the Purpose of the 4u2fish campaign explained

The primary  Purpose of the 4u2fish campaign is to ensure that lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia estuary systems in the isimangaliso Westland park world heritage site are functional, fishable and productive as fish breeding grounds for our marine estuarine-dependent fish stocks

Many varied problems are currently preventing fish breeding from taking place within the greater St. Lucia estuary and lake systems, with the biggest issue being the silt that has accumulated within the St. Lucia lake and estuary systems as a knock-on Impacts of the 2017 GEF PROJECT.

The 2017 GEF PROJECT ensured that the St. Lucia estuary mouth was closed to the Indian Ocean and that the Umfolozi River flood waters would end up settling down (dropping out silt) within the northern sections of lake St. Lucia, and silt up the entire water flow path that connected the estuary mouth to the estuarine lake water in the northern sections of  Lake St. Lucia.

The IWPA (isimangaliso Wetland Park  Authority) were well well aware of the silt problems that would follow. The problem is nobody measured the silt volumes and nobody has any idea of the silt volumes deposited within the Umfolozi River flood plains, the Sokhulu area, the estuary narrows, the St. Lucia lake basin itself or any portion of the entire St. Lucia estuarine system. 

This needs to be addressed with some urgency and now, in July 2022 before the bentonite in the silt can do its job and turn sand into Clay. The vast volumes of River flotsam that has accumulated in these silt deposits will make these silt deposits exceptionally difficult to remove.

This means that we will need to attend public participation processes in each local municipality, and ensure that the financial losses associated with a dysfunctional natural renewable supply chain be addressed and attended to by the IWPA and the related national department of environmental affairs. This may become a long drawn out process, but the 4u2fish campaign intends to do whatever can to fast-track the restoration activities that need to be undertaken:

We thus need your help and moral support.

preparing documentation and proposals for these local municipalities is going to be a very difficult task, and we are going to need all the help we can get. if you are willing to help in any way please contact the 4u2fish team by email at 4u2fish@info4u.co.za

your help will be appreciated, as these are gonna be long drawn-out issues that will have many strange impacts and lots of resistance from the entrenched tourism businesses who are currently in control of the narrative around the sustainable (or any) use of the available natural renewable resources within the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park, with a focus on those natural renewable resources that can generate sustainable incomes for our many different local rural population groups.

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To get out latest newsletter send an email to 4u2fish@info4u.co.za