IWPA IMP Emergency request for help

 The iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority, as the custodian of the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park World Heritage Site, Now called the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritagge site is currently busy with their annual mandated review and update of their Integrated Management Plan or IMP.

This #MANDATED Integrated Management Plan is a very painful and disturbing experience for the majority of the folks living in and adjacent to the iSimangaliso wetland Park.  The IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority have deliberately and with criminal intent side stepped the public participation process of these plans in the past, through political interference at the highest levels possible.

This IMP (Integrated Management Plan ) is supposed to be integrated into 

• all relevant local Municipalities IDP Process plans
• the Umkhanyakude District Municipalities IDP process plans
• The KZN provincial IDP process plans
• the NATIONAL IDP process plans 
  

In Terms of the ICMA or Integrated Coastal Management Act every estuary in South Africa should have an estuary  management plan in place, which should be registered with the IDP of the local municipality where any such estuary is found.

 Because each estuary is found in a local municipality, the Estuary management plan should by all rights be managed by that local municipality.

The St. Lucia estuary is however a very different story coz it falls into two local  local municipalities as well as the iSimangaliso Wetland park WORLD HERITAGE SITE, complicating things and adding frustrations to the St. Lucia Estuary Estuary management plan

It has thus become necessary to find a way to organise the various interested and affected parties and establish a single responsible entity to manage the St. Lucia estuary management plan. The 4u2Fish campaign has started working on this, and created a petition to the premier of KZN SOUTH AFRICA found here

https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/Sihle_Zikalala_Premier_of_KZN_south_Africa_Support_the_4u2fish_campaign_in_our_efforts_to_restore_BIODIVERSITY_in_St_Lucia_Estuary/

Please consider signing this petition and sharing it further to your social media audience, asking them to sign and share again.

THIS IS NOW AN EMERGENCY ISSUE, AS THE ANNUAL ISIMANGALISO WETLAND PARK AUTHORITY INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT PLAN REVIEW PROCESS IS CURRENTLY UNDER WAY, and then I initial first round comments and Input session closesd on 31 October 2020

#Frankie2Socks for the #4u2fish campaign.

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.