ABSTRACT The quest to live sustainably with natural environmental resources like the lands, waterbodies, forest, wildlife by indigenous cultural people, like the Zulus of South Africa has been elucidated by several African Environmental Ethicist. The Zulu cultural group’s practices and perceptions about nature include interconnectedness and interrelatedness to (some) animals, plants and waterbodies; spirit permeating skeletal remains of wild animal, spirits manifesting in plants, animals, lands and waterbodies; creatures in waterbodies as ancestral emissaries; some animals as ancestors of certain Zulu clans etcetera. This research explored the challenges of teaching the Zulu Indigenous Environmental Sustainability (culturally-specific) in senior high school Life Sciences curriculum. An interpretivist paradigm with an ethnographic, naturalistic research style, using in-depth conversational interviews was employed in exploring the views of the Zulu indigenous knowledge holders (chiefs (ndunas); diviner-spiritualists (sangoma); diviner-herbalists (inyanga); elders (umdala) and youth (ubusha)) and senior high school Life Sciences teachers. The qualitative data was generated from the purposively selected participants. The study findings which are duly discussed include Zulu cultural values being stigmatized; Zulu cultural groups losing their oneness and their Zulu communal sense; Zulu Indigenous Environmental Sustainability perceived as being archaic, barbaric and superstitious; the demand for proof and experimentation of some of the Zulu cultural practices and perceptions for nature; and challenges resulting from democracy, politics and human rights in present times. The research concludes and recommends that these challenges need to be met in the quest for decolonising school curriculum and educational transformation.

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