Cati Vawda, Thembani Luthuli, Mbalenhle Zulu, Tanya Dayaram & Yousuf Vawda.
About photo: it is our, referred to in the text, first NJ Outing at Palmiet Nature Reserve as Durban NJ Club - People from Left-Right: Mbali Zulu, Cati Vawda, Thembani Luthuli and his 4 yo daughter Sesethu
The Nature Journal South Africa community first met as the Durban Nature Journal Club in March 2018, at the Palmiet Nature Reserve - a suburb of Durban, South Africa. Although there were four of us on that day, many others were vital to that first and later gatherings. This is the story of our journey to the present - currently a network of more than 60 individuals.
Beginning our journey
During 2010, Cati Vawda and Thembani Luthuli started to re-wild a suburban lawn in Durban. The space is part of the Indian Ocean Coastal Forest biome from which it had been carved. Together we learned which plants were indigenous to this local patch and nurtured them. We learned which plants were invasive or exotic, and removed them. We continue to remove plants harmful to the habitat and the ecosystems it supports. After a few years of removing the lawn and planting locally indigenous plants, we left the habitat to develop on its own. A sliver of wild.
We began nature journaling in a process of shared learning and stewardship during the rehabilitation process. At first, we did not have a name for it. Then around 2014, we found the term - nature journaling – through John Muir (aka Jack) Laws’ online workshop videos. The term described much of the way of we were connecting with nature: observing, recording, asking and seeking answers to questions, connecting learning with active stewardship. The idea took hold, and the term became a tool. This tool transformed our connections with nature and other people.
How NJ changed our connection with nature
Thembani explains this change:
“We did not take nature serious before (nature journaling). Nature was just nature, nothing was noticed about living or non-living things. Working as a gardener, we (Cati and I) learned a lot about garden and plants. From plants and the garden, we started noticing things like insects and other things. That is where our nature journaling started.”
He explains how he sees nature since starting nature journaling:
“Nature is good, beautiful, fun and exciting.”
Cati’s starting point was different, but came to a similar place:
“Nature has always been an important part of my life. Growing up, I enjoyed the benefits of nature typical of my White middle-class privilege – nature as recreation - safely and easily available. I grew up in the wooded and stream-laced outreaches of suburban United States, beyond the reaches of a heavily polluted city. Here, nature was infused in every aspect of my life.
My relationship with nature changed as I moved to different parts of the world. Though I appreciated the beauty, I was unable to “read nature”. Nature was present, important, but undifferentiated, unnamed and unknown. I wanted to feel connected with what I saw, heard, smelled and sensed. It is only more recently that I am learning about the long natural and human history of Durban and South Africa which is now my home. Nature journaling has enabled me to connect with nature locally, first with Thembani and later with others including Mbali Zulu.”
Mbali Zulu and Cati are neighbours. They met through Mbali’s grandmother, Nomusa Zulu, with whom Mbali lives. Mbali explains how nature journaling deepened her connection with nature:
“I have always been into flowers. My father gave me a beautiful name which is Mbalenhle, and Mbalenhle means a beautiful flower in Zulu. I wanted to know why my father was intrigued by flowers. I was never interested in other parts of nature.
I started nature journaling in 2016. I was interested in finding out more about plants, flowers and their different names and a whole lot more. This is when I met Aunty Cati, I asked her to help me find a specific plant. I knew she would be more than willing to help me, and she was indeed. Later on, we spoke about nature journaling. She asked if I would be interested and indeed, I was.
Now my relationship with nature has grown so much, I notice every little thing when I’m walking to school or when I’m in a taxi going somewhere with my gogo (grandmother). I’m so aware of everything, and it feels so good when I just know more about nature, and I love it.”
Mbali Zulu sums up the benefits of nature journaling for us as individuals:
“For me it was finding a way to engage with nature and relaxing, breathing is something I learnt in nature journaling. Being able to see nature on another level was great. It was way bigger than just seeing trees, grass, flowers and all the different animals. It’s way greater than that, we just have to look for it.”
First Steps towards Community
About photo: Nature Journal Outing at Japanese Gardens, Durban, South Africa. People from front and clockwise to back and around: Tanya Dayaram, Cati Vawda, Bongani Chisale, Yousuf Vawda and Lisa Dayaram
When Mbali and Cati looked for that first plant together, Mbali’s enthusiasm and joy at learning about plants came through strongly, energising both of us. It built on the experiences of Thembani and Cati as nature journal buddies, and with members of the Palmiet Nature Reserve team: S’thembile Ngobese, Nolwazi Mbatha and Mbali Zuma. We all wanted to improve our nature journaling skills and to explore local nature-rich spaces together.
The more we nature journaled, the more we experienced the need for a local nature journaling community.
Before 2018, nature journaling was not widely known in South Africa. We had not found a nature journaling group, or anyone willing to organise regular activities in South Africa, or even on the continent! We wanted to support each other, to share progress and problems, to learn from others with a common interest in journaling, nature, wildlife, ecosystems, and environmental justice.
Foundations of our community
We all want to respect nature and each other. Our code of conduct (The Nature Journalers’ Code of Conduct) is common ground to guide us in putting respect into practice. It is central to the foundations on which we are building our community.
It includes the following:
WHO - Anyone and everyone
All ages, genders, identities & descriptions.
All languages, cultures & beliefs.
All economic conditions & social circumstances.
All abilities, types and levels of education and training, skills, knowledge & experiences.
Connecting people in and across all communities from remote rural areas to townships to dense cities.
WHY
To support individuals and groups to develop and deepen their nature connections.
To redress environmental injustice by connecting us as people, and as people with place through the common tool of nature journaling.
To encourage actions to protect and heal the environment.
HOW
By slowing down and showing up for nature.
By learning about nature from nature, linking bush to books and research, and nature connection to actions through which we serve as eco-stewards.
Through personal, professional and programmatic nature journaling.
By paying it forward, and sharing with dignity not charity.
By being respectful of different ways of knowing: scientific, cultural, linguistic, beliefs and traditions including learning about the histories of how we have created knowledge in diverse contexts.
In May 2019, we started a website with a focus on South African - and Southern Hemisphere - specific resources. The website also serves as an entry point to the many resources available globally. In the process we changed our name to Nature Journal South Africa. The blog provides a platform for members share their experiences. Marianne de Jager’s post beautifully describes how a visit to Qunu connected nature journaling with conservation. Lee Dickson’s post shares her reflections on lichen as a metaphor for our community.
We encourage nature-focused groups and programmes to integrate nature journaling into their activities. This includes promoting the revival of field notes by professionals, nature guides, scientists, artists, writers, musicians, language and culture activists. This hope has been realised with the local Durban bird club BirdLife Port Natal, the KwaZulu-Natal branch of Botanical Artists Association of Southern Africa and Wildlife ACT Community Conservation Programme.
Group around table: Community Conservation Team, Wildlife ACT, introducing nature journaling for conservation education programmes with young people.
Sign with name of specific location.
Reflections on our Journey
As a community of nature journalers, we reach out to all people, to embrace the world, and our places in these spaces. We prioritise nature journaling involving people historically and systematically excluded from and dispossessed of land, and facilitate access to nature-rich spaces.
The history of nature-rich, protected wild spaces, and membership in conservation and nature groups in South Africa is predominantly White and often middle-class. Indigenous, Black and Brown peoples were systematically and forcefully removed from these spaces, and then denied access to them. Indigenous, Black and Brown peoples’ present and historical knowledge of nature and their contributions to science is minimised or ignored. These are some of lasting effects of apartheid and colonialism which keep South Africans separated by race, language, economics and power.
“The nature journaling community is important.
It brings us together from different races, communities and backgrounds.” - Thembani
Skills Building session at Durban Botanic Gardens. People from front left and clockwise: Nolwazi Mbatha, Cati Vawda, Lee Dickson and Yousuf Vawda
Imagining a Different Future
Since the beginning of the 2020, our ways of living have changed fundamentally. For many, including NJSA members, outings are on hold. We stay in contact online and support each other to connect with nature through nature journaling, to find peace, reprieve and restoration. Looking back, we have experienced how nature journaling profoundly enriches our lives. During these uncertain and difficult times, it relaxes and calms us. It has fulfilled the promise of inner peace and quiet by meaningfully connecting us with and as part of nature.
The values that guided us from the start, continue to be essential to our nature journaling practice, as individuals and as a community. Nature journaling helps our mental, physical and social health whatever our circumstances. During these difficult times, nature journaling continues to connect us as individuals and as a group. The NJSA community continues to connect through a chat group during lockdown. It gives us a relatively inexpensive way to communicate without internet access.
“I think that the (our) group is very successful because of the chat. I live a really long way away. And it is such an important link.” - Snooks Cole
We support each other by sharing stories, inspiration, encouragement and laughter. The #NJSA_lockdown_edition initiated by Tanya Dayaram, a member of NJSA, displays the collective of shared pages and posts during the March to May period of lockdown in South Africa. To view it, see this blog post.
The COVID-19 pandemic has given us a global magnifying glass for the human costs and harm from our ongoing destruction of nature and wild spaces. It has brought into focus the inequities on which our “normal” was based, as well as the histories that created these realities. Some of us are able to shelter at home, to look onto or walk in gardens or along streets, masked and safely distanced. The majority of people in South Africa, and in many parts of the world, live in crowded areas, without adequate water, sanitation, food or telecommunications such as internet or mobile access. Our challenge for the future is how we, as nature journalers, contribute to create diverse communities and a society that is compassionate, healthy, just, equitable and sustainable for both humans and other life forms, as well as for the many habitats - which make up this planet - our only home.
On behalf of Nature Journal South Africa
Cati Vawda
Thembani Luthuli
Mbalenhle Zulu
Tanya Dayaram
Yousuf Vawda
Please note that all photos were taken pre-COVID, before social distancing and masks were part of being safe and keeping others protected.