Wildlife in Vernacular as a Means for an Inclusive Environmental Sector and Community Engagement in South Africa

South Africa has contrasts between integrative environmental law and pre-democratic social exclusion in the environmental sector. Communicating wildlife in vernacular, sharing wildlife knowledge in vernacular languages and consideration of wildlife according to vernacular contexts, contributes to inclusive environmental management. This wildlife in vernacular approach is based on seven years of mixed methods research which culminates in this paper on reflections of the possibilities attendant to communicating wildlife in vernacular languages. Firstly, community-level research and knowledge-sharing sessions resulted in the creation of an IsiZulu language field guide for frogs compiled specifically for the Zululand community. Subsequently, online surveys, conversational interviews, literature reviews, and DNA barcoding were used to expand on the studies of Indigenous cultural perspectives on herptiles (frogs and reptiles). Through this work, perspectives that are generally excluded from environmental decision making are revealed and capacity building for environmental management becomes linguistically accessible. This article discusses the untapped potential of often overlooked wildlife (frogs and reptiles) in marginalized vernacular languages and ways to achieve the largely unrealized environmental policy ambitions of being inclusive of all forms of knowledge, considerate of all perceptions of wildlife and affording everyone an opportunity to participate in environmental management regardless of their socioeconomic background.KEY POLICY HIGHLIGHTS Marginalized Indigenous cultural perspectives have conservation value.South African legislation provides for inclusion of cultural practices in environmental management.Communicating wildlife in vernacular increases social inclusion and community engagement in environmental management.