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.
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.
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