The Northern Drakensberg Cableway: An Unworkable yet Immortal Development

This study explores the proposed ‘Drakensberg Cableway’ in the Northern Drakensberg. This cableway project is mired in ongoing controversy with both the consultation process and feasibility study heavily criticised. The proposed site of the cableway borders a world heritage site, is within a culturally sensitive area and prone to highly variable weather, including thunderstorms and high winds. The purpose of this study was to garner the views of a mountain user group in South Africa regarding the proposed cableway using a questionnaire survey. Respondents were overwhelmingly not in favour of the development. Users noted several serious concerns ranging from economic, environmental, statutory and political impacts. In particular, the proposed cableway appears financially unsustainable due to low tourist numbers. Additionally, the infrastructure required will have a deleterious effect on the natural environment. It appears that lessons from South Africa’s other two cableways, in terms of economic impacts, environmental issues and weather-related risks, have not been considered. While the provincial KwaZulu-Natal government may punt the proposed cableway as a ‘silver bullet’ solution for the development and social issues bedevilling the area; the project may instead even exacerbate already fraught social and environmental conditions, both at the proposed lower cableway and upper cableway station. Government officials touting this project need to recognise that tourism development in peripheral mountain areas has to proceed within a much wider social and cross-sectoral economic development context.