Environmental activism is a strange thing ..

 Environmental activism is a strange thing, and creeps up on you. You usually only become involved in any Environmental activism project when the smelly stuff has already collided with the wind making machine. 

I have been skirting around the edges of the Environmental issues associated with the St. Lucia estuary systems, and now feel the need to step into the fight and push the issues of lost fishing rights and related economic impacts. 

These said fishing rights are divided into groups, where indigenous rights,  international tourism rights and domestic tourism rights each need to be looked at separately as well as collectively.

Today I will focus on some of the indigenous fishing rights, and associated matters.  I have discussed these before, in many different blogs, and one of the more important posts is found here   

http://frankie2socks.blogspot.com/2021/06/section-24-of-constitution-and.html?m=1

Section 24 of our national constitution is a powerful tool for every conservationist.  It is a short and sweet section, but very powerful, and rather explicit in it's intentions.  The biggest part of any law is it's purpose and intentions. This always comes to play when one challenges the constitutionality of any issue.

The department of Forestry Fisheries and Environment appointed an independent panel of scientists to look into the issues around the opening of the St. Lucia estuary in Jan 2021 by community groups in the village of St. Lucia, which is the tourism hub for the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage site in north east KZN South Africa.

This committee is has completed  their investigations, (end March 2022) and I did meet with them in November 2021. They have a very tough job, and need to be careful of how they handle the different public perception management strategies of the various role players.  If this committee does not wake up to the fact that the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority use extremely powerful public perception management strategies, then they are gonna be in big trouble. Other groups like the 4u2fish campaign and the Revive St Lucia campaign also use public perception management tactics to push their agendas, and counter the IWPA where appropriate. Our strategies are seen as problematic by some, coz they have had way too much of Uncle Andrews cool aid.

So we need to bring in the BIG GUNS in, and fire s few salvos, just so that the debate can start moving in our preferred direction.  This is all about making sustainable use and gaining consumption tights of the "RENEWABLE NATURAL RESOURCES" as supplied and sustained by Lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia estuary system.

Previously big business ran a prawn fishery which harvested prawns on both the TUGELA banks and Umfolozi banks which run parallel to the KZN COASTLINE  between St. Lucia and Umhlanga Rocks. This venture failed when the IWPA closed the St. Lucia. Estuary mechanically after the Jolly Rubino incident in 2002 https://www.google.com/amp/s/mg.co.za/article/2002-09-18-jolly-rubino-starts-cracking-up/%3famp. 

The mouth opened naturally on 14 April this year (2022) after relatively high rainfall in March / April 2022, but the Umfolozi mud flows have caused problems just as the 1968 Estuary management plan discussed at great lengths. The big question was and always  is "How will one remove the silt after a major flood incident, should the St. Lucia Estuary mouth be closed and the silt flow heads north up the narrows and  into the lake system.

Well that has happened, and been happening since 2002 when the IWPA CLOSED THE MOUTH. Right now the inter-tidal actions are blocked by the silt in the system which is a above  sea level in many spots within the areas that should be inter-tidal.

What are we gonna do ,? 

What can we do ,? 

What options are left for us to take ?

It appears that we need to take legal actions against the minister of Forestry Fisheries and Environment as this person is the responsible person who signs off on the iSimangaliso Wetland park Authority Integrated Management Plan in terms of the world heritage convention act and related legislation.  The Department of Forestry Fisheries and Environment was well awear that this mud and silt issue would arise, but they told us that their scientists have better ideas, and they implemented the 2017   GEF 5 PROJECT, which connected the Umfolozi River directly to the northern sections of the lake, bypassing the natural filter systems within the Umfolozi Flats and the Umzunduzi spill over zones.

This was a very bad move where many local folks made big noise. But they were ignored on instructions from Andrew Zaloumis,. Who was the CEO of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park at the time. In my mind this was a crime against nature, and we can see the results directly today. The water levels at Sunset Jetty reveal the large volumes of silt and mud that have settled in the Southern sections of the narrows, as the levels have not dropped significantly. This channel needs mechanical help to wash out the silt and mud deposits.

The water is not flowing out the lakes northern sections fast enough to scour out the silt and mud deposits. We need serious government interventions and a large scale dredging plan, as well as water cannons to blast the silt free so that it may flow when the tide runs out and remove some silt after each night tide.

Read more about the St. Lucia estuary management issues here

What to do ? How can we force the issue?

Leave your thoughts in the comments and let's see what can be done.

Frankie2Socks

#4u2Fish. #Frankie2Socks #ReviveStLucia