the 4U2FISH campaign is slowly gaining momentum

The 4U2FISH campaign is in place to ensure that the domestic tourism market associated with fishing, hunting and collecting of natural renewable resources is taken seriously by the tourism bodies and businesses within Umkhanyakude District Municipality.

Fishermen and their crews have a bad rap here in St. Lucia and they are not really welcome at most tourism establishments within the village of St. Lucia. This change of attitude by the local tourism businesses did not happen in 24 hours, but was a slow process that was managed and driven, through elegant high level PUBLLIC PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT by the IWPA (iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority) in their very devious and sneaky efforts to ensure that the waters of lake St. Lucia change from a salt water estuary system to a fresh water lake system, so that dune mining may be seen as an ecologically and economically  viable option when the mining companies step into the picture.

Before our area, the old Maputuland Coast, was declared as a world heritage site in  December 1999, as an apparent ploy to prevent mining of lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia Estuary System, fisher folks were the core base of the St. Lucia tourism industry, and were most welcome as paying guests in St. Lucia.  The St. Lucia tourism industry sustained  three caravan parks that were fully functional and full every week end.  If one wanted to visit Cape Vidal over the week end, one would need to be in the line at the gate before 1 AM in the morning, to ensure that you were one of the few allowed into the park, as the numbers were limited, and many people wanted to visit the park.

We need to remember that the area was declared as a park long before the idea of a world heritage site was thought of, and the old NPB (Natal Parks Board ) ran the park as a farm, which supplied fish, prawns and many other natural renewable resources for the folks living within Umkhanyakude district municipality.

in 1998 our beaches were busy, businesses were flourishing and tourism within Umkhanyakude was a truly big thing. The government and big business within South Africa were all excited and looking for ways to expand this impact and increase the economic impact of tourism associated with recreational beach  use.   Unfortunately there were also some folks who had other ideas, like mining.........

Domestic tourism within Umkhanyakude was a truly huge thing, and there was an awful lot of interest in the economics associated with an expanding tourism base connected  with recreational activities and the eco tourism base of our beaches and the St. Lucia estuary system.

CONSUMPTIVE TOURISM was flourishing and everybody was making money.  The home stay style tourism businesses within the coastal belt between Mbaswane and Manguzi was awash with visitors from Joburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Pietersburg and other areas of the Transvaal, the Freestate and the rest of KZN.  Domestic tourism within Umkhanyakude was a big thing.

Unfortunately for us, the big mining companies wanted to, and still want to, mine the lake and surrounding sand dunes for titanium and other minerals.  For them (the mining industry ) to succeed they needed to ensure that the domestic tourism industry collapsed, and would thus be unable to challenge the mining of our non renewable resources within the rich mineral sands that have been deposited over the years within the flood plains and surrounding sand dunes of the greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park. hence the 4x4 ban which did its job and hurt domestic tourism industry, causing some 20 000 job losses

Mining is a short term financial income strategy, but tourism is a long term business model that will employ many more folks than the mining industry, and have a much wider tax  base, that will also be around for many years.  Those who want to mine our sand dunes and water ways within the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands park have understood this for a long time, but have always been looking at ways to get in, mine and leave without spending large volumes of cash on REHABILITATION like they are currently doing  in the areas just South Of Mapelane.   We need to remember that they started mining our sand dunes in 1974, just North of Richards Bay, and that this mining has ensured the growth of Richards bay into the thriving industrial port that exists in Richards Bay today.

So they have been mining our sand dunes along the east coast of KZN South of Richards bay for more than 45 years.  In this time these mining houses have made huge unthinkable volumes of cash, and their options are now running out.  We need to remember that the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park was declared as a WORLD HERITAGE SITE in December 1999, from within the well managed smoke screen of  public intent to prevent the mining of our beautiful tourism destinations along the then MAPUTULAND COAST.  The first thing that the new authority did was to ensure that the mouth to the St. Lucia Estuary was closed, and stayed closed.  The IWPA did not exist at that time, but ........

The Greater St. Lucia wetlands Park Authority was renamed to the iSimangaliso Wetland park in 2007, but this organisation has been pushing hard to keep the St. Lucia Estuary Mouth closed and ensure that the ocean does not connect to the lake and estuary system.  The so called REHABILITATION which the IWPA undertook in early 2017, where they connected the Umfolozi River to the St. Lucia Lake System, by passing the natural filter system of the Umfolozi Flood Plains, has ensured that the lake has silted up, and that there is no way that the estuary will be able to have a natural breach ever again.  The tremendous amount of FRESH CLAY that was compacted by the bulldozers that pushed the dredger spoil into the Indian Ocean  during this so called rehabilitation process is a real problem, as this introduced clay layer forms a PLUG that will not easily be eroded away, as sea sand would have been.


The residents of St. Lucia tried to talk about this during the public participation process but were closed down very quickly by the scientific component of the IWPA  estuary management team.  I have been saying that the IWPA is preparing the St. Lucia Estuary and lake systems for mining for some time now, as the mining technology does not allow for mining in a saline (salt water ) system, and thus the new fresh look of the lake and estuary system is good for the mining industry.

Then there are the many cases where the IWPA closed down the informal home stay / back yard camp sites within the Umhlabuyalingana and BIG 5 / Hlabisa municipalities. This happened in a very sneaky and devious manner around the same time that the 4x4 ban was introduced. This process coincided with the very big drive by the national government to close down coastal tourism businesses that did not conform to unrealistically high criteria that  they demanded. The Transkie coastal belt suffered extensive losses within their rather active tourism industry which collapsed as a result of these rather nasty closures of informal and semi formal tourism businesses.

With some hind sight and lots of digging around to try and discover where our business within Umkhanyakude disappeared to when our beaches were closed to reasonable motor vehicle traffic way back in 2001 / 2002, one can very easily join the dots and come to some rather disturbing conclusions.  The Occasional Paper 20  by KZN Tourism which discusses the losses associated with the #4x4ban, alledges that more than 20 000 folks within Umkhanyakude district municipality  lost their economic opportunities as a knock on impact of the 4x4ban, and goes on to say that more research is needed as there appear to be other mitigating circumstances which they were unable to pinpoint with the limited budget and resources at their disposal.

The fact that international tourism boomed and flourished after the area was declared a world heritage site, was expected, and if this did not materialise, then something would be very wrong.  The collapse of the domestic tourism market within Umkhanyakude district municipality on the other hand, was caused by the mismanagement of the physical environment  and related renewable resources through the actions, activities, policies and management style of the IWPA.

These  guys  (The IWPA ) have no intention of ever fixing the ecological problems  and economic impacts associated with a dysfunctional estuary 

Please comment here and leave your views and opinions

#Frankie2Socks #4u2fish

St. Lucia Estuary Management Plan and the iSimangaliso wetland Park Authority

The iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority ( IWPA ) is the  government appointed legal entity put in place in terms of the World Heritage convention Act.

The original appointee was the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park Authority, and the name change ( for marketing purposes) has confused many folks, allowing the IWPA to usurp a whole range of powers and functions which they should not have in the first place.

The IWPA as the legal custodians of the iSimangaliso Wetland park World Heritage Site inherited all the below listed items and many others when the Authority was renamed

• Duties 

• Obligations

• Functions

•  Rights 

•  Legal  responsibilities

 These above mentioned issues are not to be confused with normal working issues or conditions of any legal entity, and the IWPA is not a special body which is above the law as they would have you believe. The IWPA is currently acting and behaving in a very unacceptable manner, bullying the Umkhanyakude District municipality and it's Local municipalities in many strange and devious ways, making it extremely difficult to get things done within the Umkhanyakude District Municipality tourism industry and related economic spaces

The main issue for me personally is the current ( October 2019 ) situation surrounding the management of the St. Lucia estuary and surrounding waterways. The IWPA have adopted a " Let nature take its course attitude" and this is causing many true economic hardships to unravel within Umkhanyakude District Municipality.

EDIT : 2 November 2019 ----  I discovered this link to a plan which appears to be an Estuary Management Plan for the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority here.  there are no dates, or addresses so not sure about this, but .....   They do not respond to my emails from the email addy admin@info4u.co.za   so   perhaps you can contact them and ask if this is an official plan or what is the story....

The folks on the ground who were dependent on the fish, prawns and other renewable resources supplied by the lake and surrounding waterways are in real serious economic distress. The Domestic tourism industry is about to have a total melt down, as the tourism connected to the biological functioning of the St. Lucia lake systems and associated waterways is missing from the Umkhanyakude District Municipality economic opportunity base.

The 4u2fish campaign has thus taken a legal view on these issues, and is in the process of taking legal actions against the IWPA.   It al starts with an #openLetter to the IWPA requesting elementary and basic information through the mandated public participation process meetings, as dictated in the national environmental management act , and subsurvient legislations such as the  integrated coastal management act.

What are your views .... ????

Please use the comments below to air your views.

Please share this further so that we may expand the conversation to include the relevant folks, and find a workable solution.

#Frankie2Socks for the #4u2fish Campaign

My first garric caught at Mapelane

On Teusday  10 September 2019 I took a small walk ( about 3 Km ) from St. Lucia to Mapelane and fished the bay at Mapelane itself. There were a few shad coming out, so I decided to swim one. This has a common name among fishermen called walking the dog. I was quite lucky and had a good pick up in less than five minutes, but this fish was lucky and escaped during the pick up stage.

Feeling depressed, I caught a second shad and swam that too.  Once again my bait was in the water less than five minutes before I had a second pick up.  This fish was also lucky and after about ten minutes of serious arguing it just spat my hooks out. I was now really depressed, but as I got back a holiday maker, fishing in the bay at Mapelane came up and gave me a fresh shad, and said better luck on the third attempt.  This fish was rather lively, and swam a bit deeper than the first two, but in less than five minutes I was on with the third pick up.

This fish felt a bit smaller than the second fish, but really gave me gears. This fish ran quite hard and stretched my line quite well.  This fish really gave me a good work out and had two more  good runs before it started to tire out. We argued for about ten minutes, then she started coming in little by little. I walked up the beach to give me the advantage of the stretch in the nylon, and slowly forced the fish into the wash zone of the long beaches that we currently have along the shore line here in the St. Lucia area. I loosened the drag just a small touch, coz this is the zone where most anglers snap up, as the fish gives a serious spurt of energy when the wash is receding, so one needs to be very careful.

This fish held true to all past experiences, and tried to use the wash against me, but I was ready, and the fish lost. This wash zone is always a problem for inexperienced fishermen, and many do not keep enough pressure on the line,  simply try to reel up the slack  as the waves push in.  This is a serious error, and one must simply walk or if the waves are a bit fast,  run backwards, keeping the pressure on the line, ensuring that there is no chance of slack line, as this can allow your hook to dislodge, and your fish to escape. At this stage one needs to be real careful not to put too much pressure on the fish, coz your line may snap, or the hook pull loose.

The guys fishing with braid need to be more careful  here, due to the fact that braid has zero stretch, and a snap off can occur as the fish uses the power of the receding water very efficiently. I personally do not fish with braid simply because it has no stretch.  Others enjoy the fact that there is no stretch, and that is their personal preference. The stretch of your line is the key to keeping pressure on the fish as each new wave pushes the fish closer to the beach, and you as the angler need to use the power of the wave to bring the fish up the wash zone, and understand the the fish will use this same power to get back over the lip and into deeper water.  By ensuring that you keep pressure on the fish and hold it in the wash zone as it gets shallower, robbing the fish of the advantage of deeper water as its belly touches the sand.

Do not ever let this fool you as a fish swimming on its side still has immense power, but the sand will stop the fish once the water recedes enough.  A fish on the sand is not in the bag, and very often the next wave will have your fish swimming again, and this time with much more vigour, as it understands that this is a life and death situation, so be prepared, and do not take tension off the line until somebody has got hold of your fish and is running up the beach with fish in hand.

This garric weighed in  at just over seven kilograms ( 7.4 ) and when gutted proved to be a female with eggs. I do not do the tag and release thing, as I catch fish for the pot, if not mine, then some body else will enjoy cooking and eating what I catch.

Any way enough bragging about the fish I caught, and now for a request of help to get the 4u2fish campaign some social media coverage and some positive public perception  management points. The #4u2fish campaign is all about returning consumptive tourism to the South African coast line. Our initial focus at the 4u2fish campaign will be on the Elephant Coast region, which was previously called the Maputuland Coast. Since the IWPA ( ISIMANGALISO WETLAND PARK AUTHORITY ) took over the management of the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park way back in December 1999 things have slowly changed for the worse with the IWPA being anti domestic tourism, and promoting international tourism at the expense of us as South Africans, causing many serious issues including the loss of more than 20 000 jobs, as a consequence of bad management decisions and related community anger.

This anger is slowly building up and the management of the IWPA just simply brush it off and carry on regardless.  The 4u2fish campaign aims to stop the IWPA in their tracks, and reverse the anti domestic tourism drive that they have been running since they stepped into the picture.  The local population of Umkhanyakude District Municipality is reliant on the passing trade associated with domestic tourism,  so bringing back consumptive tourism is a big issue, as this is basically the domestic tourism market.

Your help in talking about this and getting the topic of consumptive tourism out there in the social media will be appreciated.

Thanx for reading my blog. Please subscribe and should you have any questions contact me directly at frankie2socks@info4u.co.za or leave a comment here.

Sorry guys, but my old tablet wont publish the pic, I will get the pic published from another device just as soon as I can.   

Will Andrew Zaloumis be criminaly charged for neglecting Lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia Estuary system ?

The latest news here today, Tuesday 05 September 2017 is that Uncle Andrew, or Andrew Zaloumis has resigned from his position as CEO of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage site.  This is good news for some folks and bad new for some others. Those who have been the recipients of his good favours may be not too happy, but many South Africans, specifically those who  want to go fishing and enjoy our beautiful golden beaches along the Elephant Coast of KZN South Africa, are thrilled beyond belief that this tyrant has stepped aside.

Andrew Zaloumis as CEO of the IWPA has caused many hardships and cost the Elephant Coast dearly. In 2004 KZN Tourism issued an OCCASIONAL PAPER (#OccasionalPaper20 ) discussing the loss of 20 000 jobs caused by the knock on impacts of the 4x4 ban ( 4x4 ban blog ) #4x4ban  this document makes it very clear that these losses are huge and need government interventions.   Uncle Andrew on the other hand convinced the powers that be that the increase in INTERNATIONAL TOURISM would off set these losses and so they were ignored.

Problem is that the INTERNATIONAL TOURISM did not materialize, and the numbers are still (September 2017) well below the safety thresh hold with most tourism businesses within St. Lucia battling to make ends meet.  There are how ever a select few who have been hand picked by #UNCLEANDREW to make big returns on investment within the exclusive up-market international tourism sector. The losses within the domestic  tourism market were predicted, and intentionally side- lined with Good PUBLIC PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT  and bad intent perhaps even criminal intent on the part of the board of trustees at the IWPA  under the direct supervision and instructions from #UNCLEANDREW as CEO of the iSimangalsio Wetland Park Authority.

This document outlines just how well documented the predicted losses within the Elephant Coast Tourism sector was .  These predicted losses were deliberately ignored, as per linked document, and today the village of St. Lucia is nearly bankrupt,     and the tourism flow figures are way below those
of 1997-1999.  Once #UNCLEANDREW too over as CEO of the #IWPA (iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority) things went south, coz this fella was hell-bent on changing the face of tourism to suit the needs of the eleite, and exclude us as commoners or ordinary south African citizens.

Prices skyrocketed, and the tourism market changed its colours under Andrew Zaloumis as CEO of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority.  Lake St. Lucia itself was just a pawn in #UncleAndrew 's plot to break / destroy the domestic tourism market along the Elepehant Coast of KZN South Africa as this would put him in a good place to manage the upper market international tourism trade in a very nasty and self cemterd way, where few would get rich and many would suffer bankruptcy.

take your time and do the home work yourself.  Me telling you that #UNCLEANDREW was bad is not going to help, as nearly every person I speak to has been subject to the #IWPA public perception management strategy that makes the CEO (  #UNCLEANDREW ) look good and right for the job.  How ever once one gets on the ground and talks to the folks who have lost their livelihoods one sees a very different picture.  Problem is that the news papers and other media are afraid of government reprisals, should they say anything untoward.  #UncleAndrew and his team within the inner workings of the ANC have ensured that the truth is well hidden and buried under so much red tape that those looking soon give up.  

Problem is that nature reveals all, and the natural ecosystems within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park are now about to be revaled for what they are....   A DISASTER ZONE and not a paradise as the IWPA and associates have been trying to convince the public.

It is my personal opinion that Andrew Zaloumis should be held criminally liable for the loss of habitat and breeding grounds for marine species within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage site.

Where to from here ?  Well I suggest that you read this blog next, before making any decisions...