Stop. Think.

39 YEARS AGO After poaching and livestock theft got out of hand, farmers in the Eston region of KwaZulu-Natal united with a common goal.

Are you having trouble with poachers and other intruders on your farm? If so, take a leaf out of the Eston farmers’ book and get together.

You can’t sit up all night, every night. Anyway, the problem doesn’t start or end on your farm. Perhaps your neighbours are thinking the same thing. Get together one evening. Talk it over. Like the Eston farmers did in Natal. They had problems. Next door to a big location, within night-prowling distance of both Durban and Pietermaritzburg and with a large shifting population of vegetable pickers, cane cutters and timber fellers, their area had it worse than most. Buck had all but disappeared. Crop theft was fast becoming a nightmare. The fire hazard was growing worse by the year. Herbalists, firewood collectors and amateur botanists had begun to help themselves by the bakkie-load instead of the traditional handful.

The Eston farmers eventually decided to form a ‘conservancy’ to be run with the help and advice of the Natal Parks Board.

HARD CASH

Dough Woods was elected chairman. As a former employee of the Parks Board, but now a farm manager in the area, he was considered an ideal man for the job. He understood the principles of nature conservation already. But he had his feet firmly enough on the ground to realise that he was dealing with a problem of hard cash and business efficiency, as well as one of rare plants and wild animals.

Eventually all but a couple of very small landowners in the area agreed to co-operate. That gave a membership of 46 farmers covering an area of just under 30 000ha for the new conservancy to look after.

Under the guidance of Nick Steels, Parks Board conservator for the Natal Midlands, and John Devy, local zone officer, the eight-man committee chosen by the farmers decided to employ 10 game guards to police the district.