Umfolozi River

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The Mfolozi Rivers are seen converging on southern iSimangaliso Wetland Park

The Umfolozi River (also uMfolozi, Imfolozi or Mfolozi) is a river in KwaZulu-Natal, a province of South Africa. It is formed by the confluence of the Black (Imfolozi emnyama) and White Umfolozi (Imfolozi emhlope) Rivers near the south eastern boundary of the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve. The isiZulu name imFolozi is generally considered to describe the zigzag course followed by both tributaries, though other explanations have been given.^[1]

The river flows in an easterly direction to the Indian Ocean at Maphelana, a coastal resort just south of the St Lucia River mouth. It originally meandered over the Monzi Flats where it split into numerous slow flowing channels before entering the St. Lucia Estuary at Honeymoon Bend. The slow moving water and reed beds in channels operated as a natural filtering system that removed silt from the Umfolozi floodwaters.

During the 1950's the Umfolozi Landowners Association contained and artificially channeled the river through the Monzi Flats to make way for sugarcane farms. The new Umfolozi canal resulted in the unfiltered water depositing its silt load after entering the slower moving St. Lucia Estuary. This caused the estuary mouth to rapidly silt-up, there had only been one record of this occurring until that time, during the sustained drought in the 1930's.

A costly dredging operation was started in the estuary mouth area, but proved ineffective. After years of dredging the next plan was to prevent the Umfolozi River from entering the St Lucia estuary. The Umfolozi River was then canalized straight out to sea at Maphelana. The impact of this decision is still felt today, the silt plume from the river is often blown by strong south winds as far north as Sodwana Bay, 100km away. The coral reefs and the good snorkeling experienced at Cape Vidal are also in jeopardy.