POLITICAL ECOLOGY 205
SHORT ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
Dukuduku forest found in Norther KwaZulu-Natal is one of the environmental
wonders of this country. The wetland section of this forest is registered as a World
Heritage site by UNESCO. It is thus a prominent conservation project in the country
and one of South Africa’s famous tourist destinations. Like all conservation projects,
social history and discourses of conservation in Dukuduku are steeped in colonial
and apartheid political and economic practices. Despite its colonial origin, post-
apartheid South Africa continues to appropriate this as a symbol of pride, heritage,
and proactive environmentalism. From a political ecology perspective, thus, to
understand the conservation project in the Dukuduku forest, we are expected to 1)
look back into its history to understand contemporary context and dynamics and 2)
the political and economic forces that shaped its existence. What these mean is that
we have to ask questions such as:
• How are the successive conservation projects in the Dukuduku forest
represented both in the past and present?
• What is the social history of this conservation area?
• How does it operate and who runs and controls its operation? How does it
sustain itself?
• Who benefits from it and how?
• What happened to the people who lived in it? Do they still live in the park?
• Who loses and gains from these conservation practices?
Critiquing the colonial legacy of conservation discourses and practices, however,
does not mean that we do not want or need conservations. It only means we need to
frame them within the decoloniality project and transform them to address/redress
wrongs of the past.
ESSAY QUESTION AND GUIDE FOR SUBMISSION
Write a short essay based on these:
• Outline a brief social history of the Dukuduku forest and the prevailing
conservation discourses and practices;
• reflect on this using the political ecology of conservation discourses/practices.
• The essay should address the origin of the conservation projects and the
discourses and the power dynamics that contributed to the establishment and
continued existence of the nature reserve in Dukuduku.
• Your work needs to reflect on these through a political ecological lens, and
draw from relevant theories and concepts to unpack and interrogate the
SHORT ESSAY ASSIGNMENT
Dukuduku forest found in Norther KwaZulu-Natal is one of the environmental
wonders of this country. The wetland section of this forest is registered as a World
Heritage site by UNESCO. It is thus a prominent conservation project in the country
and one of South Africa’s famous tourist destinations. Like all conservation projects,
social history and discourses of conservation in Dukuduku are steeped in colonial
and apartheid political and economic practices. Despite its colonial origin, post-
apartheid South Africa continues to appropriate this as a symbol of pride, heritage,
and proactive environmentalism. From a political ecology perspective, thus, to
understand the conservation project in the Dukuduku forest, we are expected to 1)
look back into its history to understand contemporary context and dynamics and 2)
the political and economic forces that shaped its existence. What these mean is that
we have to ask questions such as:
• How are the successive conservation projects in the Dukuduku forest
represented both in the past and present?
• What is the social history of this conservation area?
• How does it operate and who runs and controls its operation? How does it
sustain itself?
• Who benefits from it and how?
• What happened to the people who lived in it? Do they still live in the park?
• Who loses and gains from these conservation practices?
Critiquing the colonial legacy of conservation discourses and practices, however,
does not mean that we do not want or need conservations. It only means we need to
frame them within the decoloniality project and transform them to address/redress
wrongs of the past.
ESSAY QUESTION AND GUIDE FOR SUBMISSION
Write a short essay based on these:
• Outline a brief social history of the Dukuduku forest and the prevailing
conservation discourses and practices;
• reflect on this using the political ecology of conservation discourses/practices.
• The essay should address the origin of the conservation projects and the
discourses and the power dynamics that contributed to the establishment and
continued existence of the nature reserve in Dukuduku.
• Your work needs to reflect on these through a political ecological lens, and
draw from relevant theories and concepts to unpack and interrogate the
