The Wilderness Foundation South Africa has been a pioneer using wilderness as a positive force for social change in South Africa. This has been achieved by taking political, business and community leaders, as well as historically disadvantaged youth, through our programmes which allow them to experience wild nature – often for the very first time. The Foundation is a not for profit, non governmental organisation (NGO) with the basic belief that wilderness is the foundation upon which society exits. Wild areas are vital to retain our sense of humanity. This sense is often lost where people do not have wild areas in which they can escape the pressures, noise and activity of our cities.
In 1953 when the Natal Parks Board took over control of the Umfolozi Game Reserve, it was clear to Dr Ian Player, then senior ranger, that the boundaries of the reserve needed to be altered to provide proper protection for the reserve and its population of endangered white rhino. So began a long struggle with government departments that had their own plans for the land, varying from cattle ranching to township development. From these struggles, the idea to establish a group of people prepared to help lobby the conservation cause was born.
In1955 Dr Player was introduced to the American concept of wilderness. This resulted in him recommending that half of the Umfolozi reserve be set aside as a wilderness area where people could go in only on foot, horseback or canoe. After three years of deliberation a regulation was passed in 1958 declaring that half of Umfolozi be a wilderness area, with similar a wilderness area being set aside on Lake St Lucia.
In 1957 Dr Player took a group of schoolboys on a trail to spend time on Lake St Lucia and their delight in the richness of their experience in the wild led him to conceive the idea of the Wilderness Leadership School. Although not formally constituted until 1963, many trails were taken out in the intervening years by game rangers of the Umfolozi and Lake St Lucia Game reserves.
He and Magqubu Ntombela, a reserve guide and a mentor, led many trails which allowed local and overseas visitors the opportunity to experience the real sense of the country; the spirit of the land, the tranquillity of nature, the uniqueness and the magic of the wilderness. The wilderness experience affected people deeply, reaching depths of awareness well beyond everyday experience.
The symbol of the Wilderness Leadership School is the Erythina tree – Msinsi in Zulu. It encapsulates the ethos of the School. “The Msinsi is a tree found in the wild and also in the settlements. It is our job to take people from the settlements to the wild and then bring them back again. The leaf has three points and each point contains a message; Man to God, Man to Man and Man to Earth” Ntombela said. Ntombela’s grandfather had been one of Shaka Zulu’s indunas, and the oral history of the time had been passed down to him through the generations by way of the Zulu ritual of storytelling.
Out of discussions and storytelling around the campfires grew the idea of the Wilderness Foundation that would acknowledge and honour the web of relationships, the interconnectedness between wildlife, wild places, human beings and urban environment. The Wilderness Leadership School and the Wilderness Foundation began to crystalise; The Wilderness Leadership School would be an educational organisation, while the Wilderness Foundation would become the spiritual and physical home for those who had participated in trails and would actively direct peoples attention to important conservation issues and lobbying for support and for funding. With the Wilderness Foundation lacking both finance and manpower, both organisations shared the same administration for many years, until in 1995 when the final constitution of the Wilderness Foundation was drawn up and the organisation was finally confirmed as an independent NGO.
Since Andrew Muir, the current Executive Director took over in 2001, the projects which have been run by the Foundation have increased significantly but with the focus firmly rooted in Dr Ian Player’s founding ideals.
Visit the Wilderness Foundation South Africa website: www.wildernessfoundation.org.za
