These burns are usually carried out on a two or three-year cyclical basis. When walking in April to June or early July it is important to check where planned burns are taking place and stay clear of these areas. The information should be available at the KZNW local office.
What are the risks to plants and animals? Fire rarely kills trees, grass growth is enhanced and some plants, for example Protea caffra, require the smoke to stimulate dormant seeds. Bigger animals can make good their escape and most smaller ones survive in burrows. Some insects succumb but then act as a food supply for birds.
Bushman paintings
The first evidence of human occupation of the Drakensberg Park area dates back to the Middle Stone Age, some 20,000 years ago. The Bushmen (or San people) were classical hunter-gatherers and decorated caves or rock overhangs with paintings now sometimes known as rock art. They did not necessarily use these places as habitation. The practice started at least 2000 years ago and finished when the last of them had disappeared in the 20th century, mostly by deliberate pursuit and murder. It is said that there are about 20,000 individual rock paintings and engravings spread over more than 500 sites of caves and overhangs.
Important examples have been declared as national monuments including Giant’s Castle Main Caves, Game Pass shelter in the Kamberg Nature Reserve and Battle Cave in the Injisuthi valley. These centres offer guided walks to paintings. The Kamberg Reserve also has a good Interpretation Centre as does Didima camp at Cathedral Peak. There are many other sites of fine quality that have not been so honoured and some, notably those in the Didima valley, are currently closed to the public.
Some paintings are monochromatic but others use two colours or more and are very realistic. The colours used tend to be limited to red, brown, yellow, black and white because of the available materials. Paintings in black and white are more likely to have deteriorated or disappeared, so most of those remaining are of the yellow–red–brown spectrum. Binding substances were required to blend the colours and the whole process was exceedingly complex. Bones, sticks or fingers were used to apply the paints.
The hugely significant Rosetta Panel at Game Pass Shelter, showing a dying Eland with a therianthrope (half human/half animal) holding its tail
The ideas behind this art are more complex than hitherto imagined. Originally it was assumed that the paintings were a simple representation of lifestyle and life events. More recently it has been proposed that much of the art had a spiritual implication, particularly as many depict half-man, half-animal figures. The artists might be both paying homage to animals on which their life depended (such as Eland, the most commonly depicted) and attempting, through art, to harness their power. Nevertheless, it is clear that historical narration also played a part, with some of the paintings, showing wagons drawn by oxen and men on horseback, clearly relating to the arrival of white settlers in the area.
During a trance shamans had an altered state of consciousness and experienced sensations such as an extended scalp or spiritual energy leaving their heads
This could be interpreted literally as people running away from a leopard, or as imagery – the leopard is often associated with shamans, intermediaries between the human and the spirit world
The work was accomplished by certain key individuals, the ‘Shamans’, rather than all members of a social group. These individuals bridged the chasm between the spiritual and the real world. Trance, possibly induced by hallucinogenics on occasion, was important prior to completion.
There are several threats to the rock art of the Drakensberg. The principal ones are natural weathering of the paint (and of the rock) and, sadly, vandalism. The rock shelters were originally created by the process of weathering and it is just a continuation of this process that is causing the damage. How this might be reduced is the subject of much research. Fires lit by people camping in the shelters have created smoke damage and some visitors have even wet the paintings to improve the colours – if they used carbonated drinks to do this the damage is even more significant. A number of initiatives have been taken including forbidding camping in painted caves, fencing some areas off and eliminating the marking of caves on maps.
Access to Bushman painting sites is permitted only if accompanied by one of the widely available qualified and registered guides. I have been advised that it would be imprudent to define exactly the location of where paintings can be seen on routes in this book except where it is clearly a walk to a formally guided site. Nevertheless, when walking in any of the areas, especially in the southern Drakensberg, be alert for that moment when your route takes you slap bang into some paintings. Look particularly at the walls of large overhangs. If you chance upon some paintings be sure to treat them reverently and touch them not.
The Development of the Park
The history of the Drakensberg Park goes back a long way. In October 1903 the Natal Colony government took the first step towards its establishment with a Government Notice which stated its intention to create a ‘game reserve on the Crown land in the vicinity of Giant’s Castle’. Next came the establishment of the Natal National Park in 1916, the prefix ‘Royal’ being added after a visit by the British Royal family in 1947. Gradually more and more areas were designated as protected by the purchase of farmland and by the late 1960s the park was more or less what it is today. Altogether it comprises 242,813 hectares (almost 2500km2) and is the largest mountain wilderness area in Africa. The official title ‘the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park’ was introduced in 2000, but for brevity the terms ‘the Drakensberg’, ‘the Park’, and ‘the Berg’ will be used interchangeably throughout this book.
More recently, the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park has been subsumed within the Maloti-Drakensberg Transboundary World Heritage Site, amalgamating with the Sehlathabe NP of Lesotho. Accordingly, the Drakensberg Parks are now labelled with the name ‘Maloti-Drakensberg Park’ and this is used thoughout the book.
Ezemvelo KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife (EZKZNW, commonly referred to as KZN Wildlife or KZNW) is the conservation management agency in the province of KwaZulu-Natal and is responsible for the South African part of the enlarged Park.
Subsistence farming community outside Lotheni
Apart from its headline roles of assuring sustainable use of the Park’s biodiversity and wildlife conservation, KZN Wildlife has a pivotal role in the development of ecotourism. The Drakensberg Park is almost entirely surrounded by farmland. There are large cattle farms but local community subsistence farming predominates. Amongst these local communities there is significant unemployment. Ecotourism carries with it the responsibility of involving these communities.
KZNW has created many jobs, particularly through its participation in the ‘Work for Water’ scheme introduced in 1995. It is well known that trees deplete the water supply, and when these trees are alien plants (Black Wattle – Acacia mearnsii, and species of Eucalyptus, especially E saligna, are a particular problem) the pressure to remove them becomes intense. The Work for Water initiative has vigorously addressed this problem and at the same time helped to alleviate some of the poverty. Tourism plays its part in increasing employment by the opening of camps and hotels, and also provides opportunities for Community Guides. These are local people trained to guide walks and, most importantly, conduct visitors to sites of Bushman paintings.
Finally, it is important to mention KZNW involvement, in co-operation with the South African Police Service, in anti-smuggling operations to interrupt the marijuana (locally known