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Ndumo Game Reserve facing mounting pressure amid fight for sustainable conservation

Ndumo Game Reserve facing mounting pressure amid fight for sustainable conservation
Pongolapoort Dam. (Photo: Supplied by Simon Pooley)
Simon Pooley with Reece Alberts and Francois Retief
By Simon Pooley with Reece Alberts and Francois Retief
18 Mar 2025
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Ndumo’s history reveals the challenges of integrating biodiversity conservation with impoverished local communities’ needs, rights and values, and maintaining that conservation in remote regions where the rule of law is tenuous.

Ndumo Game Reserve has protected a unique, biodiverse corner of South Africa for 100 years. Situated near the confluence of the Usuthu and Phongolo rivers in northern KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) bordering Mozambique, it is famous for its birdlife, hippos and crocodiles.

As recorded in Daily Maverick, it faces challenges from disputes with neighbouring communities and would-be mining prospectors, yet we shouldn’t forget its long history of conservation successes, and its ecological and social importance for the region. In some ways, it is emblematic of the challenges facing protected areas in South Africa and across the continent.

Read more: Fate of KZN’s century-old Ndumo wetland park in doubt – despite global treaty ‘protection’

Early times


Mostly ignored by the Zulus, the British, and South Africa’s Union government because the surrounding area was renowned for human and livestock diseases, Ndumo was visited by South African War hero Deneys Reitz in 1921.

He borrowed a boat and shot some hippopotamuses on Lake Nyamithi, but was so impressed by the place that he took his friend Jan Smuts there in 1923. In 1924, he had a provincial game reserve proclaimed, mainly to protect the hippos.

The region’s large herds of big game had by this time been decimated by colonial and settler hunters. From the 1920s, thousands of wild animals were shot to control sleeping sickness spread by tsetse flies. This finally ended after World War 2 when aerial spraying with DDT reduced malaria incidence, and in the face of opposition from the province’s first wildlife societies.  

Natal Parks Board and local communities


Founded in 1947, the Natal Parks Board took control of a reserve previously managed by a local chief named Catuane, and a local police sergeant. The first resident Natal Parks Board ranger arrived in 1951, and was succeeded by Ian Player in 1954, with the legendary Sigodhlo Mbazine as sergeant.

Player found that the 1,510 African residents with their 740 cattle, 1,384 goats, other livestock and crop farming, were incompatible with wildlife conservation in this small reserve. The reserve was fenced, and people were evicted as and when convicted of breaking the game laws, with the last evicted being in 1966.

While arguably necessary for conservation, this was traumatic for those evicted, without proper consultation or compensation. When crops failed or remittances didn’t arrive from the mines, locals relied on natural resources, going into the reserve to illegally hunt and snare wild animals. As elsewhere in Africa, this made conservation difficult and strained relations with neighbouring communities.

With people removed and an end to farming, game numbers rebounded and the vegetation recovered. Impala and nyala became too numerous, and in an effort to improve community relations, the meat of culled animals was sold cheaply to locals, and donated to community events.

Although poaching, patrols and arrests continued throughout the 1960s, this declined thereafter. Demands for access for livestock to water sources inside the reserve continued, however.

The impact of plantation agriculture


In some ways an apartheid project to encourage white farmers (preferably Nationalists) to settle the area, the Pongolapoort (originally JG Strydom) Dam was completed in 1973, where the Phongolo River breaches the Lebombo Mountains. The plan was to establish irrigation agriculture on the dry Makhatini Flats east of the mountains, producing commercial crops like sugar cane or cotton.

Worried by the possible ecological and social impacts of the dam on the floodplain, researchers initiated the “Man and the Pongolo Floodplain” study (published in 1982).

They confirmed that this floodplain is South Africa’s most biodiverse, and found that despite being among South Africa’s poorest people, local Africans were among the country’s best nourished due to their skill in floodplain farming and fishing.

Innovative arguments were made emphasising the ecosystems services provided by the floodplain, and recommendations were made to enable ecologically and socially sensitive water management. These included dam releases to match natural seasonal flooding, and fish farming. Unfortunately, the recommendations were not followed.

The dam negatively affected water quality and quantity on the floodplain, trapping nutrients behind the dam wall, and incorrect flood cycles interfered with farming and the breeding cycles of fish and crocodiles. The plans for commercial agriculture have failed, with limited benefits for locals.  

Ndumo becomes renowned


Ndumo Game Reserve became renowned for its birdlife and wetlands species after a camp was opened in 1958. Visitors can see more than 390 bird species, and enjoy spectacular concentrations of waterfowl on its pans in summer.

My father Tony Pooley’s LP record “Wildlife Calls of Africa” (1966) featured recordings of its rare birds, including the buff-spotted flufftail, and the evocative calls of the African fish eagle, fiery-necked nightjar and Pel’s fishing owls. With its riverine forest, floodplains, thicket and savanna, the reserve also hosted charismatic mammals, and the LP features hippopotamuses, bushbabies and leopards.

Alongside its hippos, Ndumo became famous for Nile crocodiles when Tony established the Experimental Crocodile Restocking Station on the Phongolo floodplain below Ndumo Hill.

The plentiful media coverage following its opening in 1966 was amplified in 1975 when the SABC screened one of its earliest nature documentaries about his crocodile work at Ndumo. Hearing his talks at feeding time at the crocodile station, and walking along the Phongolo River and crossing the dramatic swing bridge, became iconic tourist experiences.

Ndumo has been an important site of scientific research for more than 60 years. Situated in the cross-over zone of tropical and subtropical faunas, its rich and fascinating biodiversity motivated Natal Parks Board staff including Ken Tinley, John Dixon, Tony Pooley, Terry Oatley, Jeremy Anderson, Paul Dutton and John Scotcher to study its fauna and flora, and attracted South African and international scientific researchers.

An aerial view of farming on the Phongolo floodplain inside Ndumo Game Reserve. (Photo: Sourced)



Shokwe Pan in Ddumo Game Reserve. (Photo: Supplied by Simon Pooley)



Elsa Pooley became a field botanist there, and one plant she gathered in Ndumo in 1970 recently proved to be a new species, named Zingela pooleyorum.

This wealth of scientific research, past and present, is surveyed in a forthcoming special issue of African Journal of Wildlife Research. Co-edited by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s regional ecologist Cathariné Hanekom, Reece Alberts and Francois Retief (North West University), Edward Netherlands (University of the Free State) and Simon Pooley (Birkbeck University of London/UKZN), this special issue celebrates the legacy of scientific research in Ndumo Game Reserve, and motivates for the reserve’s protection to support exciting ongoing and future research.

Papers survey the histories of research in the region and reserve management. A review paper surveys more than 150 papers and 85 postgraduate theses based on research done in Ndumo. There are papers synthesising research on the reserve’s vegetation, hippopotamuses, crocodiles, frogs, spiders, fish, on disease research, environmental education, and stakeholders’ perspectives on the reserve’s future.

Alongside scientific researchers, several field rangers were outstanding naturalists, notably Sigia Gumede. Tony Pooley learned about local crocodile behaviour from Sigodhlo Mbazine and Sigia and Sijingo Gumede. Pooley’s right hand man at the crocodile station was Philemon Mthethwa. As a local headmaster, Philemon’s son JJ Mthethwa went on to promote environmental education in the area.

Generations of white and black South African conservationists have worked in Ndumo Game Reserve, including many local men. The first resident black officer-in-charge was Abednigo Nzuza, arriving at a difficult time in 2008, and the current officer-in-charge is Andile Mhlongo. Of recent staff, many knew the “bird man” Sonto Tembe, renowned for his ability to mimic birdcalls, and walking guides like Bongani Mkhize know the reserve’s ecology intimately.

Challenging times


Ndumo has endured difficult times since the 1990s, including sustained rhino poaching that led to all rhino being removed by 2017. There are disputes over a land claim awarded in 2000 and supposedly settled in 2007. The current official version of the claim provides benefits and co-management for communities, but not occupation.

However, there are rumours that another signed version exists which included occupation rights, or at least, enhanced community access.  

Amid unhappiness fuelled by poverty, unemployment and organised crime in the region, the reserve’s eastern fences were cut in 2008. In 2010, the famous swing bridge was cut, and the area east of the Phongolo has become a no-go zone. There has been illegal crop farming, fishing, livestock grazing and tree-cutting inside this section of the reserve.

Unfortunately, this was key habitat for hippopotamus and moulting geese, the main crocodile nesting ground, and was important for winter grazing. The Phongolo with its floodplain and linked pans were the reason the reserve was proclaimed a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance in 1997.

In 2005, the Usuthu River rerouted southward, leaving the area north of it exposed to utilisation by Mozambicans as the river is the reserve (and country) boundary. This question over the international boundary, already problematically porous to organised crime, has gone almost entirely unremarked.

In late 2024, Daily Maverick reported on an application to prospect for minerals inside the western section of the reserve.

Ndumo Game Reserve is emblematic of the historical entanglements of wildlife conservation actions, scientific research, and also evictions, prosecutions and conflicts with local communities.

Its history reveals the challenges of integrating biodiversity conservation with impoverished local communities’ needs, rights and values, and maintaining commitments to biodiversity conservation in remote regions far from public scrutiny, where the rule of law is tenuous.

Looking ahead


Ndumo provides a spatially small but emblematic case study of key challenges facing Africa’s protected areas. How this is handled has significance for their future in South Africa.

Transforming existing conflicts and challenges would be a triumph. Solutions require a regional commitment to the integrity of the border and security for locals, and for the reserve, acknowledgement of past injustices linked to conservation, clarification of existing agreements, and an inclusive mediated process to negotiate a way forward.

Research conducted for the Ndumo special issue found that stakeholders, including members of surrounding communities, and past and present reserve employees, perceive the future of Ndumo to be bound up with its potential to generate income as a tourist destination, and recognition of its unique and intrinsic conservation value.

Across the board, respondents expressed their fears that we are witnessing the demise of a unique reserve.

The reserve provides both protection for biodiversity and ecosystems services for locals. It is an important breeding ground for fishes vital for floodplain dwellers’ diets, offers environmental education to local schoolchildren, community funds through tourist levies, and jobs in the park and through contractual work like clearing alien plants. Not to mention the right to existence of its many species of wildlife.

Pongolapoort Dam. (Photo: Supplied by Simon Pooley)



Positive initiatives are still in play, including efforts to establish the Lebombo Transfrontier Conservation Area, which would include Ndumo.

Regional ecologist Cathariné Hanekom is participating in transfrontier work on crocodiles moving between wetlands in South Africa and Mozambique. Elephants have returned to the area recently, providing challenges, but also opportunities for conservation management, including the possibility of reigniting momentum for conserving the greater landscape within the transfrontier conservation area.

The advantages of protecting Ndumo Game Reserve and ensuring it benefits both biodiversity and local communities into its next century, can and should be motivating and worthwhile for all South Africans. DM

Dr Simon Pooley is Lambert Lecturer in Environment (Applied Herpetology) at Birkbeck University of London, UK, and Honorary Research Fellow, School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is a member of the IUCN’s SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence Specialist Group, and the IUCN SSC Crocodile Specialist Group.

Professor Reece Alberts is with the Research Unit for Environmental Science and Management, North West University, and conducts his research within the Protected Areas Research Group. He coordinates the Masters in Conservation Leadership and Futures Thinking at the North West University.

Professor Francois Retief works at the Research Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University. He is active in the Protected Areas Research Group, and his expertise relates to the Effectiveness of Environmental Policy Instruments.

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