Scrubs and Squatters: The Coming of the Dukuduku Forest, an Indigenous Forest in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Summary

Against the backdrop of current demands of historical redress and restitution of land in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, this article provides a historical analysis of landscape change and changing ideas about nature in relation to the Dukuduku forest. From the time of the first written sources in the mid-nineteenth century up until the point when the forest turned into an informal settlement area in the 1990s, people have used and perceived the forest. Dukuduku's image as a pristine indigenous forest is problematic, for it obscures local lives and histories. Inhabitation of the Dukuduku forest is not a recent phenomenon. Colonial preservation measures have little continuity with present-day environmentalism. The article demonstrates the incompleteness of a wilderness vision of nature in which humans intervene by utilitarian motives or conservation visions.