Barberton Makhonjwa mountains

FEATURE: BARBERTON

GUARDIANS OF LIFE’S NURSERY ROOM

BY UFRIEDA HO

It was just another passing story in July last year when South Africa got its 10th UNESCO World Heritage site: the Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains.

It should matter more, says environmentalist Roger Porter (BSc 1968, BSc Hons 1969, MSc 1975), one of the people who have worked to secure world recognition for South Africa’s heritage sites. These mountains in the southeastern corner of Mpumalanga are a unique natural treasure, he says.

“It’s the story of our planet’s earliest formation, told in rock,” says Porter. The mountains are the oldest and best preserved sequence of volcanic and sedimentary rocks on Earth. They are estimated to have formed between 3600-million and 3250-million years ago. Back then, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere; there were no continents or life forms; Earth was still cooling from its molten state and being bombarded by meteorites.

Speaking from his and his wife Ingrid’s home in Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal, Porter says world heritage sites give recognition to extraordinary places that are regarded as being of universal value. But their more profound significance is that they can build awareness of humanity’s common heritage. They are reminders of the wonders of the planet we call home and our collective responsibility to preserve it.

“UNESCO World Heritage status means we have something right here in South Africa that is the best example of its kind on our planet,” he says.

In November 2018 Porter was honoured with a lifetime achievement award from the KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Service. He worked in conservation in the province between 1971 and his retirement in 2009.

His love for the natural world started when he was growing up exploring the hills around Northcliff in Johannesburg. He also remembers the impact of trips to the Johannesburg Zoo with his granny. “At the zoo I saw the most magnificent animals, but they were in cages and I knew they didn’t belong there,” he says. He was the kind of child who thought deeply about these things. He also begged to spend time in the Transvaal Museum (now called the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History) on holidays and even insisted on attending a high school that offered natural history as an extramural activity (St Andrew’s College in Grahamstown).

At Wits he majored in botany and zoology and went on to a Master’s in botanical ecology. “Many graduates went the route of becoming teachers, but I wanted to be in the field and to do research in wildlife management and conservation,” he says.

It was at the Natal Parks Board that Porter became the first person to undertake a major environmental impact assessment (EIA). It was 1977 and he says EIAs were a “very foreign idea”. It took him three years to complete the 443-page “doorstop of a document”. The strength of his data, analysis and communication put a stop to a major dam-building project. If it had gone ahead the dams would have flooded the wilderness areas of the iMfolozi Game Reserve and throttled the fresh water supply to Lake St Lucia. It was ground-breaking work, giving conservation the power to affect decisions.

Porter says that in the apartheid era there were strict rules that conservation should not overlap with social impact. “I worked in the communal areas and I knew the dams would affect the most vulnerable people by displacing them and destroying their homesteads,” he says. He wasn’t allowed to openly flag these concerns in his EIA. So he made his point by using the government’s own maps, showing homesteads that would be inundated by the dams. Even the apartheid authorities couldn’t ignore the potential human disaster.

He’s worried that today some EIAs may be tick-box exercises for developers with deep pockets. Unbiased research is essential, he says.

Lately Porter has been researching the yellow-billed kite and working on a book on isiZulu bird names. “How can we deepen awareness of our biodiversity when we don’t know the names for things?”

The dire state of the planet is the dilemma of modern humans, he believes, and even old mountains in Mpumalanga have lessons for us all.

MAGNET FOR GEOSCIENTISTS

South Africa’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site is where twins Morris and Richard Viljoen, 50 years ago, discovered a type of rock which came to be known as komatiite.

The two professors have identical Wits degrees (BSc 1961, BSc Hons 1962, MSc 1964, PhD 1970) and, after lifetimes in geoscience careers, are still passionate about geoheritage and geotourism. Their early mapping of the Komati River valley, in the southern part of the Barberton Mountains, revealed a remarkably well-preserved succession of volcanic rocks unlike any others. These rocks are now recognised as an important part of the history of the early Earth, making the area a magnet for researchers.

An annual highlight in Barberton is a gathering of geologists from around the world who descend on the town to search for clues to understanding the Archaean Eon, when the first life forms came into being and the Earth’s atmosphere evolved.

This year the Geological Society will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of komatiite with a geoheritage tour of the Barberton area.

The Barberton Chamber of Commerce has also created a tourism attraction called the Geotrail, a 40km-long biodiversity corridor between Barberton and the Swaziland border. Visitors are directed to viewpoints with information panels that explain the spectacular geological features of the region.