INTRODUCTION

South Africa has a long and illustrious wildlife history spanning a period of nearly 300 years. This summarizes the history applicable to Tangala and the surrounding area – previously the Transvaal Province. Hopefully, you - the tourist - will be able to appreciate the contribution of your visit to this particular piece of Africa and its future.

From the 1950’s onwards, the record becomes more personalized and focuses on the area in and around Tangala, thus giving some idea of the progress made in the last fifty years. This overview has been achieved through various personal interviews with some of the region’s oldest inhabitants.

OVERVIEW

The first recorded “white man” settled permanently in the area around 1900. During the early years of the 18th century Europeans had not yet inhabited this region for various reasons. Firstly, the country’s low national population did not warrant people living in isolated places. Land was available and cheap, and it was convenient to be close to towns. Secondly, the area of the Eastern Transvaal north of the Sabie River was inaccessible because the impassable western aspect of the Drakensberg mountain range prevented people entering the Lowveld and creating an infrastructure. Lastly, natural elements like tsetse fly (Ngana sickness), malaria, cattle diseases, lions, etc all posed a potential threat to human existence. The region had, however, been inhabited by isolated groups of Tsonga (Shangaan) people. They survived by subsistence farming and hunting. This way of life, combined with the regular hardships of living in the area prevented rapid populationgrowth. This explains why only isolated family groups were encountered by the first European settlers.

Wildlife, of course, also survived because of their evolutionary adaptation to natural conditions over thousands of years. Essentially, the fact that there was no infrastructure meant there were few people which, in turn, meant no controls, resulting in the inevitable “free for all” hunting and illegal poaching. In the late 1800’s this became a point of concern, as a government decree in far away Cape Town ushered in the so-called ‘Century of the Big Shoot’, a time of rampant, uncontrolled hunting. As wildlife began disappearing rapidly throughout South Africa and in the former Transvaal, people from all walks of life started lobbying government to protect the area.

South Africa’s increasing population placed new pressures on cities as the need for food and resources increased. Agriculture was seen to be the only solution to the problems. By eradicating malaria through the application of insecticides and providing cheap land, the government encouraged people to inhabit and farm the country’s remote regions. Thus, wildlife made way for cattle and ploughs – which were perceived to be much more valuable at the time. Predators were shot and so were a number of cloven-hoofed species that carried diseases such as foot-and-mouth, which were potentially harmful the industry. Much of the land given away to city dwellers for agriculture was, in fact, unsuitable for farming, and many of the State-sponsored farmers were unable to survive economically, abandoned their farms and gravitated back to cities and towns.

Partly as a result of these agricultural practices and the ‘Century of the Big Shoot’, wildlife became rapidly rarer, causing the “value” of game animals to increase. In the previous Transvaal region, where Europeans and others were dependent on wildlife for subsistence and trade in articles such as animal hides and ivory, people started realizing the need to protect the resource. Soon, a buffalo had greater economic value than an ox.. This development resulted in the gradual demise of agriculture. In 1889, President Paul Kruger, of the Zuid-Afrikaanse Republik (as much of the former Transvaal was previously known), proclaimed Sabi Game Reserve. This was more of a politically expedient move, however, as he actually wished to secure a route to a harbor at Lorenco Marques (now Maputo) at a time when much of South Africa was a British colony.

By the early 1980’s, many formerly agricultural farms in the region had turned to game or wildlife farming As long ago as the time of the ‘Big Shoot’, fenced-off areas had created a safe haven for wildlife, particularly in the country’s interior, and this was also the case in the closing years of the twentieth century as conservation became the new buzzword. This positive movement toward conservation came just in time for the regional economy. With cattle gone, professional hunting gained momentum, adding increased economic value to wildlife and creating a positive motivation for conservation. It was not until the early 1990’s that people realized that hunting was not always the best way to conserve wildlife.

Eco-tourism and photographic wildlife safaris gained momentum, while professional hunting was slowly phased out. Today the region still has limited agriculture and hunting activities, although eco-tourism is the region’s the biggest industry and source of income for many people.   DETAILED HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CENTURY

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