South Africa's largest, 260 000 hectares in size.

The Fantastic Elephant Coast

Situated on the untamed Elephant Coast of the Zulu Kingdom, it has 220 km of coastline, bringing together five ecosystems and eight unique destinations: Maphelane, Lake St Lucia, False Bay, Cape Vidal, Sodwana Bay, uMkhuze Game Reserve, Lake Sibaya and Kosi Bay.

Bio-Diversity Hotspot

Greater St Lucia is home to the greatest congregation of hippos and crocodiles in South Africa and is the last significant breeding ground for giant leatherback and loggerhead turtles. The area protects 100 species of coral, the only major swamp forests left in South Africa, three major lake systems, four wetlands of international importance and includes eight major game reserves within the broader Maputaland.

Environmental degradation and poverty in the area are being tackled simultaneously - over 4 500 previously unemployed workers are being deployed to help create the Wetlands Park, and a large portion of them are helping to remove millions of alien pines and blue gum trees.

The water-thirsty pines are barely out the ground and their stumps burnt before marshlands reappear. Water-dependent species like reedbuck, waterbuck and saddle-billed storks are extending their ranges as the pines vanish and the wetland-dappled coastal grasslands come back.

Mega herbivores like elephants and rhinos were brought in first because their ecological role in opening up the bush is so important. But the new park has also received translocated wildlife from all over the country - endangered white and black rhinos, buffalo, wild dogs, cheetahs, and plains game including wildebeest, zebras, and giraffes. The recently created Mazimbovu tourism circuit road winding through the increasingly wildlife-rich Eastern Shores has become wildly popular among visitors who previously confined themselves to the beaches.

The Wetlands Park is not yet a Big Five reserve because there are not enough fences to safeguard communities from predators, especially lions.

This is a small consideration, though. As former President Nelson Mandela pointed out: 'The Wetlands Park must be the only place on the globe where the world's oldest land mammal (the rhinoceros) and the world's biggest terrestrial mammal (the elephant) share an ecosystem with the world's oldest fish (the coelacanth) and the world's biggest marine mammal (the whale)'.

Community Upliftment

The creation of a such a large area that protects nature while simultaneously working to uplift poor local communities must surely rank as one of the most ambitious social and conservation initiatives in the world. Guy DeBonnet, programme director of the World Heritage Centre linked to UNESCO, called it 'A clear example of the new style of protected area management.'

Making the Links

Ecologically damaging roads built decades ago are being closed down, and others linking communities with development are being created, the most significant one being the Lubombo Road, linking Hluhluwe with Maputo in Mozambique. The roads enable previously isolated communities to get their goods to market, or sick people to doctors.

Lake St Lucia is now malaria-free for the first time in human memory. The area is also planned to become part of a transfrontier park linked to conservation areas in neighbouring Swaziland and Mozambique.

There was recently a call for public involvement to change the area's name from Greater St Lucia Wetland Park to something more user-friendly.

New Developments

The R8 million 22-bed Thonga Beach Lodge has just opened, with a 64% shareholding by the Mabibi community. Eight more major tourism investments are soon to follow - a total investment of R432 million (about US $22 million) into the Park.

Something for Everyone

But not everyone can afford four and five star accommodation, which is why there is also a wide variety of campsites, self-catering log cabins and bush lodges in the area.

Arts, Crafts and People

Several skills development initiatives have been set up so that local communities can profit from the growing numbers of tourists. For example 400 people, mostly women, are benefiting from the Wetland Crafts initiative, part of the Wetlands Authority's Social Economic and Environmental Development (SEED) unit.

Thembi Nkanini is a fairly typical example of the weavers being nurtured by the programme. Up until four years ago, Ma-Thembi, as she is known in the area, was living in a one-room shack in KwaJobe just outside the uMkhuze Game Reserve, struggling to raise her children on what few vegetables she could grow and a little money from piece work, when she was lucky.

Thanks to the baskets and placemats she now makes, her income has increased tenfold. This year, Ma-Thembi bought solar panels for the roof of her extended house. Her children have properly fitting school uniforms and the books they need for school. Her latest purchase is a cell phone.

Why The Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park is Unique:

• Conservation International recently designated the Maputaland area (an ecosystem falling within the Park) as a section a South African environmental 'hotspot', with exceptionally high concentrations of endemic species under threat.
• In terms of biodiversity, the Great St Lucia Wetland Park uMkhuze Game Reserve section has the highest density of black rhino anywhere in the world; the highest number of frog species in southern Africa (35); 36 species of snakes; 80 dragonfly species; 110 butterfly species; 526 bird species (the greatest avifauna diversity in Africa, with half of South Africa's bird species and 25% of Africa's); more than 2 000 species of flowering plants; all five of South Africa's mangrove tree species; 25 000-year-old coastal dunes; a 45 000 year old peat wetland and the largest known living fossil fish population (coelacanths) outside the Comores.
• The Park is one of the largest protected areas in South Africa with recorded and potential Stone Age and Iron Age sites.
• It is a place where old cultural practices are still alive. At Kosi Bay, the local population has been using the same kinds of fish traps for the last 700 years. Music and craft play a central role in the lives of communities surrounding the park.
• Maputaland is home to five cultural groups (Zulu, Swazi, Shangaan, Tonga and a relict group of Gonda speakers).

Links:

• For more information visit www.zulu.org.za and www.kznwildlife.com.
• Alternatively, visit the Elephant Coast website at www.elephantcoast.kzn.org.za