Maloti Mountains
More actions
| Maloti Mountains | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | -29.52, 28.78 |
| Country | Lesotho |
| Provinces/States | Mokhotlong District,Thaba-Tseka District,Qacha's Nek District |
| Area | 11,100 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Dated accessions | 1999 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
The Maloti Mountains growing region is a cannabis growing region in the mountains of eastern Lesotho, near the border with KwaZulu-Natal. It is drawn on the districts of Mokhotlong, Thaba-Tseka and Qacha's Nek. It covers these districts only, not the whole of the Maloti range. In a field study of 1997 the sociologist Laurent Laniel named the three districts, with Berea in the west, as those where cannabis production was most prevalent. He placed "first grade" cannabis, by the Basotho's own grading, in their eastern parts.[1][2] Its growing areas include Mokhotlong.
Geography
The mountains make up more than two-thirds of Lesotho, lying between 2,200 and 3,000 metres. Rainfall there rises to over 1,000 millimetres a year, frost can come in any month and winter precipitation falls mainly as snow.[3] The valley of the Senqu (the Orange) carries the lowlands into the eastern mountains.[3] The central range casts a rain shadow over it, which keeps it dry.[4]
Laniel found cannabis fields across Lesotho in the valleys of the streams and rivers that drain the mountains, the Senqu among them. The main growing regions lay in the high mountains of the centre and east and in the western foothills.[1] Julian Bloomer, restating Laniel in 2019, named the Senqu valley among the main areas of production.[5]
Reports of cultivation
In 1997 the eastern sector of Mokhotlong District, stretching east and south from the Moremoholo river valley and taking in the district capital, belonged to a region known for "first grade" marijuana, while the west of the district yielded cannabis of lesser quality. In Thaba-Tseka District the south and east belonged to the same first-grade zone and the mountainous west produced second and third grade. Qacha's Nek District lay almost entirely in the first-grade region. Laniel called it "the heart of" that region; the mountains to its west produced second and third grade.[1] The grades are the Basotho's own names for the strength they perceive in the cannabis they grow.[1]
In 2003 the Institute for Security Studies wrote that impoverished farmers in Lesotho's mountainous areas grew cannabis as a cash crop, for want of any other viable agricultural product, and that cultivation was flourishing despite regular police attempts to destroy the crops.[6] In 1999 an officer of the stock theft unit at Sehlabathebe told researchers of the Southern African Migration Programme that Basotho sold dagga to South Africans in exchange for guns: "as more Basotho grow and sell it more and more guns enter Lesotho".[7]
A sheet of Cannabis sativa collected by M. Nüsser in the Sanqebethu valley of Mokhotlong District on 8 April 1999 records the plant in "village environs, cultivated fields".[8] A study of 2021 by Kudakwashe Chitofiri examined illicit cannabis cultivation by the highland communities of Mokhotlong District.[9]
Trade
Laniel wrote that first-grade cannabis from the eastern districts of Mokhotlong, Thaba-Tseka and Qacha's Nek went to Durban, often carried by donkeys and porters across the border into the villages of KwaZulu-Natal.[2] In 2013 police and wildlife rangers in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park of KwaZulu-Natal arrested 13 men, believed to be Lesotho nationals, using 30 donkeys to bring 66 bags of dagga across the mountains from Lesotho.[10]
Growing Areas
| Growing Area |
|---|
| Mokhotlong |
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nüsser 4459 (1999) | Nüsser 4459 herbarium specimen, Sanqebethu Valley, Mokhotlong (1999) | Sanqebethu Valley |
Recent news
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Laniel, Laurent (1999). Cannabis in Lesotho: a preliminary survey (Report). MOST Discussion Paper. Paris: UNESCO, Management of Social Transformations Programme. SHS-99/WS/6. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Laniel, L. (August 2001). "Cannabis in Lesotho". Seminar. No. 504. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ministry of Agriculture, Lesotho (June 1995). Lesotho: country report to the FAO International Technical Conference on Plant Genetic Resources (Leipzig, 1996) (PDF) (Report). Maseru: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ FAO Investment Centre. Lesotho: Agricultural Sector Investment Programme. Sustainable Mountain Agricultural Development Programme: socio-economic and production system study of Thaba-Tseka and Qacha's Nek (Report). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Bloomer, J. (2019). "Turning cannabis into cash: agrarian change and Lesotho's evolving experience". EchoGéo (48). doi:10.4000/echogeo.17612.
- ↑ Gastrow, P. (2003). Mind-blowing: the cannabis trade in southern Africa (Report). Cape Town: Institute for Security Studies.
- ↑ Kynoch, Gary; Ulicki, Theresa; Cekwane, Tsepang; Mohapi, Booi; Mohapi, Mampolokeng; Phakisi, Ntsoaki; Seithleko, Palesa (2001). Cross-border raiding and community conflict in the Lesotho-South African border zone (Report). Migration Policy Series. Waterloo, Ontario: Southern African Migration Programme.
- ↑ "Cannabis sativa L., E00313428". Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Herbarium Catalogue. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Chitofiri, Kudakwashe (9 November 2021), 'Matekoane ke bophelo' Cannibis is Life: marginality and survival, a historical analysis of illicit cannabis production by the communities of Mokhtlong District of Lesotho (Video), University of the Free State, doi:10.38140/ufs.16936975.v1
- ↑ "30 donkeys, 13 men and 66 bags of dagga". IOL. 20 September 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2026.