Dukuduku Forest - St Lucia:

On the 13 th September 2006, our Chairman, Mike Taylor, our National Director of Conservation, Bryan Havemann, our Lawyer Karl Wiggishoff and Di Dold met with the National Public Protector and senior members of the Dept. of Water Affairs and Forestry in Durban. This meeting was facilitated by the National Public Protector, Advocate Elsabe de Waal.

We were brought up to date on the inter-departmental task groups work, the outcome of which will be presented to the National Minister, after discussion with the relevant Interested and Affected parties (of which WESSA is one), and is to be tabled in Parliament for a decision.

There are two options on a way forward:

•  The Authorities can try and move all of the people out of the forest to alternative sites, but this is highly unlikely to be successful and they will probably just move back in. There is also the matter of a few of the people, who have lived there for many years, and who have been successful with a land claim for a small portion of the forest, and therefore are legally entitled to live there. They do not want to move out.

•  The other alternative, and one that seems most favoured by the authorities, is to contain the spread of people to the area which is already invaded in the forest, (the majority of Dukuduku bar a small section which runs along the eastern side and a corridor adjacent to the Umfolozi river). They would then try to safeguard the remainder of the forest (not sure how this can be achieved) and then formalise their living conditions, i.e. toilets, water, roads, etc. In other words develop the forest. The latter would be done on condition, and under agreement with the people, that they would not extend their impact to any new area, and that the Futululu forest would be totally protected.

•  Apparently, the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park authorities have undertaken to protect the remaining areas if these can be demarcated and fenced off.

•  The two farms which were bought with overseas funding a few years ago, are apparently being developed for the people who are prepared to move out of the forest.

•  There is still a lot of work to be done in terms of quantifying what land-claims are currently still to be heard, land-claims demarcation, economics of the two options, and also looking at how not to set a dangerous precedent in formalising illegal land-invasions. (This is more than likely an impossibility!)

We find ourselves, between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" with this as we can understand that it will be almost impossible to move all these people successfully out of the forest. On the other hand we don't have much faith that the authorities can, or will, ensure that the spread of invasion does not happen to the remainder of the Dukuduku forest or Futululu. We have been told that the problem now has political buy-in and will, but we will wait and see. We have looked at the legal options, but even if we go the legal route, and win our case, the outcome will be the same.

We will continue to be involved with this problem until something can be resolved, and the best compromise possible be achieved under the circumstances.

Sand-winning:

This Provincial Estuaries Committee is looking at the vexing problem of sand-winning which is taking place in all our rivers and is impacting greatly not only on our estuaries but possibly also on the sand budgets to replenish our beaches. We comment on every sand-winning application and object to a number of R.O.D.'s.

We have started the aerial survey of the sand-winning operations in our coastal rivers and estuaries with the assistance of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and the use of their aeroplane. The whole north coast has been surveyed, photographs of each operation taken, sites have been mapped and hopefully the South Coast will soon be covered.

The Dept. of Mineral and Energy Affairs who should know this, seem to have no idea of the scale of the operations as a good proportion of these operations are illegal. There are not enough people on the ground to ensure compliance. Once we have this information, it will be passed on to DAEA to feed into their Provincial planning and taken up with the Dept. of Mineral and Energy Affairs.

Drakensberg:

It is proposed to tar the Sani Pass and we have commented on this. We are now noticing a flurry of applications coming in to develop along this soon to be upgraded road.

Further there is a move to upgrade the Thule Road into a district road (this is currently a private road used for stock theft control) amongst other things.

There is also a proposal for a canopy tour in the Cathkin Valley near the Drakensberg Sun hotel. This we have supported as the company concerned have a good track record and respect the sensitive environment in which they work.

Proposed N2 toll road :

Keith Cooper continues to handle this issue on behalf of WESSA (National). Our proposals for an alternate route inland of the proposed SANRAL route have been well received by all the environmental and social organizations interested in the issue. The next step was to present our alternate route proposals to the environmental consultants as well as SANRAL.

WESSA's submission to the N2 Consultants and SANRAL officials was done at the SANRAL offices in Pretoria on the 4 th July 2006. Keith Cooper and Bryan Havemann attended on behalf of WESSA. Other interested parties attending including Dr. Nick King (EWT) Bishop Geoff Davies (S.A. Council of Churches) plus representatives of DEAT, S. A. National Parks and Eastern Cape Parks etc.

WESSA received good support for our proposed route. Mr.Ron Harmse of SANRAL acknowledged that this route had merit but would be more costly than their proposed route. No cost benefit had been accorded to environmental and / or social issues. This was a major deficiency. WESSA also proposed that there should be no tolling of either route as the disadvantaged people the route was supposed to help could not afford high toll fees.

These issues are ongoing and members will continue to be kept advised.

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