A Case Study of Conservation and Development Conflicts: Swaziland’s Hlane Road

Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 27, Number 4, December 2001

A Case Study of Conservation andDevelopment Con icts: Swazilands HlaneRoad*

JEFFREY D. HACKEL(California State University, San Bernardino)

Integrated conservation and development projects are now being promoted as the bestmeans to save wildlife in Africa. However, a case study in Swaziland provides a cautionarytale about the dif culty of reconciling the two; it also provides insight into how conser-vation politics were played out during the latter years of King Sobuza IIs reign. InSwaziland in the late 1970s, a debate occurred about the upgrading of a major road inSwazilands northeast. The decision was signi cant because the road under questionbisected the countrys primary conservation area: Hlane Game Sanctuary. The debatecentred on the needs of economic development as opposed to nature conservation.Commercial interests wanted the road tarred; conservationists, on the other hand, believedthat an upgrade would undermine their efforts to establish a viable nature conservationarea in northeastern Swaziland. Instead, they favoured a new route that would be alignedwest of the sanctuary but would cost signi cantly more than upgrading the established, lowtraf c volume, route. In the end, the road through Hlane was upgraded. This paperanalyses the decision-making process, using archival and other written records, as well asinterviews with many of the debate participants.

Introduction

Since the 1970s, integrated conservation and development (ICD) has increasingly come todominate conservation thinking in southern Africa.1 The term refers to the linking ofconservation with development to protect wildlife, the idea being that rural people mustbecome better off in economic terms if they are ever to become constituents for wildlife.2

ICD is now favoured over what can be called the protectionist approach in which wildlifeis protected for its own sake, and protected lands are managed solely for the bene t ofwildlife. In this approach, people are generally removed from a protected area, and theiraccess to resources within the park restricted, if allowed at all. The protective apparatus

* This research was conducted during 198485 and in 1998. A California State University ProfessionalDevelopment Grant funded the second period of research. I would like to acknowledge the cooperation that Ireceived during the rst phase of the work, when I did in-depth interviews with many of those actively involvedin the decision to upgrade the Hlane Road. As for the second phase, I would like to thank all those who madematerial accessible tome, including the SwazilandArchives staff and the SwazilandNational Trust Commission.Finally, I need to thank James Culverwell for his ongoing help in understanding conservation issues in Swaziland,and to David Simon for his valuable comments on the paper.

1 Community-based conservation essentially means the same as integrated conservation and development . Forpractical purposes, the two terms can be used interchangeably. Another term used is Peace Parks, i.e.cross-boundary conservation areas that are promoted, among other things, as a way to link countries in the regionwith a common purpose.

2 J. Hackel, Community Conservation and the Future of Africas Wildlife, Conservation Biology, 13, 4 (August1999), pp. 726734.

ISSN 0305-7070 print; 1465-3893 online/01/040813-19 2001 Journal of Southern African StudiesDOI: 10.1080/0305707012009075 4

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includes a strong policing effort to guard against intrusion from outsiders. Con ict arisesbecause local people see valuable resources within the protected area but are prohibitedfrom using them. Resentment can be especially strong if the protected area was once usedbut is now off limits to the local community.

The wholesale acceptance of ICD by both conservation strategists and practitionerscame about without much critical analysis, as there is relatively little literature available onthe ef cacy of the approach, or on its social rami cations.3 Critics of the approach are nowquestioning its conceptual foundation and its likelihood of success. The crux of the criticismis that ICD is being implemented more as an article of faith than as a controlledexperiment.4 Indeed, since ICD has been around for over 20 years now, some areconcluding that it has, in fact, been a failure, and that the linking of conservation anddevelopment has resulted in habitat degradation and wildlife losses, with a correspondingreduction in biodiversity.5 Thus, for many observers, it is still an open question as towhether conservation and economic development can coexist, much less whether economicdevelopment can act as the foundation of African conservation strategy. The problem is thateconomic goals end up taking priority over conservation goals.

A historical opportunity to examine the relationship between conservation and economicdevelopment exists in northeastern Swaziland, where communal, protected and commerciallands exist side by side.6 Intensi cation of both conservation and economic developmentefforts occurred in the 1970s, and although not conceptually linked at the time, bothdevelopment and conservation existed together geographically. During the early phases ofboth developments, reconciliation of the two seemingly incompatible land uses wasproblematic. For the conservation areas to remain viable, either as reservoirs for wildlife oras aesthetically desirable recreation areas, much care would have to be taken to minimisethe impact of commercial activities. As is often the case, it was not long before an issuepresented itself that determined conservations place in relation to development: thedecision to upgrade the Hlane Road.7 The Hlane Road bisects the Hlane Game Sanctuary(HGS), the areas most important protected area, and is the main artery serving northeasternSwaziland (see Figure 1). Upgrading it resulted in a high volume, tarred road that couldhandle more commercial traf c.

This article focuses on the decision to upgrade the road, and the debate that led toit. Government of cials, business people, consultants, conservationists, and KingSobhuza II (hereafter King Sobhuza), who laid down the ground rules for the debate,participated in the decision-making process. King Sobhuza, who was sympathetic toconservation efforts, especially at HGS, dictated that conservation advocates would have anequal voice with the projects supporters. In essence, the Hlane Road debate marked the

3 E. Koch, Nature has the Power to Heal Old Wounds: War, Peace, and Changing Patterns of ConservationinAfrica, in D. Simon (ed.), South Africa in Southern Africa: Reconguring the Region (Athens, OhioUniversityPress, 1998), pp. 5671.

4 A. Noss, Challenges to Nature Conservation with Community Development in Central African Forests, Oryx,31, 3 (July 1997), pp. 180188; C. Atwell, What if the Emperor has no Clothes? A reply to Martin, Oryx, 34,1 (January 2000), pp. 36.

5 J. Oates,Myth and Reality in the Rain Forest: HowConservation Strategies are Failing in West Africa (Berkeley,University of California Press, 1999), p. 310; C. Spinage, Social Change and Conservation Misrepresentationin Africa, Oryx, 32,4 (October 1998), pp. 265276.

6 J. Hackel, Rural Change and Nature Conservation in Africa: A Case Study from Swaziland, Human Ecology,21, 3 (September 1993), pp. 295312.

7 In this account, I use the name Hlane Road throughout , although various participants in the debate over the roadsupgrading used different names. The Hlane Road runs through northeastern Swaziland and is a continuation ofSouthAfricas N2 highway, linking the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal andMpulmalanga. The of cial designation,as given in the Third National Development Plan, is the Junction Siteki TurnoffMaphiveni Road. This sectionwas to be completed rst, while the remainder, which runs due north to the Lomahasha border post, was to bebuilt two years later.

Swazilands Hlane Road 815

Figure 1. Northeastern Swaziland generalised land use map. The area designated as Other has, depending on thespeci c location, the following land uses: commercial livestock ranches, Swazi communal land, the Kings Hlanemeeting place, which is the isolated area between northwest Hlane and sugar lands, and other agricultural activities.

rst time that a major development decision was taken with the full participation ofconservationists.

The Hlane Road decision serves as a cautionary tale for contemporary projects that aredesigned to link conservation and economic development, using the concept of ICD as theirconceptual foundation. For example, the Maputaland Transfrontier Conservation Area(MTFCA) and a subsidiary project, the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI),are being developed together to promote both conservation and economic growth in theLubombo region of Swaziland, South Africa, and Mozambique. The idea behind eachproject is to exploit the regions natural resources to promote economic development.The MTFCA has as its primary objective the conservation of biodiversity;8 the LSDI,meanwhile, is more focused on economic development.9 Both promote ecotourism as the

8 Peace Parks Foundation, Proposed Maputaland TFCA: Unique Mountains to Mangrove Sanctuary/LubomboSDI Has a Key Role to Play, Peace Parks Foundation Newsletter, 2, 2 (April 1998), pp. 45.

9 Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, Report on the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, (Mayville,South Africa, 1998), p. 44.


primary means to increase economic growth, with the LSDI also giving emphasis toagricultural development. The LSDI literature somewhat worryingly does not list bio-diversity preservation as one of its objectives.10 Thus, already in the discussion of thevarious projects being developed under the rubric of ICD, there is a lack of clarity as towhether economic development or wildlife conservation is to predominate. As is often thecase, it will not be easy to reconcile conservation and development in the same area. TheHlane Road decision shows that development tends to win out, as the more tangibleeconomic investments and goals are given priority at the expense of wildlife conservation.

As a nal introductory comment, it should be noted that the interviews that provide thebasis for this article include representatives of all the major participants in the debate exceptfor King Sobhuzas closest advisors they were simply not available for interviews.Although those voices are missing as direct respondents, independent meeting accounts areavailable, as is reporting of the Kings reactions at various stages of the debate. It is theserecords, as well as interpretations made by other respondents, that form the albeitsomewhat speculative conclusions about the Kings underlying beliefs and managementstyle. One surprising aspect of the decision to upgrade the Hlane Road was the apparentease with which the King allowed his strongest dictates on the debates rules to becircumvented.

Context

Although this article will not focus on the link between road issues and developmentdirectly, it will have at its core the relationship between the upgrading of an already existingroad, and the deleterious effects that roads generally have on protected areas. A briefdiscussion of context is worthwhile.

Transportation enhancements do not always produce universal agreement as to theirbene ts. This is true because the de nition of progress has grown in complexity duringrecent decades, and people do not always share one de nition of progress, or a sense ofwhat constitutes the common good when it comes to transport issues.11 For instance, it hasbecome increasing clear during the last 40 years, as environmental concerns have grown inimportance, that roads can lead to environmental harm. This can happen as a road opensa previously inaccessible area to people, or leads to a deterioration in the ecosystem. Indeed,some environmentalists make the case that road building is the major problem facing landconservation efforts.12

The general term used for the in uence of a road is the road effect. A roads effectis especially severe in the strips paralleling the road at 100 metres on either side: this zoneis de ned as the road effect zone.13 However, recent research shows that roads produceharmful effects far beyond the road effect zone.14 For instance, roads act as barriers thatmay impede or prevent dispersal movements.15 This, in turn, can produce localisedextinctions and mortality, as landscapes become increasingly fragmented and isolated. Theevidence is now so strong on the deleterious effect of roads on ecosystem health that roaddensity restrictions, and even road bans, are being implemented in many United States

10 Ibid., p. 3.11 D. Simon, Transport and Development in the Third World (New York, Routledge Press, 1996), p. 194.12 M. Hourdequin , Ecological Effects of Roads, Conservation Biology, 14, 1 (February 2000), pp. 1617.13 R. Forman and R. Deblinger, The Estimate of the Area Affected Ecologically by the Road System in the United

States, Conservation Biology, 14, 1 (February 2000), pp. 3135.14 D. Wilkie, et al., Roads, Development , and Conservation in the Congo Basin, Conservation Biology, 14, 6

(December 2000), pp. 16141622.15 The problem is species speci c, depending on the dispersal capacity of the organism and its tolerance for barriers.


national forests. Moreover, the problems caused by road building are increasingly seen asa global environmental problem.16

In Swaziland, the issue for the government was whether to upgrade and tar the existingroad running through HGS, or whether to pay the substantially higher costs that would beneeded to build a new road to the west of the conservation area. Signi cantly, besides thefull participation of the conservationists, the debate also marked the rst time Swazilanddecision-makers had to face an argument that called into question the idea that all majordevelopment projects would enhance the common good; it was a point of view that KingSobhuza legitimised by taking the conservationist position seriously.

Hlane Game Sanctuary,17 which is the anchor of the conservation complex in northeast-ern Swaziland, has deep roots due to its association with King Sobhuza, and because it isthe premier wildlife conservation area in Swaziland.18 When protected, it contained the lastlarge remnant of the countrys large mammal populations. This occurred for three reasons: rst, the climate was humid and conducive to malaria, which limited settlement in the areauntil the 1950s. Secondly, the regions dominant economic activity was cattle ranching,which ensured that the areas habitat was not transformed.19 Thirdly, during much of the rst half of the century, David Forbes controlled what is now Hlane (then Forbes Ranch),and managed it as a cattle ranch and quasi-nature reserve. He made sure that wildlife onhis property was not over-exploited. Hence, at the centurys midpoint, much of the northeastremained intact, with at least some wildlife abundant.20

During the 1950s, King Sobhuza bought Forbes Ranch, and subdivided it into threeunits. The rst section was to be used for Swazi homesteaders and managed as communalland. The second section was retained as a cattle ranch, and the third as the Kings privatehunting ground. In essence, the King wanted this third area to be used for wildlifeprotection.21 Throughout the next decade, however, it became apparent that poachers weredecimating wildlife in all three areas. In addition, at this time, estate agriculture wasintroduced to the northeast, resulting in the destruction of large areas of natural vegetation.Commercial development also brought with it an in ux of job seekers and new settlers, whofound that effective mosquito control had made settlement more feasible. The result was acontinuous reduction of wildlife numbers due to habitat loss and poaching. Consequently,the King appointed a manager and an oversight committee (The Hlane Committee) toadminister the area, with his primary mandate being to control poaching.22 Soon, poachingdecreased and animal populations rebounded.

In 1967, the King decided to give the western part of his hunting area (west of the mainroad) of cial status as a nature reserve while retaining the eastern section exclusively forhimself and under his sole control. Why he settled on this particular arrangement is opento conjecture. Some believed that he simply wanted to re-emphasise to the manager andHlane Committee that this section was under his control.23 In reality, these separatedesignations made little difference, as they were managed as one unit under the ultimate

16 See Hourdequin , Ecological Effects of Roads, p. 16.17 Since the road was constructed, Hlane Game Sanctuary has been renamed by the Swaziland government as the

Hlane Royal National Park. To avoid confusion, I will use the former name throughout this article.18 J. Hackel and E. J. Carruthers, Swazilands Twentieth Century Wildlife Preservation Efforts: the Present as a

Continuation of the Past, Environmental History Review, 17, 3 (Fall 1993), pp. 6184.19 Hackel, Rural Change and Nature Conservation in Africa, p. 298.20 T. Reilly and L. Reilly, The Mlilwane Story: A History of Nature Conservation in the Kingdom of Swaziland

(Mbabane, Mlilwane Trust, 1986), p. 17.21 I. Grimwood, The Establishment of National Parks: Report to the Government of Swaziland (Rome, Food and

Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 1973), p. 16.22 Hackel and Carruthers, Swazilands Twentieth Century Wildlife Conservation Efforts, pp. 16, 75.23 Interview with S. Munro, Hlane Committee, Hlane, 23 January 1985.


authority of the King. The Hlane manager and the Hlane Committee, moreover, alwaysremained deferential to the King, being careful not to overstep their bounds in either sectionof the reserve.24 As one observer noted, Hlane was the Kings responsibility; it wasnt justa piece of national land it was one that the King had made clear was his own preserve,and he took decisions on it.25 King Sobhuza continued to take an active interest in Hlanesmanagement until his death in 1982. The Kings conservation actions had set the tone forwildlife preservation in the area, setting the precedent that Simunye and Tambankulu sugarestates followed when they designated two private nature reserves, Simunye and MbuluziNature Reserves, respectively.26 With the addition of two more government nature reservesin the area, Ndindza and Mlawula, and with HGS as the anchor, the northeast now had acontiguous area of over 36,000 hectares designated as protected land.

There was also signi cant development in the northeast. In the mid-1970s, KingSobhuza gave his support to the establishment of Simunye Sugar Estate on land adjacentto Hlane, as the culmination of the general intensi cation of economic development thatcame to the area after World War II. Now, in addition to the nature reserve complex, therewere, among other developments, three agricultural estates; an extensive system of majorand minor roads; one railroad line, with another proposed; and two disease fences. The rstrailroad line was built in the early 1960s to transport iron ore from western Swaziland toMaputo for shipment to Japan. The second line was completed in 1985. Its purpose was toconnect the Natal and Transvaal provinces. The conservationists did not take issue with thissecond line because it ran west of Hlane. The two northsouth running disease fences actas barriers to keep hoof-and-mouth disease from Mozambique from infecting Swazilandlivestock herds. One fence runs along the border of Swaziland and Mozambique, and asecond to the west of the border: it cuts through the Mlawula and Mbuluzi Nature Reserves.The area between the two fences is the quarantine area: all livestock leaving this area mustbe certi ed as disease free.By the end of the 1970s, development had transformed much ofthe area. King Sobhuzas support for both wildlife protection and economic developmenthad produced a situation that would prove impossible for him to reconcile. He had sethimself up as a backer of both economic development a form of which would transformthe landscape and nature conservation.

The Issues

Economic development projects, combined with growing human populations and increasedpoaching, had a deleterious effect on wildlife in the area. Wildlife had been plentiful whenthe King had bought Forbes Ranch but was under threat by the 1970s, when many specieshad much reduced population numbers or had been lost altogether.27 Now the Swazilandgovernment and Simunye Estate pressed to upgrade and tar the Hlane Road.28 Conservation-

24 T. Reilly, The Hlane Wildlife Sanctuary: The Population Crash of 1976 and its Associated Causes (UnpublishedReport to the King of Swaziland). Management deference to the King could be seen in the early 1970s whenwildebeest , impala, and zebra populations increased dramatically. Hlane management advised the King thatculling should be done or there would be ecological harm to the reserve. The King refused to allow it in anypart of Hlane. The result was a population crash in 1976. More severe, however, was the detrimental ecologicaleffect: Hlane had lost much of it vegetative cover to overgrazing, leaving certain areas susceptible to gully erosionor bush encroachment .

25 Interview with J. Masson, Hlane Committee, 16 July 1985.26 Although small, the two private reserves are crucial sections of the total reserve complex. Simunye Nature

Reserve is the only section that links Hlane with the rest of the reserves; it also contains a major section of theMlawulaRiver. TheMbuluziReserve has as one of its borders a lengthy section of theMbuluzi river, an importantriverine habitat.

27 Grimwood, The Establishment of National Parks, pp. 1617.28 GOS, Third National Development Plan, 1978/791982/83 (Mbabane, Government of Swaziland, 1977), p. 139.


ists objected to the plan, basing their view on the adverse environmental impact anupgraded road would have on the nature reserves.29 The debate that ensued amongconservationists, government technical staff, consultants, and Simunye Estate managers waslively and at times acrimonious. Conservationists, because of a decision by King Sobhuza,found for the rst time that they had an opportunity to affect a decision concerning a majordevelopment project. As one conservationist characterised it, [this was] the rst issue inwhich development and conservationists had to come to terms.30 The conservationists,therefore, proposed several possible alignments as alternatives to the Hlane Road. All werelocated west of the nature reserve complex (see Figure 2).31

Those favouring the Hlane Road upgrade included, apparently, the Kings closest

Figure 2. In all, twelve western routes were proposed. Number 1 is the conservationists preferred route. Number2 is an example of the routes located closer to Hlane. Of these, number 2 was most favoured by conservationists .

29 Hlane Committee (J. Masson) to the Swaziland National Trust Commission (SNTC) on Road Development inthe Hlane Area, 1 August 1977. This correspondenc e is the rst documented objection found that raises concernsabout a possible upgrading of the Hlane Road to accommodate the northeasts commercial interests. This andother letters can be found in the Game Sanctuary Road File.

30 Interview with J. Masson.31 T. Bennett and G.Maasdorp, A Feasibility Study of Alternative Tarred Routes Between the ManziniSiteki Road

and the Northern Sugar Region (Durban Economic Research Unit, University of Natal, 1980), pp. 1015.Although twelve western routes were proposed as alternatives, for the sake of clarity, only two are depicted here,as they show the routes most favoured by the conservationists.


advisors. Thus, the Kings involvement was crucial if the conservationists were to have achance of winning the debate. The conservationists were using a long-standing strategy thatwas summarised by one conservationist as, You get the King to go along and theneverything is OK, because the little guys [government of cials and Kings advisors] wouldhave to fall into line.32 The hopes of the conservationists rested solely with the King: eitherhe would have to structure the decision-making process in such a way as to give them afair chance of winning, or decide outright in their favour.

By and large, the debate centred on the general pros and cons of a western versus aneastern Hlane Road route; the debate never reached the point where decision-makersdiscussed speci c western routes. At the core of the debate was whether economic orenvironmental factors should be considered as most important.

Conservationists viewed Hlane as ecologically unique and aesthetically special. Ecolog-ically, Hlane is seen as an extension of the Kruger National Park ecosystem; geologically,its soils are derived from the underlying basalt, which has resulted in one of southernAfricas best representations of Acacia nigrescens savannah.33 In the early part of thecentury, even before the lowveld was settled and transformed, Hlane was the place wherewildlife was most concentrated. Conservationists, moreover, valued Hlane as the onlyremaining big game area in Swaziland and, because of its history under David Forbesmanagement and its later association with King Sobhuza, they believed it should be viewedas a national treasure and that its well-being should be the paramount considerationwhenever government considered land use options in the northeast. Conservationists readilyconcurred with an ecological consultants assessment of Hlane as a ne representative, andecological equal, of any lowveld habitat in southern Africa and, although in a deterioratedcondition because of wildlife overgrazing, as having great potential under proper manage-ment.34 As one prominent conservationist noted: There is nothing quite like Hlane it wasa famous place in the whole of southern Africa.35

Conservationists believed that economic development was taking precedence overwildlife conservation in the northeast, and they saw that government planners were comingto decisions about projects and infrastructure development that heavily favoured commer-cial interests over wildlife protection.36 They argued that upgrading the Hlane Road wouldhave both severe ecological consequences for the protected lands, and would largely negatetheir long-term goal of uniting all the northeastern nature reserves into a single nationalpark. They wanted the Hlane Road removed from the main road network, and a new routebuilt west of Hlane. As a compromise, they proposed that the Hlane Road continue to exist,but as a secondary gravel road.

The conservationists believed that unless they put up a ght over the Hlane Road, theirvision for the northeast as a place where wildlife conservation was central, or even viable,was hopeless because development pressures were increasing.37 In the worst-case scenario,although not considered an immediate threat, they saw that Hlane could eventually be lostto agricultural production. This position was buttressed by the fact that at least portions ofHlane are suitable for sugar cane, and that some sugar estate managers and governmentof cials believed it would better serve the nation if converted to agriculture.38 This was also

32 Interview with James Culverwell, Manager of Mbuluzi Nature Reserve, 14 September 1984.33 Interview with Ted Reilly, Hlane Committee member, 29 May 1985.34 B. Walker, Report Prepared for the Department of Works, Power and Communications , Kingdom of Swaziland

on Siteki TurnoffLomahasha Road Project: Reappraisal of Consideration Affecting the Ehlane GameSanctuary (Johannesburg Centre for Resource Ecology, University of Witwatersrand, 1981), p. 5.

35 Interview with Ted Reilly.36 Hlane Committee (J. Masson) to SNTC, 1 August 1977.37 Hlane Committee, Hlane Report to 31 March 1982.38 T. Reilly and L. Reilly, The Lion Roars Again (Mbabane Hlane Royal National Park, 1994), pp. 1820.


the view of local people, who largely favoured sugar production at Hlane as a way toprovide more local jobs.39 Conservationists, thus, saw the battle to stop the Hlane Roadupgrade as a last ditch effort to rein in development before Hlane was completelyoverwhelmed.

In sum, the conservationists raised six reasons as to why the road should not beupgraded: (1) Hlanes integrity should not be compromised because it would serve as theanchor for the countrys nature conservation effort in the northeast; (2) Hlane has signi canttangible and intangible value to the nation; (3) roads in general are detrimental to protectedareas, and high speed, high volume roads are especially harmful and dangerous; (4) anynew road for the region should be positioned to the west of Hlane to serve the needs of localpeople better;40 (5) a road positioned to the west would, in the long term, be moreeconomical; and (6) international conservation organisations were aware of Hlanessigni cance and had recommended against upgrading the road.41

Moreover, conservationists noted that a precedent had already been set: the secondrailroad line, completed in 1985, had been aligned speci cally to avoid HGS. Initially, thenew line was to follow the Hlane Road, but it was moved to the west because it wentthrough HGS. The conservationists, of course, had argued for a more westerly route, andthe railroad planners and Simunye Estate managers accepted this without dispute; indeedSimunye managers had favoured the more westerly alignment.42

To bolster their position, the conservationists, acting through the Swaziland NationalTrust Commission (SNTC)43 proposed and co-sponsored with the Ministry of Works,Power, and Communications, a feasibility study of the alternative routes to the west of theHGS. The conservationists proposed the study because they were con dent it would showthat a westerly route would be of greater value to the region than an upgrade of the HlaneRoad, and that any additional construction costs would be more than offset by theadvantages of a western route.44

Government planners opposed the conservationist proposal. They did not want thedelays that would occur if alternatives to the Hlane Road were considered. They concludedthat upgrading the present route was best because recent commercial development in thenortheast dictated that infrastructure improvement be made as soon as possible. Theiroverriding concern was to construct a tarred road from Manzini to the northeastern sugararea as quickly as possible.45 Another factor crucial to government planners was that projectfunding had already been secured from the African Development Bank (ADB), and theyhad good reason to fear that any delay would cause them to lose the funding.46

Swaziland government planners, then, favoured the Hlane route over a westerlyalignment for the following reasons:47 (1) there was no economic justi cation for establish-ing a new road when an excellent alignment already existed; (2) the present alignmentwould best serve the personal and commercial needs of people living in the northeast; (3)

39 J. Hackel, ConservationAttitudes in SouthernAfrica: A Comparison BetweenKwaZulu and Swaziland,HumanEcology, 18, 2 (1987), pp. 203209.

40 Farrell and Van Riet Partnership, A Study of the Impact of Alternative Tarred Routes on Hlane and theNorthEastern Region of Swaziland (Pretoria, Partnership Farrell and Van Riet, 1980), pp. 1518.

41 Ibid., p. iv.42 Interview with Dean Chapman, Railroad Construction Manager, 16 November 1984.43 The SNTC is a parastatal government agency responsible for, among other things, the administration of protected

lands that are declared as nature reserves under the Trust Commission Act. Hlane did not fall under the Actsauthority.

44 Farrell and Van Riet Partnership, A Study of the Impact of Alternative Tarred Routes on Hlane, p. 20.45 Interview with G. Maasdorp.46 African Development Bank Telex Concerning Northeastern Road Upgrading, 30 October 1980.47 Bennett and Maasdorp, A Feasibility Study of Alternative Tarred Routes; interview with D. Libsekal, Road

Technical Consultant to PWD, 30 April 1985.


a company village (Lusoti) with an accompanying shopping centre had been built next tothe main road, and a realignment of the areas major thoroughfare would be commerciallydamaging to it; (4) travel time and costs would increase for Simunye people because a newalignment would lengthen the distance to the western part of the country and the districtcapital, Siteki; (5) the present alignment was excellent from an engineering standpoint; (6)there was no social justi cation for moving the road to the west; (7) construction of awestern route would add substantially to the costs of the project, i.e. by US$1.7 million toUS$7 million depending on the route; (8) a tarred road through the area would not harmthe reserves because it would reduce dust and noise levels; and (9) funding had beenobtained for upgrading the present route, and it would be jeopardised if changes were made.Government planners thus did not believe that the conservationist arguments were strongenough to warrant a major reworking of the project, and their recommendation was to goahead with the project as originally planned.48

Estate managers had their own viewpoint. Sugar production is the foundation of theSwaziland economy, and is centred in the lowveld. Presently, the sugar industry producesapproximately 25 per cent of the countrys gross domestic product and 33 per cent itsforeign earnings. It is also, by far, the countrys largest provider of wage employment,supplying about 25 per cent of the countrys jobs.49 Sugar is worth, depending on prices fora particular year, approximately Emalangeni(E) 500 million (US$80,000,000) . The north-eastern sugar estates produce citrus, which results in foreign exchange earnings of aboutE40 million (US$6,000,000) .50

A former Tambankulu Estate manager dated the plans to upgrade the Hlane Road to1960,51 when the road from Manzini to Mpaka (south of Hlane) was tarred. Although thesection from Mpaka to Lomahasha was left as gravel, a bridge was built over the MbuluziRiver at Maphiveni to accommodate the eventual upgrade. Thus, all believed the roadalignment had been set, and that it would only be a matter of time before the tarringoccurred. Moreover, the agricultural community held the belief that the road would form anatural boundary between the commercial estates and protected areas, for they assumedHlanes western section would eventually be used for Swazi settlement or agriculture. Theeastern section could then be used for nature conservation and linked to the Lobomboplateau. Indeed, they generally believed that any long-term investments in Hlanes westernsection as a protected area would be wasted.52 As one estate manager said, we needinvestment that generates jobs at low cost [and] there is land, including Hlane, wherecotton, or a variety of other crops, could be grown. You could generate at relative low costthousands and thousands of jobs.53 So, from the perspective of estate managers, the roadalignment was set, and it had been selected to serve the future development needs of thearea most ef ciently.54

Until Simunye Estates was built, there had been little need to upgrade the MpakaLomahasha section of the road. Mhlume and Tambanulu Estate residents had been orientedtowards Mozambique and South Africa for shopping and entertainment, and thus had littlereason to drive eastward. When Simunye was built this changed. The new orientation was

48 Interview with D. Libsekal Government Planner, 3 April, 1995.49 Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, Report on the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, p. 27.50 Government of Swaziland, Annual Statistical Bulletin, 1995 (Mbabane, Central Statistical Of ce, 1996),

pp. 2627.51 Interview with C. Kockett, Former Head of Tambankulu Estates, 23 January 1985.52 Interviewswith J. Ranger, GeneralManager of Simunye Estates, 18 July 1985;M.Boast, Head of the Agricultural

Division, Simunye Estates, 19 April 1985; P. Hughs, General Manager Tambankulu Estates, 5 June 1985; S.Monroe, Hlane Committee Member, 23 January 1985.

53 Interview with Peter Hughs.54 Ibid.


towards Manzini, Mbabane, and southeastern South Africa. This was because the Swaziwere strongly involved in the enterprise, and because Simunyes managers came primarilyfrom the Durban area, so their natural inclination was to head south. A nal factor changingthe orientation was that Maputo was no longer available for shopping and recreationbecause of the long-lasting war engul ng Mozambique. Simunye personnel thus foundthemselves having to travel regularly on a long stretch of hard-to-maintain gravel road. Asa Simunye manager said, We were attracting a new work force who, quite frankly, werenot enchanted with living out in the sticks and smashing up their cars on what was reallya bit of appalling road.55

Simunye had other concerns that went beyond adding a few miles to their drive, ormarginally increasing their operating costs. As soon as Simunye began operations, it facedlosses of E7 million per year because of a plunge in the world sugar price.56 The nancialpredicament did not make them sympathetic to conservation concerns that would only maketheir problems worse. In addition, Simunye managers saw that a westerly route would deala severe blow to the shopping centre that had been built at Lusoti to take advantage of thefuture upgrade and increased traf c projected for the main road.57 Obviously, a westerlyroute would act to isolate Lusoti, dooming it chances of being a strong commercial centre.These factors motivated Simunye managers to oppose strongly the conservationistsproposal.58 Indeed, as one manager said, [they were] frankly annoyed that the route mightbe delayed or even changed because of concerns over nature conservation. They believedthat for the good of Simunye Estate, as well as the area generally, it was best to tar theroad.59

In the meantime, managers of Tambankulu and Mhlume Estates also came to favour animmediate upgrade of the road.60 Their priority, however, was not a particular route: theysimply wanted an improved road for their own needs. This was dictated by the changedpolitical and economic circumstances in Swaziland and the region, which increasinglyshifted their orientation to Swaziland. Mhlume and Tambankulu managers did not getdirectly involved in the debate, largely because they did not strongly favour one alignmentover the other. In the end, however, they sided with Simunye despite the fact that a westernroute would have been marginally more bene cial to them (the western route was, for them,the shorter route to Manzini and Mbabane). They had concluded that completing the projectwithout delay was most important, and any debate or lobbying for another route would onlynegate that end. Moreover, they were also realistic enough to see that it was more in theirlong-term interest to side with their colleagues in the sugar industry than with theconservationists.61

The Debate

Debate over the Hlane Road really started in August 1977, when conservationists raised thespeci c issue of Hlanes future in the face of the recently approved Simunye sugar estate,and the broader question of how development was to be reconciled with conservationinterests. In a letter to the SNTC, the Hlane Committee made the point that a main road

55 Interview with J. Ranger.56 D. C. Funnell,Under the Shadow of Apartheid: Agrarian Transformation in Swaziland (Aldershot, UK, Avebury,

1991), p. 297.57 Interview with J. Ranger.58 Interview with M. Boast.59 Interview with J. Ranger.60 Interview with G. Maasdorp, Technical Consultant, University of Natal, 26 March 1985.61 Interview with T. Bennett, Technical Consultant, University of Natal, 26 March 1985.


running through Hlane would make it dif cult to develop the full conservation potential ofthe area. The Committee wrote,

that if circumstances permitted it would be far better to have the NorthSouth road skirting theHlane area the Committee understands that the PWD [Ministry of Works, Power, andCommunication] has begun to plan the upgrading of the road from Lavumisa to Lomahasha,possibly to hard-top standard. This would therefore appear to be the time for consideration ofthe Committees views.62

As a result of this letter, the Chief Executive of the SNTC wrote to PWD informing theministry of conservation concerns and asking that both the SNTC and Hlane Committee bekept informed of prospective developments on the road.63 This request was not honoured,as Hlane authorities soon discovered PWD road engineers surveying along the road withinthe Hlane for gravel sources for the Hlane road upgrade.64 The conservationists decided thatthey needed to voice their concerns directly to King Sobhuza.65 As a result, the Kingestablished a committee made up of people from government, the sugar estates, the SNTC,and the Hlane Committee to debate the issue.

As the ground rule for the debate, the King stipulated that consensus be reached amongall concerned parties. If consensus was not achieved, the upgrade could not proceed. Theconservationists were delighted with the Kings mandate because it appeared that the Kinghad given them a veto over the Hlane Road upgrade. If traf c restrictions, such as speedlimits, speed bumps, control gates, or signs, were not accepted as conditions for the HlaneRoad upgrade, they would force a western route.

The Kings directive was without precedence in Swaziland: never before had conserva-tionists been given veto power over a major development project. To bolster their positionfurther, the conservationists took two steps. First, they secured a letter from the Inter-national Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to show that there was internationalsupport for the conservationist position. The letter stated that the IUCN had been followingdevelopments on Hlane for a number of years, and that it believed that such a developmentwould probably be very destructive in its effects on wildlife and should be avoided if at allpossible.66 Secondly, and more signi cantly, the conservationists proposed that an environ-mental impact study and a transportation study be done. Conservationists believed the tworeports, in combination, would solidify their position by showing that irreparable harmwould be done to Hlane, and that a western road was best for the northeast as a whole. Withthe two reports, the conservationists could show good reason for resisting compromise, andthus would avoid being considered strictly as obstructionists. Both studies went forward inearly 1980: the environmental impact study was sponsored solely by the SNTC, and thetransportation study by both the SNTC and PWD.67

The authors of the western route feasibility study knew that they were dealing with acontroversial issue. Indeed, in the preface of their study they stated, Since the co-sponsorshave con icting interests we have endeavored to present the results as impartially andobjectively as possible to assist them in arriving at a decision that is in the best interestsof society as a whole.68

62 Hlane Committee to SNTC on Road Development in the Hlane Area, 1 August 1977.63 J. S. Matsebula to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Works, Power, and Communications , 7 September

1977.64 Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Works, Power, and Communications to the SNTC on the

LomahashaLavumisa Road Project, 8 May 1978.65 Interview with T. Reilly.66 A. Phillips, IUCN Director of Programme, to J. Matsebula, Secretary of the SNTC, 12 October 1979.67 Bennett and Maasdorp, A Feasibility Study of Alternative Tarred Routes, p. ii.68 Ibid., p. ii.


The transportation study assessed thirteen routes: Hlane road and twelve others, alllocated west of Hlane. The study found that: (1) a tarred road was now needed; (2) eitherthe Hlane Road or a western alternative was technically feasible; (3) the cheapest route toupgrade was the Hlane Road; (4) the extra cost of another route to Swaziland would rangefrom roughly E6 to E10 million, depending on the speci c route chosen; (5) an environmen-tal impact study must show that a tarred road causes enough extra damage to warrant theadditional costs of building an alternative route; and (6) environmental consequences do notlend themselves to quanti cation in a cost-bene t analysis.69 The study also stated that awestern route would affect Simunye Sugar Estate most directly. Depending on the routechosen, up to 50 hectares of cane elds could be lost, and trip distances to and from Siteki,the administrative centre for the area, and southern Swaziland would increase.70 On theother hand, Simunye would bene t if an alternative route included, which three of themdid,71 a tarred spur to Lusoti Village from the Simunye sugar mill such a spur was notincluded in the Hlane Road option. The study noted that the distance from Tshaneni andMhlume, areas thought to be vital as suppliers of shoppers to the Lusoti village shoppingcomplex if it were to be a success, would have shorter travel distances.72

The feasibility study, then, attempted to examine the pros and cons in objective terms,using economic criteria: its tone was neutral. In sum, its authors asked the question whichthey concluded was at the crux of the issue: Do the environmental considerations in thiscontroversy justify the additional public expenditure required to reroute MR 3 [Hlane Road]to the west of the Ehlane Game Sanctuary?73 They did not attempt to answer this questionbecause environmental concerns had not been included within the studys frame ofreference: they knew this was to be considered in a separate environmental impact report.However, the consultants did shift the burden of proof for justifying a new route to theconservationists, putting the conservationists in a defensive position from which they wouldnot recover.

The environmental impact study (EIS) came in shortly after the road report, and statedthat the two reports should be read together.74 Its authors knew that the EIS and the roadfeasibility study were supposed to buttress one another: the EIS was to provide theecological and moral arguments, and the road study was to make the technical argument foran alternative route. However, by the time the EIS came out, it was too late to see that theroad consultants had produced something quite different from what the conservationists hadexpected.

The EIS was not as quantitatively based as the road report, although it did try to puta value on Hlanes tangible assets (e.g. culled wildlife). It made the case that irreparableenvironmental harm would occur to Hlane, and therefore likely preclude HGS from everbeing designated as a national park.75 The report further pointed out, as had the road report,that besides the tangible assets of land and wildlife, there were also intangible assetsassociated with Hlane that must not be ignored by the decision-makers: once they were lost,they could not be recovered. These included opportunities for environmental education,scienti c research, cultural and traditional appreciation, and, especially as the countrydeveloped, the preservation of a wildlife site.76 Speci cally, the EIS pointed out that: (1)future development, including a new railroad line, was going to be to the west of Hlane;

69 Ibid., pp. x, 37, 40.70 Ibid., pp. 4950.71 Ibid., pp. 63, 66, 70. Alternative routes 3, 6, 10.72 Ibid., pp. 5051.73 Ibid., p. 51. Emphasis in original.74 Farrell and Van Riet Partnership, A Study of the Impact of Alternative Tarred Routes on Hlane, p. 29.75 Ibid., Introduction.76 Ibid., pp. 17.


(2) a road to the west of Hlane would bene t a far great number of rural Swazi than wouldan upgrading of the Hlane Road (31,800 people versus 8,200 people, with many of the latterbeing relatively short-term expatriates); (3) that the preferred route would be one that goeswest of Malahleni, through the village of Ngomane, and then links with the established roadrunning from Maphiveni to Tshaneni; and (4) a new road would ultimately have to be builtwest of Hlane in any case, so why not just do it now.

Conservationist reaction to the feasibility study was strongly negative. Conservationistshad naively taken it as a given that the study would strongly back a western route. Instead,its decidedly neutral tone had ended up putting the burden of proof on the conservationiststo show that the extra cost associated with their proposal was warranted. To them, the studyhad highlighted the nancial advantage of upgrading the Hlane Road while ignoring thebene ts that would be derived from a western route for Hlane, and the region as a whole.77

As one of the conservationists stated, [The feasibility study] did not take much into accountthe environmental position . It preserved the status quo, so here was something thegovernment was quite happy to accept.78

As damage control, the conservationists produced a statement criticising the two studies.In this document, they attempted to bolster their position by stressing points of agreementbetween the two studies.79 They argued that since both the transportation study and the EISconcluded that a second northsouth route would be needed eventually, the best course ofaction would be to build the tarred, high volume route to the west of HGS and retain theHlane Road as a secondary gravel road.

However, those favouring the Hlane Road upgrade emphasised the road study as thede nitive document: it was objective, it used established economic analysis, and it statedunequivocally that the economic cost for an alternative western route would be anadditional E7 million, which government economic planners did not believe could be nanced.80

Another blow to the conservationist position soon followed when, in October 1980, theAfrican Development Bank (ADB) stated that even the consideration of an alternative routewas not viewed sympathetically because the costs were too high. The ADB discountedenvironmental concerns, saying that any change of plans would be extremely costly andwould likely delay the project for two years. The ADB questioned the consideration of analternative to the accepted route, it is not clear how the issue of alternative routes arose.The extra cost for the cheapest alternative route is much too high and [the ADB] shallbe grateful for a timely government decision so that appraisal can be programmedaccordingly.81 Nonetheless, the debate participants knew the debate was still on, as it wasonly the King himself who could make the nal decision. Indeed, the conservationists stillbelieved that they could stop the upgrade because the King had in place his requirement thatthe project could only go forward after consensus had been reached.

Another signi cant player now entered the scene. He was A. K. Hlope, Minister ofAgriculture, and he had been given the responsibility of moderating the debate, producingthe debate minutes, and relaying the outcome to the King. On 24 April 1981, he chaireda meeting that effectively ended the debate. Signi cantly, the meeting began with noconservationists present. Eventually, three SNTC members arrived to join the three sugarestate representatives and Mr Hlope. The Hlane Committee had no representation, except

77 Reilly and Reilly, The Lion Roars Again, p. 20.78 Interview with J. Masson.79 Swaziland National Trust Commission (J. Masson), Road Development in North East Swaziland (October 1980),

unpublished SNTC Report, pp. 36.80 Interview with G. Maasdorp.81 African Development Bank Telex.


for the one member who was both an SNTC commissioner and Hlane Committee member,because its members had not been noti ed about the meeting.82 This appears simply to havebeen an oversight on the part of the meetings organisers, who believed that noti cation tothe SNTC was adequate. The late arrival of the conservationists proved crucial: before theirappearance, a vote had been taken by those present to upgrade the Hlane Road. When theconservationists arrived, they were informed that a decision had been made.83 Theconservationists, of course, protested the decision, and reiterated that the King requiredconsensus. They expected all of this to be recorded in the minutes so that it would beobvious to the King that no consensus had been reached, and thus the King would force thedebate to continue.

Subsequent reactions to this meeting differed. The manager of Simunye Estates, JohnRanger, reported that because the SNTC members arrived late, Mr Hlope had beendeliberately provocative towards them. He interpreted the Ministers tone as one of pullingtheir legs, as he informed the conservationists a decision had been taken.84 His interpret-ation was that the vote was not a completely serious one, and that the backers of the HlaneRoad were having some fun with the conservationists. The conservationists, on the otherhand, came to see in retrospect that they had lost the debate at this meeting, for it hadallowed Mr Hlope to report to the King that consensus had been reached. One conservation-ist believed that he might have made the fatal error when, caught off-guard by theannouncement that a vote favouring the Hlane Road upgrade had been taken, he asked ifthe sugar managers would now agree to ameliorate the situation by accepting roadrestrictions.85 The sugar people agreed that they would accept such restrictions. Thisappearance of agreement between the two factions, he felt, paved the way for Mr Hlope togive the King a false conclusion about what had really happened at the meeting.

Mr Hlope subsequently reported to the King that all parties were now in agreement onthe Hlane Road upgrade, with no mention made of the conservationist objections. Actingon Mr Hlopes account, the King announced that the Hlane Road would be upgraded.However, the matter did not end there. Upon receiving word from the conservationists thatthey had, in fact, not agreed, the King, on 8 June, called Mr Ted Reilly and Minister Hlopebefore him to give their separate accounts of what had happened at the 24 April meeting.Mr Reilly reiterated that no consensus had been reached. Mr Hlope, when facing the King,admitted that his account had been false, and that, The sugar people steamrolled me intoit!86 Consequently, the King rescinded his decision, demanding that consensus bereached.87 Again, it appeared the King had reasserted the conservationists right to veto theproject unless a consensus was reached.

On 10 June another meeting was called to settle the issue. The conservationists now feltthat, based on what the King had said about consensus, Triumph, on the face of it, wascertain.88 However, instead of restarting the debate, the discussion came to an abruptconclusion: it was reported by the Kings representative at the meeting that the King, as hehad decreed initially, had decided that the Hlane road was to be upgraded. Over the nextfew months, the conservationists attempts to pursue the matter through governmentchannels, and even with the King, failed.89 There the matter stood until 17 September 1981,

82 Hlane Committee, Report on the Sequence of Events Leading to a Decision to Tar the Hlane Road (17 September1981).

83 Ibid.84 Interview with J. Ranger.85 Interview with P. Forsyth-Thompson , SNTC member, 6 March 1985.86 Reilly and Reilly, The Lion Roars Again, p. 21.87 Ibid., p. 21.88 Ibid., p. 21.89 T. E. Reilly to King Sobhuza, 14 June 1981.


when the Hlane Committee made a last effort to reverse the decision. Since they had notheard directly from the King, they still held out some hope that the decision could bereversed. Therefore, they sent a last message to the King stating that because they had notheard from him directly, [The Hlane Committee] cannot permit any road work to proceedon Hlane until so directed by his Majesty. They added that, The Committee is notconvinced that His Majesty has yet taken a nal decision to tar the road throughHlane .90 However, they soon had their answer, as road construction crews arrivedshortly thereafter to begin work. The section from Mpaka to Lomahasha was completed in1984.

Discussion

Since the completion of the Hlane Road upgrade, Hlane has survived, and has beendesignated as a national park by Swazi authorities. The paving of the road, however, hashad the predicted deleterious effects: animal deaths caused by vehicles are high, animaldispersal between the two sections is reduced, and the areas tourist potential has beenharmed the road noise can be heard from just about anywhere within Hlane.91 Despitethis, the conservationists never pursued the matter of road controls when the road was beingbuilt.92

There can be no doubt that from an ecological and tourism perspective, the Hlane Roadshould not have been upgraded, and it is likely that if the debate had come up fteen totwenty years later, one of the western alternatives would have been selected. Thisjudgement is based on the fact that not only Swazilands government but also the ADBhave a much more sophisticated environmental viewpoint than they did in the early 1980s.Indeed, the ADB has expressed regret over the pressure it applied to force Swazi of cialsto accept the Hlane Road upgrade, admitting it had been wrong when it refused to considerthe western alternative.93

One factor that was not fully analysed by any of the parties involved in the debate wasthe social bene t to rural people of the various proposed routes. No one did a systematicanalysis of rural opinions on the road issue, or rural needs. In the feasibility study, forinstance, the only mention of the effects on rural people was,

Any one of these alternative [western] routes would, therefore, provide improved transportlinks for homesteads on Swazi Nation Land as well as for new urban dwellers at Ngomane andpotential urban settlements, e.g., new coal mining villages.94

The EIS gave the issue more weight, using it to make the point that more needed to beconsidered when deciding the issue than short-term construction costs and negative effectson Simunye Estate. The report argued that a western route would favour rural villagersmore than the Hlane Road:

These people must be provided with adequate communication services for their basic needs oflife such as food and health. At present many rural people have to walk up to 18 km to catcha bus to Siteki or central Swaziland. Furthermore, roads create development opportunity and[a western route] would therefore also provide for the agricultural and other development needsof these rural communities.95

90 Hlane Committee, Declaration by the Hlane Committee, 17 September 1981.91 Reilly and Reilly, The Lion Roars Again, p. 22.92 Interview with Dr Libsekal93 Ibid.; Swazi News, 17 April 1993, p. 10.94 Bennett and Maasdorp, A Feasibility Study of Alternative Tarred Routes, p. 48.95 Ibid., p. 23.


However, it must be acknowledged that the EIS only super cially analysed the socialimportance of the road. In reality, the needs of rural people living west of Hlane were nota high priority for the conservationists. In essence, the conservationists had seized upon thisissue as a good debating point, and they had hoped it would carry some weight in the battlefor public support.96

Another factor that worked against the conservationist position was the widespread lackof concern for, if not hostility towards, Hlane. This was true at all levels of society. Forinstance, governmental civil servants favoured economic development over nature conser-vation, believing that, In Swaziland people need land, they dont need game reserves; and,in Siteki, people want a direct road to Simunye, not a route that would take them miles outof their way.97 Rural people likewise did not support Hlane as a protected area becausethey believed that it was wrong to give animals precedence over people. Most preferred tosee it opened to settlement or turned over to the sugar estates.98

In addition, those favouring the Hlane Road had one further major advantage over theconservationists they had more direct access to the King. A. K. Hlope serves as anexample, and, in general, the Swazi Royal family had close ties with the sugar industry, andsaw that the economic success of the countrys most important industry was vitallyimportant to them.99 The conservationists, on the other hand, could never put their casedirectly to the King, and had to rely on possibly hostile intermediaries to convey theirposition to the King. As one conservationist who also had signi cant governmentalexperience said:

It makes it much harder because nobody can get into the presence [of the King] where the naldecisions are made. So, you put your arguments forward and then it has to go a stage further,and when it goes a stage further, and you have no means of presenting it, or knowing if it ispresented correctly, it makes it more dif cult.100

Those who favoured the Hlane Road route likely took advantage of the fact that they wereone step further up the decision-making hierarchy than were the conservationists. Theiraccess to the King, their control over what was reported in meeting minutes, and theirknowledge of how the King worked, and what was important to him as monarch, made itpossible for them to turn around what had seemed like an obviously losing proposition.

The process raises two questions: why was King Sobhuza so reluctant to take a strongerhand throughout the process? And why, despite the Kings obvious knowledge that he hadbeen manipulated, did he still approve the Hlane Road upgrade? As to the rst question, onepossible answer may lie in the Kings health during the time of the debate. By the end ofthe 1970s, King Sobhuza was near the end of his life (he died in August 1982), and possiblywas delegating more responsibility to others. As one respondent said, I got the impressionthat the King was in his dotage and didnt much think about it [Hlane Road]. in fact therewere reports that he was very ill.101 Thus, it may be that the King was generally detachinghimself from governmental affairs. For instance, in 1977, the King had had to deal with ateachers strike and student protest that could not be resolved by the Ministry of Education.In this case, the King had left it to the bureaucrats to nd a solution, and they had failed.Consequently, he intervened personally by summoning the involved parties to a meeting atwhich he presided. Although the King promised that all grievances would be fully

96 Interview with J. Masson.97 Interview with T. Bennett and G. Maasdorp.98 Hackel, Rural Change and Nature Conservation in Africa, p. 303.99 Funnell, Under the Shadow of Apartheid, pp. 213214.

100 Interview with P. Forsyth-Thompson .101 Interview with T. Bennett and G. Maasdorp.


investigated, some people left before the King, indicating that there was now a breech inthe respect for the King that had acted to unify the country through his reign.102

It appears that the King had settled on a style of governance whereby either bureaucratsor his personal representatives would take the lead in dealing with matters of substance. TheKing would set the ground rules, stay detached from the day-to-day friction, and thenapprove a decision based on his ground rules. As one conservationist who was familiar withthe Kings management approach stated, He left it to [the parties involved] to ght, andI tell you we [conservationists] had to ght. As can be seen, this approach did not workwell, whether in the teachers strike or in the Hlane Road debate, where his representativeswere in a position to misrepresent the debate so that even the King could be misled. Inboth cases, it is apparent that people may have been in a position to manipulate thedecision-making process in ways not possible when the King was younger.

Not all, however, hold to this view. Other respondents believed the King was asinvolved as he had ever been, and that the Hlane Road decision-making process was littledifferent from what they had experienced before. As one respondent said, I think it wasjust the way the system worked.103 Those holding this view argued that the Kingsmanagement style had always been one that allowed him to be detached from debate. Hepreferred to let the parties involved produce an agreement, which he could then ratify.104

Hence, the Hlane Road decision may simply re ect a proven management technique thathad always served the King well when dealing with contentious issues: instead of gettingtoo directly involved, he let others argue. Since he was the King, and by nature a consensusbuilder who strived for reconciliation and compromise, he could direct the process whilekeeping detached from the unseemly side of politics.

An answer to the second question is straightforward, and is based on the importanceplaced on the Swazi King being perceived by his people as infallible. When the Kingannounced his nal decision, he stated that, The mouth that speaks no lies has spoken, andtold the world that the Eastern Route may proceed.105 Thus, when the King became awarethat his decision to upgrade the Hlane road had been made public,106 he could not reversehimself or reopen the debate: all he could do was reaf rm the decision and end the debate.

Another issue is the role of outsiders in the decision. The ADB added their voice at acritical moment, and their threat to remove funding raised the stakes. However, they cannotbe held responsible for the rejection of the western route. The conservationists had solicitedsupport for their position from the IUCN, and it is possible that someone had done the samewith the ADB the timing raises it as a possibility. However, the ADBs concerns hadteeth, as the bank intimated that project funding could be in jeopardy.

The Hlane Road upgrade highlights King Sobhuzas management approach of benevol-ent authoritarianism, which focused on gaining consensus through compromise. He avoidedmaking a hard decision by forcing a debate that he hoped would lead to a compromise thatcould never really happen. Apparently, he could not see that, in this case, there had to bea winner and a loser, and that compromise was not possible. Moreover, it is likely that heaccepted being backed into a corner as itself a legitimate end to the debate. Obviously, hewas torn between the alternatives, and thus not strongly wedded to either of the possibleoutcomes; there is no evidence that any of the advisors whose false information he actedupon suffered any penalty for misleading him.

102 R. Levin, When the Sleeping Grass Awakens (Johannesburg , Witswatersrand University Press, 1997),pp. 146147.

103 Interview with P. Forsyth-Thompson .104 Interviews with P. Forsyth-Thompson , T. Reilly, J. Masson, J. Matesebula and S. Munro.105 Levin, When the Sleeping Grass Awakens, p. 21.106 Apparently, the King was not aware that this had happened until after the rst June meeting.


Conclusions

The decision to upgrade and tar the Hlane Road did not fully take into account the negativeecological effects the development would have on the future of environmental protection inSwazilands northeast, nor the needs of rural people living in the more populated areas ofthe region to the west of Hlane. The primary concern for decision-makers was the recentlybuilt, and nancially troubled, Simunye Sugar Estate. Hlane National Park has sufferedecologically and as a recreation site because it received low priority after being protectedby King Sobhuza. Hlanes isolation and fragmentation makes it vulnerable to bio-diversityloss and ecological degradation. The Hlane Road decision represents a continuing patternof decisions that have favoured the regions economic development over nature conser-vation.

Northeast Swaziland has a growing population, with a complex mix of rural communi-ties, protected areas and commercial agriculture. The emphasis has always been oneconomic development, despite the growth of a signi cant conservation area. Signi cantly,the Hlane Road debate gave conservationists an opportunity to make this point, and to arguethat there could be other de nitions of the common good. This issue highlighted for thenation that there could be losers as well as winners when development occurred, and thatthere might be other views concerning the common good.

Despite the conservation loss, the debate can be seen as part of process that has changedthe way land use decisions are made in Swaziland. Now there is a systematic environmentalassessment of all economic development projects and regional landscape planning is at thecore of both conservation and economic development strategy. However, the questionremains as to whether the increasingly sophisticated environmental assessments and ICDprojects, even for southern Africa as a whole, will adequately protect the environment, orwhether, as has happened in the past, environmental protection will be compromised bylarger economic goals that threaten the environment and do not fully take into account theneeds of rural people living in the area. The Hlane Road Debate is a reminder that it isnever easy to reconcile these spheres, and that the environment, even with the best ofintentions, usually comes out the loser.

JEFFREY D. HACKELGeography Department, California State University, 5500 University Parkway, SanBernardino, California 92407, USA; E-mail: [email protected]

Documents

A Case Study of Conservation and Development Conflicts: Swaziland’s Hlane Road