Talk:Tugela Valley

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Page scope

Tugela Valley treats the upper and middle valley of the Tugela River in KwaZulu-Natal, from the foot of the Drakensberg to the Msinga district, as a cannabis growing area: the Weenen district of 1929, the 1956 killings near Bergville, the fields along the river described in 1997, and the police operations of 2006 to 2017. South Africa's law on cannabis and the national picture are treated at South Africa and Cannabis in South Africa. The Lesotho side of the mountains is treated at Maloti Mountains.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and other reports bearing on the area here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Why the Tugela Valley is a growing area

Koch and Mthembu (Mail & Guardian, 25 July 1997) write of a tour "through the dagga-producing regions of the Tugela Valley", and place fields near Tugela Ferry in the Msinga district, at Weenen and in the lower reaches near the sea.
Eliseev (The Star, on IOL, 18 September 2006) reports a police spraying operation "on the hills of the Tugela River basin, near Winterton", in which more than 260 hectares were sprayed.
Farmer's Weekly (27 January 2014) reports a field in the Emmaus area of Bergville, found by the Upper Tugela Borderline Control unit.
The Citizen (24 March 2017) reports a man arrested while harvesting a plantation in the Potsheni area of Bergville.
Nkosi, Devey and Waetjen (2020) quote the Weenen magistrate's description of his district as a "chief supply centre" (1929) and date the killings near Bergville to 1956.

How the border is drawn

The line follows three local municipalities of KwaZulu-Natal: Okhahlamba (Bergville, Winterton and the Drakensberg foot), Inkosi Langalibalele (Estcourt and Weenen) and Msinga (Tugela Ferry). OpenStreetMap still maps Inkosi Langalibalele as the two municipalities it was formed from in 2016, Umtshezi and Imbabazane, so the line is the union of OpenStreetMap relations 611002, 611003, 611000 and 611024: about 9,900 km², the figure in the infobox.
The line covers the upper and middle valley, where the reports of 1997, 2006, 2014 and 2017 and the 1929 letter place the crop. The lower valley, below Msinga, towards the river mouth in the King Cetshwayo and iLembe districts, is left out: of these sources, only the 1997 report describes growing there, as the lower reaches near the sea. The prose reports that account and says that the mapped area stops at Msinga.
No source maps the fields, so the border does not follow the river more closely than the municipal lines.
Alfred Duma (Ladysmith and Colenso), through which the river also runs between Bergville and Weenen, is not named by any of these sources and is left out; the three municipalities meet without it.
In the west the line runs along the escarpment on the Lesotho border, where it meets the border of Maloti Mountains.
The infobox point (−28.80, 29.78) is the centre of the border, not a field.

Herbarium sheets inside the line

Four herbarium sheets have points inside the line: Hesom s.n. (Estcourt District, 1935), Killick 1692 (Bergville District, 1952), Keswa 777 (Engodini, Weenen, 2006) and Magubane 66 (Mnweni, 2006). None of their labels records cultivation (Keswa 777 gives the plant as "Uncommon"; Magubane 66 records it on a grassland hill slope), so none is listed as an accession of the area.

Growing status

The status is Active: the police sprayed fields near Winterton in 2006 and found plantations around Bergville in 2014 and 2017. No source says that growing has stopped.

Sources

Koch and Mthembu (1997). The site's header credits "Staff Reporter"; the byline in the body is Eddie Koch and Enoch Mthembu. The page title truncates the headline to "The crop that clothes, feeds and and"; the body gives the rest. The account of the lower valley comes from Mama Xhulu, a general dealer whose store stands near the river mouth.
Eliseev (2006). A report for The Star, carried on IOL. The 260 hectares were sprayed in the operation the reporter visited; the 150 hectares were sprayed in two earlier operations.
Nkosi, Devey and Waetjen (2020). The Weenen passage rests on a letter from the Weenen magistrate to the Chief Native Commissioner, Pietermaritzburg, 13 December 1929 (their note 40). The railway depots are listed in their note 42, from a letter of 27 November 1929 by the Assistant Native Commissioner in Cape Town. The account of the 1956 killings rests on A. Morris, "'Weeding out' the nature of the Ngoba dagga raid killings of 1956", an honours essay at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (2011) (their note 87).
Farmer's Weekly (2014). The byline is Caxton Magazines. The yield of about two tonnes is the police estimate for the standing crop.
The Citizen (2017). By Nameera Sarjoo, from a report in the Ladysmith Gazette.

Open questions

Whether the lower valley, described in 1997 only, makes a growing area of its own if a later report names a place there.
The river's official spelling is Thukela; the sources use Tugela. Thukela Valley would serve as a redirect.