Fishing in the St. Lucia estuary is a waste of your time

Today, 9 October 2019, I took a drive to the beach at St. Lucia with Petrus Bierpens pens of #BierpensTV and then walked to where the whale watching boats launch. It was such a beautiful morning, unfortunately my finances do not currently allow me the privilege of a camera to take some pics and upload them here.  Any way on the way from Ingwe Beach to the beach launch  location I walked along the estuary side and not the sea shore.

I was once again saddened by the mud flats full of flamingoes and a variety of fresh water ducks and other water birds in the space where we should be fishing the incoming tide. After the recent north east winds which blew the water from  lake St. Lucia into the Umfolozi and Umzinduze river deltas, and this mornings calmness, the water in the St. Lucia Estuary Mouth area was flowing happily from South to North, returning  into the lake systems north of St. Lucia.

Most folks have no idea of the vast volumes of water that the winds move around the St. Lucia lake system, or the scary figures of water evaporation which takes place  on the surface of the waterways connected to lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia estuary systems. When trying to explain how the St. Lucia estuary system should be functioning as a breeding ground for many marine fish species, the current situation confuses most folks, and they battle to understand the connections between water flow and phytoplankton as the primary food source at the extreme base of the food chain.

Phytoplankton does not do very well in standing water, and also prefers a mix of fresh  or sweet water and sea or salt water. Phytoplankton is the primary diet of Zooplankton, and zoo plankton is the second tier in the food chain.  So the fact that the St. Lucia estuary is closed, and there is no sea water mixing with the fresh water from the Umfolozi and other rivers in the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park, means that the base of the food chain within lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia estuary system is dysfunctional and not really able to support  the current biological load within the many different bio zones of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

Very few of the folks that I speak to here in the streets of St. Lucia actually connect the dots between the food chain in the estuary and the food chain in the terrestrial areas adjacent to Lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia Estuary system, or the food chain on our offshore reefs which have just recently been included in brand new MPA's  ( Marine Protected Areas )

Now that these new areas are protected to conserve our fish stocks,  I am truly Confuckumalated, because there is NO mention of JUVENILE RECRUITMENT that I could find.  Most of the fish species that these new legislations are attempting to protect are dependant on a functioning estuary for their breeding and the protection of their fry, before they are big enough to venture out into the ocean and populate our off shore reefs. Many of the reef fish in the new MPA's also consume biological bio mass connected to a functioning estuary such as prawns, crabs and the juvenile fish of many different species of fish and other marine species that breed and mature within the safety of the reed  beds, mangrove swamps and other safe havens encountered in Lake St. Lucia, the St. Lucia estuary system and surrounding waterways.

So taking into account that there are no juvenile fish entering the St. Lucia estuary and lake systems, and that the ocean is not connected to the St. Lucia estuary system, you are truly wasting your ti me, effort and financial resources if you go fishing in the St. Lucia estuary
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Hash tags relevant to this post
#ReviveStLucia
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Your views and opinion

Greetings and salutations to all who read here.

The 4u2fish campaign needs your views and opinions on the issues surrounding the current biodiversity collapse within the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park, which is currently managed by the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority, an ANC APPOINTED management authority, in terms of the world heritage Convention act and associated legislations.

The IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority is the appointed the legal custodian of the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park and other areas of  the Maputuland Coast that have been included into the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, and as such they ( The IWPA )  are responsible for the management of the St. Lucia Estuary management plan, as is envisaged in the ICMA or Integrated Coastàl Management Act and related legislations.

The IWPA has been side stepping this duty and needs to be  confronted and forced to develop and implement a Estuary management plan in terms of the ICMA and the NEMA or National Environmental Management Act

What is your opinion on this matter ?

How do you think that we, as South African citizens, should take up this very complex and rather thorny issue of enforcing our environmental rights in terms of section 24 in chapter 2 of the South African Constitution?

Read more about this view here

Your comments and views will be truly appreciated here.

The 4u2fish campaign needs your help

The 4u2fish campaign was brought to life with the intentions of creating a collection of politically acceptable platforms to tackle the many thorny issues around consumptive tourism within Umkhanyakude.  Now consumptive tourism is just a fancy way of saying tourism connected to hunting, fishing, harvesting of natural renewable resources and related àctivities.  Renewable resources is also just fancy terminology for wild life, fish, and the natural resources used within the local arts and crafts industry.

Help the 4u2fish campaign

Fishing, hunting and collecting natural resources are for some strange reasons,  seen as bad and unsavory pass times, which should be avoided, and thus the folks doing the hunting, fishing and harvesting of other natural renewable resources get an awful lot of bad or negative publicity. The 4u2fish team will have a primary focus on fishing and fishing related issues, but the stories around hunting and collecting of natural renewable resources used in the manufacture of arts and crafts will not be neglected, as this is a very important part, and a large one at that, of the Umkhanyakude district municipality's income generating base. The so called 4x4 ban ( #4x4ban ) changed this, when more than 20 000 job losses within the domestic tourism industry nearly bankrupted the Elephant coast tourism industry.

In the past, the Fisher folks, and their associated crews formed the çore base of the Umkhanyakude district municipality's tourism base.  These are the folks who put bums in beds, purchased arts and crafts, and generally kept the Maputuland tourism businesses afloat and making profit. The Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park Authority and its successor the IWPA ( iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority ) systematically and methodically changed the composition of this once very lucrative tourism market, and ensured that domestic tourism within Umkhanyakude collapsed and became insignificant.

Name changes and the restructuring of the management entities within Umkhanyakude has also contributed significantly to the economic collapse of our local and domestic tourism base. The Maputuland Coast became the Elephant Coast, then the same area became the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, causing confusion within the marketing industry. At the same time the iSimangaliso Wetland park Authority bullied  the local municipalities into submission, and then assumed many roles that should be managed and implemented by the local municipalities management teams.

This strategy has allowed the IWPA to do many nasty things, and the one that we as the 4u2fish management team are most worried about is the blatant mismanagement of the St. Lucia estuary and associated waterways. The knock on impact of a non functional estuary is rather disturbing, and extremely far reaching.  Whole communities have lost their source of income and can no longer sustain their lifestyles. The fish, prawns, reeds, grasses and other natural renewable resources are no longer available for domestic consumption, forcing folks to take other  survival strategies, becoming criminals in the process, due to protective legislations put in place by the IWPA.

 
Help the 4u2fish campaign  your financial contribution will allow the 4u2fish campaign to take up these issues at all levels.