Parliament pushes for urgent action on Mawana's roaming elephant herd

Daily Maverick

21-05-2025

In a heated and emotionally charged session of the South African Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Environment this week, community members from KwaZulu-Natal's Ulundi region described the ongoing crisis caused by a herd of roaming elephants from the privately owned Mawana Game Reserve.
The session culminated in a set of urgent resolutions, including a mandated follow-up meeting among key stakeholders and a formal report due to Parliament by 7 July 2025.
The issue was described as having escalated into a human-wildlife conflict, with reports of injuries, crop destruction, school disruptions and mounting community frustration over years of perceived government inaction.
At the centre is a population of more than 30 elephants — possibly over 50, according to some estimates — which have repeatedly escaped from Mawana's deteriorated fencing and encroached into communal lands.
Unsafe environment
Community representative Xolani Msimango, a state advocate speaking in his personal capacity, described harrowing incidents that have taken place over several years. He recounted how villagers foraging in the forest had been chased by the elephants and told the story of Mr Buthelezi, a local villager, who was severely trampled in March 2024 and lay injured in the bush overnight before being rescued.
Msimango accused the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, KZN Wildlife and a conservation NGO of systemic failure. He stated that repeated attempts to seek help were met with silence or circular referrals.
'We feel that the government through its organs is failing us,' he told the committee. 'The environment we live in is not safe.'
He also alleged that a private individual, Grant Fowlds, has exploited the situation to expand his Loziba Game Reserve. According to Msimango, Fowlds was neither an owner of the land he wished to expand into nor welcomed by local communities, yet had interfered with elephant monitoring efforts and was raising funding for conservation from international sources while neglecting local safety.
'We have no idea who controls this process, but he is the one who is creating the problems.'
He said the community had made it clear to Fowlds that there was no land available to him to expand his reserve.
'Now he is saying the elephants are in danger of being killed by the community. He is using elephants to (solicit) millions from overseas countries.'
Wildlife agency responses
In response, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife acknowledged the seriousness of the crisis, but defended their handling of the matter, pointing to legal complexities and ongoing infrastructural work.
Vuyiswa Radebe, the Executive Manager of Biodiversity Conservation Operations at Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, explained that because the elephants were res nullius (without a legal owner), the state had taken responsibility for their management.
He said that nine elephants were destroyed in August 2024 under the province's standing permit to deal with damage-causing animals — a controversial move that sparked a national backlash. He insisted lethal force was a last resort following failed attempts to corral or translocate the animals.
As a non-lethal intervention, a temporary 8,300-hectare emergency enclosure was being constructed by removing internal fences between private properties. According to Radebe, only six kilometres of fencing remained to be completed.
However, Msimango denied these claims, saying the fenced area included up to 20 homesteads and that community members had already chased construction teams away due to lack of consultation.
Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Deputy Minister Maggie Sotyu acknowledged these tensions and promised that 'the department will be hands-on on this', proposing daily briefings on the matter and a potential in-person visit to the community. The department also committed to funding additional monitors to track elephant movements and to complete the emergency fence by the end of June.
Calls for clarity
Despite these promises, members of the portfolio committee expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of coordination, transparency and coherent data.
Honourable Dave Bryant (DA) questioned whether all non-lethal options had truly been exhausted, citing the existence of national elephant management strategies that emphasised coexistence. He also flagged the absence of precise data on elephant numbers, asking why an application to collar more elephants, submitted in December 2024, had not yet been processed.
The Loziba development plan. (Source: Loziba Wildlife Reserve)
He and other MPs demanded clarity on the role of Fowlds and whether he legally owned any land in the area. They also queried why a private game reserve's failure had been allowed to burden public institutions and terrorise communities, and why earlier compliance notices had not led to prosecution or decisive action.
Brent Corcoran, speaking for KZN Wildlife, admitted that the enforcement process had been severely delayed due to legal uncertainties following the death of the original owner, Kerneels van der Walt, in 2017 and neglect on the reserve that followed. The estate took years to resolve and only recently did the elephants become legally ownerless. Attempts to issue compliance notices were met with appeals, and internal confusion over the status of the elephants further stalled enforcement.
The road ahead
After several hours of debate, the Portfolio Committee reached several conclusions:
The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Ezemvelo, the Mawana Family Trust, Fowlds and representatives from the affected community must convene before the end of June. The department must submit a written report to Parliament by 7 July 2025 detailing the progress of the meeting, the status of fencing and the management plan for the elephants.
The deputy minister is to take personal responsibility for overseeing developments, with daily briefings from officials.
Several MPs called for a site inspection by the portfolio committee to verify claims, assess risks, and consult broadly with residents, not just one representative.
Parliament wants full clarity on land ownership, the legal authority of Fowlds and whether the fencing efforts are legally viable.
Any future destruction of elephants must be fully justified with records showing that all alternatives had been exhausted, in line with national elephant norms and standards.
Don's view
The situation at Mawana is not simply an environmental issue — it's a collision of land rights, conservation ethics, legal ambiguity and rural safety. It shows the frayed edges of a system where private reserves, conservation NGOs and under-resourced communities are bound together in uneasy coexistence.
As Parliament steps in to untangle this saga, its outcome could set a precedent for how South Africa balances wildlife conservation with human security in a rapidly shifting landscape. For the community in Ulundi, however, the crisis remains urgent and unresolved: 'There will be no fencing that will be up by the end of June,' warned Msimango. 'There will be no elephant that will be secured at any time soon.' DM