A conservationist in KZN is breaking language barriers to weed out invaders
“If I speak to a Zulu person, I speak to them in isiZulu,” says Bheka Nxele, a programme manager for restoration ecology, environmental planning and climate protection in the eThekwini municipality. However, when speaking about plants, he has to lapse into English.When it comes to local names for plants and animals, the team found there was a great deal of confusion.
“If it looks similar to an indigenous species, they’ll give it that name, so they might end up propagating the invasive species instead of a native species. If they want to use the local plant for medicine, they might use an invasive by accident.”“We decided to bring together a group from northern and southern KwaZulu-Natal, the south coast and inland. They each came with their own Zulu comprehension, and we came up with the terms for some invasive species in isiZulu,” he says.
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