Poachers, Villagers, and Elephants Collide in the North

By CHRIS MAKHAYE

The rolling hills of northern KwaZulu‑Natal - stretching into Mozambique and Eswatini - have become a battlefield where elephants, villagers and poachers collide.

This borderland has turned into a staging ground for both human‑wildlife conflict and organised poaching syndicates. This is happening despite repeated interventions by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and conservation groups.

Since 2022, a number of elephants have been killed in the region. Some were shot by angry community members after deadly encounters, others by Ezemvelo rangers acting to protect villages, and a larger number fell to poachers hunting for ivory. Their carcasses were often tossed into rivers or left to rot on game reserve lands, a grim reminders of a conflict spiralling out of control.

Some of the herds were said to have escaped from a local privately owned game reserve and made their way into the Jozini River shores, wherein they multiplied and started forming into different herds, with some veering into nearby villages, stirring an elephant-human conflict, often resulting in violence.

 In September 2022, Bhekisabelo Nyawo, a cattle herder from eMpondweni village near Pongola Nature Reserve, was trampled to death by a bull elephant while searching for missing livestock. His death ignited fury in the community. Villagers, up in arms, took matters into their own hands, shooting elephants in retaliation. Poachers quickly exploited the chaos, leaving carcasses to rot in the Jozini Dam.

Then, villagers said there were up to 120 elephants roaming freely and without supervision on the shores of the Jozini Dam.

The conflict – at its peak - devastated the tourism industry: boat safaris on the eastern shores of Pongolapoort Dam, once a jewel of northern KZN’s ecotourism, were abandoned after armed gangs fired on tourist vessels, driving visitors away and stripping communities of jobs and income.

Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife spokesperson Musa Mntambo insists the problem of displaced herd near Jozini has been sorted out. “The ‘escaped’ elephant herd… cannot be considered as roaming as they were contained within the Phongolo Nature Reserve and later in the Royal Jozini Big 6 property in Eswatini. Relocation back to South Africa has not yet taken place, partly due to the international boundary and the associated challenges that such presents,” he said.

Mntambo added that much of the recent conflict stems from people entering reserves illegally: “As far as Ezemvelo is aware, any potential conflict… has been as a result of illegal access by people into Phongola Nature Reserve,” he said.

Mntambo explained that that Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife has had to cull a number of these elephants when they had veered into local villages, working together with conservancy organisations.

But villagers tell a different story. In Ndumo, 34‑year‑old Sethu Mathenjwa recalls the terror when elephants arrived about a year ago. “The whole village had to temporarily relocate in fear of the elephants. People only returned home after the elephants had been chased out,” he said.

Ward 12 councillor Zakhele Vilane, whose constituency under Jozini Local Municipality and includes Ndumo, eMpondweni and other rural settlements along the Usuthu River, has seen the damage first‑hand. “Although no one has been injured by these elephants yet, they have caused untold damages to people’s fields and crops. We have not had any incident since the beginning of the year, but late last year they did come and vandalise and threaten people. Fortunately, we called Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and I remember that some of the elephants were shot and others were escorted safely out of the area,” Vilane said.

The crisis is not confined to eMpondweni or Ndumo. In October 2024, a herd of 30 elephants escaped from Mawana Private Game Reserve near KwaCeza, forcing terrified families to abandon their homes and crops.

In the Jozini area, tourism operators are trying to recover. A senior staff member at Jozini Tiger Lodge & Spa explained: “Tensions in the area had brought the cruises along the eastern shores of the Jozini Dam to a standstill. But the situation now is back to normal. South African and overseas tourists love to cruise around Jozini Dam — it is the cornerstone that drives tourism in this region.”

Khumbulani Gumede, a 33-year-old Empondweni village man who knew Bheki Nyawo, told The Quest that some poachers were using their village as a staging place to attack the then roaming elephants, for ivory, but this has since stopped.

“Things are better now since government moved the elephants. It is true that the fences were removed and stolen by some people. But the disappearance of the fence allowed the elephants to go wild and attack people. I can say that from 2015 until recently, whole villages suffered when the elephants broke out into this whole area,” he said. TQ