Karkloof Spa — Ecology and Wildlife Management

Article by Karkloof Spa, Natal Midlands

At Karkloof Spa we are proud to be cus­todi­ans of an extraordin­ar­ily beau­ti­ful piece of land. It is one which reflects chan­ging moods and col­our palettes, accord­ing to the sea­sons, and which sup­ports a large vari­ety of plants, mam­mals, birds, insects, fish and other creatures. Unfortunately, as is the case with most nat­ural areas, it has fallen vic­tim to encroach­ing plants, most of them alien to this land­scape; and to peri­ods in the past, of over­graz­ing, fre­quent burn­ing and inad­equate envir­on­mental management.

For the past seven years, two experts in eco­logy and wild­life man­age­ment have provided guid­ance on cor­rect man­age­ment tech­niques. A major com­pon­ent of this man­age­ment has been the employ­ment of a large team of people in remov­ing alien plants from the prop­erty. This has res­ul­ted in the reju­ven­a­tion of many large areas, and it has been most grat­i­fy­ing to exper­i­ence the res­tor­a­tion of indi­gen­ous veget­a­tion which in turn provides our wild life with an exten­sion of their nat­ural hab­itat. A second com­pon­ent has been to use innov­at­ive man­age­ment on the areas with poor qual­ity grass­lands in order to phase out undesir­able grasses and replace them with high-quality ones. Although a slow pro­cess, this is prov­ing to be a major factor in provid­ing bet­ter graz­ing, espe­cially for the buf­falo and zebra populations.

Internal fences have been removed, drain­age has been improved to pre­vent erosion of the land­scape, Redbilled Oxpeckers have been intro­duced as nat­ural pred­at­ors of the debil­it­at­ing tick pop­u­la­tion, and indi­gen­ous plants have been planted to bind areas around exist­ing dams. Equally import­ant is the cre­ation of mud wal­lows and bare patches for spe­cies requir­ing such ‘mini-habitats’ for their well-being.

All wild­life, the qual­ity of the grass­lands and the qual­ity of water in the rivers and dams con­tinue to be mon­itored on a weekly basis. A pho­to­graphic record is kept of all the gir­affe and rhino to keep a check on per­form­ance and num­bers to ensure they are in har­mony with the envir­on­ment and the resources that they depend on.  A register is also kept of the buf­falo (updated on a monthly basis) for the same reason. A record is kept of all births and deaths of the mam­mals and ostrich, and the find­ings are writ­ten into an annual status report with appro­pri­ate recom­mend­a­tions. Fish pop­u­la­tions are man­aged to provide food for birds (Fish Eagles, Cormorants, Darters, etc.) and the rare Spotted-neck Otters (Clawless Otters also occur); also to feed on a vari­ety of alien aquatic plants which choke the dams.

Vegetation is also mon­itored and man­aged to improve its in qual­ity through mow­ing, select­ive con­trolled burn­ing and removal of alien plants. Areas that were com­pletely des­troyed by the dev­ast­at­ing Cyclone Demoina in February 1984 and by the September 1987 floods are now being rehab­il­it­ated. Access to the base of the Karkloof Falls had been denied our guests for many years, but a walk­way, made of recycled fiber wood, is now being con­struc­ted to enable people to exper­i­ence this mag­ni­fi­cent fea­ture of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.

Green Building Methods
The major­ity of the Karkloof Spa build­ing has been done util­iz­ing reclaimed clay bricks from an unused staff com­pound on the prop­erty. Unskilled labour was employed to chip away all excess cement from the bricks and to deliver the bricks onto the build­ing site.

The spa has been built with a com­bin­a­tion of thatch and liv­ing roofs, the lat­ter enabling small game to walk up and graze on the veget­a­tion. Each build­ing has been posi­tioned in a man­ner that impacts min­im­ally on the land­scape. Buildings nestle in nat­ural inclines, tak­ing advant­age of trees and rocks to provide small havens of chan­ging beauty to our guests as they sit in quiet spots and reflect.

Instead of build­ing one huge struc­ture, the lay­out of the spa has been sep­ar­ated into func­tional ‘nodes’, joined by covered thatched path­ways. In this way, our guests enjoy a con­tinual com­mu­nion with nature and anim­als as they move between treatments.

We have util­ised build­ing mater­i­als that are envir­on­ment­ally friendly, wooden pan­el­ing that does not con­tain form­al­de­hyde in the glue; van­it­ies that are made of wood, rather than melamine; non toxic wall paint; loc­ally quar­ried clad­ding stones; and nat­ural mater­i­als like glass, sand­stone, wood, ter­ra­cotta and stone. All of these have been selec­ted over plastics and syn­thet­ics in the con­struc­tion of the spa.

All grey water is recycled through wet­lands back into the eco­sys­tem. Toilets all have dual flush sys­tems in order to con­serve water. Products used on the prop­erty are all bio­de­grad­able and envir­on­ment friendly. Drainage through­out the prop­erty has been upgraded to pre­vent erosion and loss of topsoil.

Our extens­ive plant­ing of indi­gen­ous trees and reten­tion of one’s adja­cent to our build­ings provides shade to ensure that less energy is used for cool­ing on hot sum­mer days. This also provides col­our and brings much of the incred­ible bird life to the door­step of the visitor.

Products and Produce
On a product level, we have been vigil­ant in our choice of what is util­ized in this envir­on­ment. Spa products, like Pevonia, Lillian Terry and Spa Ritual, have been chosen for their organic or nat­ural ingredi­ents. There are no parabens or sodium laurel sulph­ate in these products.Both in our lodge res­taur­ant, as well as the spa café, Green’s and Teas we source as much organic pro­duce as pos­sible. Our aim is not only to provide guests with the joy of using organic products on their skins, and eat­ing deli­ciously fresh food, but also to enable them to exper­i­ence the tran­quil­ity which comes from inter­act­ing with a healthy building.

As regards the ‘behind the scenes’ products that we use, we have not skimped on qual­ity. This is an area where prop­er­ties like ours are beset with many hid­den costs, and the tempta­tion is to util­ize inferior or cheap products to save on expendit­ure. Our com­mit­ment to the envir­on­ment simply denies skimp­ing. Cleaning products, pest con­trol and guest amen­it­ies have had to undergo strin­gent inquiry as to their envir­on­mental friend­li­ness, their non tox­icity and an absence of harm­ful chem­ic­als. This is not an easy route, but is one which is socially respons­ible. Guest amen­it­ies are refil­lable in order to cut down on pack­aging and land fill. Collateral (prin­ted mar­ket­ing mater­ial) is prin­ted on paper that has been farmed respons­ibly and is accred­ited by the Forest Stewardship Council.

The Karkloof Team
We strive to provide an envir­on­ment where people are eager to come to work each day. Due to the rural nature of our prop­erty, we have needed to sup­ply hous­ing to all our staff. We have made every endeavor to provide hous­ing where people feel proud of the area they live in .

There is always a need to main­tain homes and deal with the issues that invari­ably arise within ‘fam­il­ies’; so we have employed a pas­toral care giver who also acts as liaison officer between man­age­ment and staff. Vegetable garden for staff to grow their own pro­duce, as well as part­ner­ship with local sup­pli­ers of veget­ables is in its infancy phase, but we plan for this to become an ongo­ing project.

The Community
The prop­erty sup­ports two primary schools in the area. To date, we have built toi­lets, con­nec­ted and provide ongo­ing elec­tri­city, as well as main­tain the grounds of the schools.

In the spirit of ‘ubuntu’, we also strive to sup­port our local com­munity. High qual­ity products for the lodge boutique get pref­er­en­tial choice if sourced in the Midlands.  Artists from the local com­munity have been com­mis­sioned to pro­duce art­work for the lodge. In fact, all ori­ginal art­work that can be viewed at the prop­erty have been pro­duced util­iz­ing ele­ments on the prop­erty. A well respec­ted pho­to­grapher who has exhib­ited in the met­ro­pol­itan, New York, was com­mis­sioned to take pho­to­graphs of the staff and the prop­erty. These can all be viewed at the boutique lodge and spa.

One of the neigh­bour­ing farms pro­duces organic avo­ca­dos and cold pressed avo­cado oil. This is util­ized in the pro­duc­tion of the guest amen­it­ies found in the villa. In itself, the pro­cess is an organic one, with people of dif­fer­ent tal­ents and out­look provid­ing the syn­ergy required in this ongo­ing pro­cess. It is our hope that, not only do we provide the guest with an out­stand­ing exper­i­ence of relax­a­tion, com­fort and reju­ven­a­tion; but that in doing so; we are able to plough back resources into the prop­erty, its wild­life and people, as well as our neigh­bour­ing community.

Useful Links:

• Visit the Karkloof Spa Web Site
• Enter to Win a Getaway at Karkloof Spa