Wednesday 4 April 2018

Sea water flow issues in the St. lucia Estuary, KZN South Africa


St. Lucia estuary is in a very seriously degraded state. The IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority are the government-appointed body that manages the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park in terms of the World Heritage Convention act.

This region was declared a World Heritage site in December 1999, and later renamed as the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, or the IWP,    the IWPA has been mandated by the government to manage the IWPWHS ( iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage Site)  and as such, this is the authority that is responsible for the ecological functioning of the IWPWHS, as well as the tourism business generated through the fact that the area is a World Heritage site.

The ICMA or integrated Coastal Management  Act mandates the state to have an estuary management plan in place for each estuary, and dictates who is responsible for the implementation of this plan.  the current situation is that this plan is not clearly attributed to any speific body to implement,  and we as local residents within the St. Lucia area have no idea who to turn to solve our problems that come along with an ecologically degraded and non-functional estuarine environment. 

In my opinion, the IWPA has failed us, and we need serious government intervention to fix the problems caused by no seawater flowing in and out of the St. Lucia estuarine system as the ocean tides change.   this is due to many factors, with the current drought conditions being the major driver of these problems.

#FRANKIE2SOCKS Has done a little digging and some research producing this report for us at the #4u2fish  blog.



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