December 11th saw the launch of a newly created participatory digital counter-map of the region of Xolobeni. The event at the Jack Heath Gallery at the University of KwaZulu-Natal was the culmination of a 2-year project funded by the National Research Foundation. It is a collaborative project between the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), the coastal villages and academics from the University of Johannesburg and UKZN.
Counter-mapping has been used worldwide by marginalised, often indigenous populations to contest top-down, extractive-oriented development plans and to showcase grassroots/community-led alternatives.
In Xolobeni, coastal communities have an extensive and proud history of resistance to incorporation into colonial and apartheid economies. Here, the ancestral roots of mutual protection and connection to the land run deep and long. Memories of the Mpondo Revolt, for example, are still very much alive and a part of community identity.
These days, community resistance is focused on a raft of government-led proposals, including plans for open cast mining, the construction of a “smart city”, and a coastal road through ecologically sensitive and biodiverse lands. The N2 Wild Coast Road project (N2WCR) poses a major looming threat to many communities in coastal Xolobeni and its local economy based on ecotourism and agro-ecology. The prospect of its arrival has also spurred an increase in land grabs, with tracts of land being enclosed in breach of environmental law and built on without the permission of communities as stipulated under local customary law.
In opposing mining and the coastal highway, demanding it to be moved to the centre of Amadiba, the ACC is increasingly painted by proponents as ‘anti-development’. This is an assertion that its members reject. As Nonhle Mbuthuma, ACC Spokesperson and 2024 co-awardee of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, asserts, “We are not anti-development. We are pro-development. But development for us means the kind of development that we want – a development that benefits us as a community and supports our sustainable rural livelihoods.”
To prove this point, the ACC has worked closely with geographers from the University of Johannesburg and the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal on a project called “Maps Are Now Our Spears” to design a set of static and interactive online maps. These maps show unequivocally that the lands and seas of Xolobeni are home to a vibrant and viable caring economy – steeped in history and deeply connected to the land – that sustains local inhabitants and others in surrounding communities.
The maps highlights the area’s rich cultural heritage, along with important eco-tourism sites, scenic attractions, ecologically sensitive and biodiverse wetlands, highly productive agricultural land using agro-ecological practices, and infrastructure, including local roads, churches, schools and thriving local businesses.
The maps also depict a variety of community-proposed developments, including the ACC’s alternative N2 route, that, if supported, would achieve SANRAL’s goal of shortening the distance from Durban to East London while adding significant value to local livelihoods and overall socio-economic well-being.
The ACC welcomes these maps of the past, present and future of Xolobeni. as an important strategic resource, but also as a source of inspiration. As Mbuthuma summed up, “This map is an important tool for our struggle because it shows our bottom-up plan. But it can also show other communities in South Africa that they must take a lead in their own development. If communities are not actively involved in their own development planning, this is not democracy. What we are doing today, this is democracy.”
To access the static printable maps, click here, and watch out for the interactive online version, coming soon.
For more information contact:
Dr. Hali Healy at hhealy@uj.ac.za
Nonhle Mbuthuma at nonhlembuthuma@gmail.com
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