Let's get the 4u2fish campaign working

 Greetings from Frankie2Socks on this over caste  8 day of February 2024.

I have been a bit reluctant to push the 4u2fish campaign very hard, but after lots of thought and a few different conversations with independent thinking people and many folks here in St. Lucia, I have eventually decided to push the 4u2fish campaign into action.

The focus has shifted slightly, and the intentions, aims, objectives and purpose are a bit better defined, so outside folks will feel an awful lot better about many different aspects of the 4u2fish campaign.

The shift away from a totally environmental approach, to a tourism development approach, means that the public perception of the 4u2fish campaign can now be focused on the desired outcome and not the troublesome start position, which is the situation on the ground here in St. Lucia KZN South Africa today, where very few beach access permits are issued through out the year. Only seriously disabled folks get to drive on the beach, after very difficult paperwork application.

The tourism associated with beach access is actually rather significant when one looks into the whole issue, and the community bennifits associated with improved tourism numbers is taken into account and put into the correct perspectives from a financial view point.

The number of job opportunities that are instantly created when reasonable motor vehicle access is granted to the public is truly thought provoking. The losses associated with the 4x4ban are hinted at here.

This document ( Occasional paper 20 ) issued by KZN TOURISM, hints at the fact that more than twenty thousand (20 000) folks lost their economic opportunities due to the knock on impacts of the 4x4ban and associated legislative actions put in place for environmental management purposes, which deliberately and with malice intent, excludes any economic or social issues, so job opportunities are lost, and our local communities are frustrated.

We do need to find a balance between economic issues, environmental issues, social issues and how these three rather different issues are all intertwined and intermarried in such a fashion that these three separate issues need to be managed as a single entity with three parts that are interlinked and managed co-operatively. 

If you are interested in being part of the management team which will push hard for tourism development issues associated with the recreational use of our coastal zones within Umkhanyakude District municipality, then send an email to 4u2fish@info4u.co.za

 There is one rather unfortunate problem, which is that every single beach within the Umkhanyakude District municipality is also within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World heritage site . 

So enjoy life, smile and do what is right for your personal well being first, then look after your own local community next. #Frankie2Socks. #4u2fish 

The 4u2fish campaign supports consumptive tourism

 The 4u2fish campaign was brought to life with many intentions, one of the primary intentions is to establish a network of folks who have have the environmental health of the St. Lucia Estuary and lake systems at heart.

Well this sounds simple and straight forward, how ever there are many strange issues that define an environmental activist, and then there are individual personal agendas.  

Some of these personal agendas are not directly related to the environmental health of the St. Lucia Estuary and lake systems, but are all about preventing others from benifiting from the natural renewable resources within the isimangaliso Wetland Park.

This very harmful and disrespectful attitude has come about because of the diverse  cultural makeup of the folks who are interested and affected parties in the management and consumption  or NON CONSUMPTION of the natural renewable resources,  as well as the the tourism associated with the isimangaliso Wetland Park.

These different economic,  cultural  and social  attitudes are not easily interpreted, and those who have been appointed as custodians of the isimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage site, are pushing the agendas of out siders who have completely different intentions, aims and objectives, which are not conducive to community benificiation, community development or community participation in public participation process meetings .

These personal  agendas, as well as some corporate agendas and certain  state based policies exclude  some   user groups as  well as the many seperate and diverse local population communities, which live and work within, or on the shores of Lake St. Lucia, from participation in the planning strategies of the IWPA.

This planed systematic exclusion tactic has been very successful, and the current poor state of the St. Lucia Estuary and lake systems  is as a direct result of this success.

 Read more here 

The folks living on the shores of Lake St. Lucia and in the nearby rural areas have used these natural renewable resources, such as prawns, fish and Reed's, for their income streams and personal consumption since the days of Sharka Zulu. 

The attitude of the outsiders who  have taken over political control  and environmental management of the area  is not conducive to co-operative management of our natural renewable resources, as they view the local population groups as poachers, and vilify them at every opportunity that they get. 

This is done as part of a well managed and properly planned public perception management strategy, so as to exclude the resident local population of the areas surrounding the IWP  ( isimangaliso Wetland Park ) from all planing and stratgising tactics of the IWPA . 

The IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority is the juristic person appointed by the South African Government  to manage the area in terms of the WHCA or World heritage Convention act. 

Read more about that here

There are many laws, acts records of decision and related legislations that impact  on the use and management of natural renewable resources within the isimangaliso Wetland Park .

Most of the folks whose economic rights, in terms of section 24 of the South African Constitution,   have been violated by the IWPA, have never been consulted about compensation for loss of income and access to natural renewable resources, do not understand what has happened.

These folks have no access to information, and the careful, well managed public perception management strategies of the IWPA has ensured that these folks are painted as undesirables within the documents supplied to the different  parliamentary oversight committees dealing with the vastly diverse issues around the management and planning strategies of the IWPA 

The 4u2fish team has thus put a petition  online, seeking a mandate to take up these issues with the premier of KZN South Africa. Your signature on this petition will be appreciated. Once you have signed this petition please share in your social media platforms and ask others to do the same.

#Frankie2Socks for the 4u2fish campaign

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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Once again, thanx for reading here...

Please support the 4u2fish campaign by speaking about these problems and asking others to read and comment here.  If you are in a financially positive situation and want to donate to our  cause  then click here

Hash tags relevant to this post
#ReviveStLucia
#Frankie2Socks
#BierpensTV
#whalewatching
#4u2fish