Silt issues within the within the St. Lucia esturine systems

The 4u2fish campaign needs your help, especially your moral support and associated open discussions about environmental rights, duties and obligations of yourself and those around your neighborhoods.

I know we often talk of Environmental rights, but who talks about your Environmental obligations ?

Failure of our local municipalities to understand our Environmental obligations means that this important interpretation of environmental law is not discussed and considered during spatial development public participation processes meetings at local municipality levels.

Now the IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority falls into three of the four local municipalities of the Umkhanyakude district Municipality, which makes matters complicated, but the fact that the IWPA has influenced parliamentary stake holders into declaring a special District Management Area or DMA  complicates matters even more.

The question  to be asked here is "was this legal manoeuvre to separate the IWPA MANAGEMENT ISSUES from the influence of local municipality IDP processes, coz from our perspective, there was no public participation process involved in the preparation and legislative procedure involved in getting these issues through the parliamentary voting process, before being passed as laws.

To date, we are not aware of a single challenge to these rather nasty actions, which have given the IWPA much more powers than They should be allowed. Currently, the IWPA side steps many legally challenging issues, because they do not include local municipality zoning in their planning and management STRATEGIES.

The IWPA also uses these same arguments to side step district Municipality and KZN provincial planning structures. The IWPA does not even report to any national government department, but reports directly to the office of the state president. This makes planning a very difficult activity within the fishing industries associated with our natural renewable resources of Lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia estuary  systems. The St. Lucia estuary system accounts for more than 60 percent of the available estuarine fish breeding and nursery areas in South Africa. 

The IWPA actually published a video discussing these issues, where they inform the world that there has been a rather serious biodiversity collapse, where the prawn fishing industry collapsed following the closure of the St. lucia nad Umfolozi estuarine mouths.

WE do need to remember that there was a two mouth policy, and what was the reason for the two mouth policy. When one investigates this just a little, one soon discovers that the two mouth policy was all about the sediment that came along with the Umfolozi Flood waters., and ensuring that the silt from the Umfolozi flood waters was drastically minimized due to the slowing down of the Umfolozi Flood waters in the Umfolozi Flood plains prior to this flood waters entering the greater St. Lucia estuarine lake systems in the northern sections of the greater St. Lucia wetlands park. 

IN the post 2017 time frame, this silt reduction was eliminated because the Umfolozi flood waters then entered the northern sections of the St. Lucia lake systems at full flow speed, carrying vast volumes of silt into the northern sections of the St. Lucia lake systems.  The question thus becomes where did this nasty silt drop out of the Umfolozi River Flood waters. 

River silt is a strange issue, as the silt does not drop out evenly across the surface area that is flooded by the silt laden flood waters. The silt drops out at the specific location where the water slows down, and only the super fine silt moves off into the vast open spaces of the rest of the system.

This can be very confusing if one does not take just a little time to understand the issues at playhere.

Fast moving river flood waters can carry plenty of heavy silt, but slow movingving flood waters can not carry heavy silt. The color of the water is not the issue, but the volume of heavy silt deposited at the points where the water slows down is the real issue. The flood waters from the Umfolozi river flow rather fast up the St. Lucia narrows and slow down when the flood waters meet the still lake waters and then spread out and come to a very slow moving wide open space. This means that the Umfolozi Flood waters drop the heavy silt in a rather small space, and continue to drop out  heavy silt in the same location as the lake level slowly raises. 

The heavy silt thus produces / manufactures a silt wall where the Umfolozi Flood waters enter the lake system and fan out from a fast moving narrow stream into  a very wide area where the flood water  move rather sluggishly.. This continues for the duration of the incoming flood waters, for 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours a day.  

This silt wall has now become a nasty problem, coz the lake system now suffers an energy deficiency and can not move the rather large silt wall that remains in the system until it is mechanically removed (Dredged out / mechanically removed) this silt wall now prevents the lake system from interacting with the tidal influence of the ocean.  No access for the marine species that breed within the lake systems is now impossible.  Access to the ocean for prawns to migrate to their ocean based breeding grounds is also now an issue. This means that the juvenile recruitment of many different creatures is now a non issue.  This means that these species that rely on the access routes to their breeding grounds have declined in numbers to such an extent that the food chain is now non functional and in dire need of human help.See this video 

There are many qualified scientists who are truly ignorant and say that nature must take its course.  These very stupid  sceintists now need to please explain how the environment must restore or repair the serious damage caused by human interventions carried out when the GEF 2017 project connected the flood waters of the Umfolozi river to the lake system, deliberately and with criminal intent bypassing the natural filter systems in place prior to their interventions.

These same ignorant and stupid sceintific experts need tp please explain how they measured the silt volumes in the Umfolozi River flood waters, and why they ignored our requests to include this essential information in their estuary management plans.  

The 4u2fish campaign needs your help to put political pressure on the IWPA to address these environmental concerns. 

St. Lucia estuary mouth is closing!

 This pic was taken on Saturday 11  June 2022.  The St. Lucia estuary mouth is where three water sources meet. First is the Umfolozi River mouth. Next is the lake tidal link and the third is the Indian ocean. In the past. The Umfolozi and Mzundusi overflow were managed separately from the lake tidal link. The main reasoning behind this separation was the vast quantities of silt within the Umfolozi River flood waters. 

The 2017 GEF PROJECT ignored this silt factor,  and the scientists appointed by the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority ran a very effective public perception management strategy to endure that the public accepted their rather nasty proposal to link the Umfolozi River directly to the rest of the St. Lucia lake systems, in their efforts to get water into the St. Lucia lake systems.

The results are now evident as can be seen here. Silt has settled in nasty places and clogged up the inter-tidal flow paths  Mud, mud and more mud  now needed to be removed.  This is going to be difficult.

What ideas do you have that may help us solve this problem ?

Got an idea ?  One that may help solve the problem ! Send it to 4u2fish@info4u.co.za

 

The silt levels within the St. Lucia lake and estuary systems is  much worse than the IWPA is telling.  The tidal link between the lake and estuary systems is now a thing of the past, but we need this tidal channel to work so that the fish breeding and nursery grounds may become functional.  the St. Lucia lake  system used to sustain more than 60 percent of all fish breeding grounds in South Africa.  This is now not available to our fish stocks. thus is a rather nasty problem, and our marine fish stocks are suffering a very disturbing loss of juvenile recruitment , meaning that this is leading to a collapse of our coastal fish stocks.

what to do ?  everybody appears to be ignoring these losses of nursery grounds for our coastal marine fishes.

how will we bring this problem into the foreground of nature conservation and the management of our local  natural renewable resources ?

any help will be appreciated.   see our Facebook pages at facebook.com/4u2fish and leave a comment discussing your views on this nasty problem.

estuary managment in South Africa is getting attemtion from the govermenet

Estuary Management in South Africa has been neglected by the government for some time.  The issues around harvesting, consumption and sales of natural renewable resources within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World heritage site has caused a stir at parliamentary level, and the portfolio management committee for the Department of Forestry, Fisheries  and Environment has been discussing the related issues in detail.

The minister requested a scientific review of the reasons behind the Jan 2021 breaching of the St. Lucia Estuary, and this is about to get lots of attention. Some back ground info can be gleamed form this YouTube video.

 The minister has launched the report discussing reasons for Jan 2021 breach of the St. Lucia estuary. 

more about the issues around the Jan 2021 breaching of the St. Lucia estuary by the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority 

#Frasnkie2Socks

#4u2fish 

the 4u2fish campaign supports the 7474dash21 campaign

The 7474dash21 campaign is in place to raise funds for us (4u2fish Campaign) to raise funds for our legal action against the minister and the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority.

This is a very complicated affair, where access to and sales of natural renewable resources is at stake. The IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland park Authority has iplimented policies and regulations that makes harvesting of natural renewable resources illegal. This is violating our economic rights in terms of section 24 (b)III

This is a huge problem as there are many different local communities who have been using these renewable natural resources as a  abstantial portion of their personal income and living resources. With these natural renewable sources out of the picture, these folks are in real economic distress, and basically destitute

which way to move and how to take legal actions against the authorities and relevant government departments which are violating our economic rights in terns of section 24 (b) (iii) is quite a serious issue. finding a legal team who are willing to take on the negative feed back and associated public critisism  from the GREENIES like those who ensured that the 4x4 Ban was successfully implemented is rather difficult. The reason here is the very high level, government assisted public perception management strategies which the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority (IWPA) have implemented over the years. this has caused a major misconception within the public debate spaces and associated news paper 

Our best bet is to sue the Minister of Environmental Affairs for violation of our economic rights . We have started by requesting the public Protector to investigate these matters, and our file reference number  with the Public Protector is 7474 /  21 / KZN

more info coming just as soon as we have the resources to put it here and make any such info available to you our valued readers. so please subscribe to this blog should you want to be kept upto date with the issues connected to the FUNCTIONALITY OF THE ST. LUCIA ESTUARY SYSTEM .

My Good Friend Petrus Viviers runs a few YouTube Channels discussing many of the issues that impact on the ecology and related domestic tourism associated with a functional estuary and lake system Take a #PEEPSEE at his work and get informed about the St. Lucia Experience

Other links the St. Lucia Experience

Panel of experts discuss St. Lucia estuary management issues

St. ucia lake and estuary systems stake holder engagement meeting held at Elephant lake hotel, in St. Lucia on 15 and 16 November 2021

St. Lucia lake and estuary systems stake holder engagement meeting held at Elephant lake hotel, in St. Lucia on 15 a

Meeting notes and feed back for online audience.

#Frankie2Socks attended the first three legs on behalf of the #4u2fish campaign.

1. Agriculture on Umfolozi Flats and surrounding areas

2. Tourism issues in St. Lucia toursim node

3. Fishing issues within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park focusing on estuary and lake issues

The first two legs were well attended with suitable representatives who were knowledgeable on their areas of concern. The third leg where fishing was the core theme was very poorly attended with just three concerned citizens showing their faces (including myself #Frankie2Socks)

The purpose of these stake holder engagement meetings was defined each time as being a source of information for the panel . What the panel instruction was or is was not discussed in depth, besides that this panel will make a recommendation to the minister on a way forward regarding the ecological and Environmental MANAGEMENT of the St. Lucia lake and estuarine systems.

One  person from Khula area arrived late, coz he found out about the meeting late. He represented some  land claimants in the area, but did not make a presentation, as he was not prepared. He did however say most of the same things that others had said at earlier stake holder meetings, which was very helpful in putting one solid well supported story in the picture,  and not a bunch of separate private issues and individual petty complaints.

All stake holders were on the same page at each meeting. All stake holders require a functional estuary system, and all stake holders have issues with the manner in which the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority behave and interact with the public and our concerns about our livlihoods. 

All four of us pushed the same core theme, that the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority are responsible for the current catastrophic collapse of the biodiversity within the St. Lucia lake and estuary systems.

During all three sessions the core complaint was that the estuary is nonfunctional, and the silt levels within these interconnected systems are unacceptable and exceptionally problematic to remove, as tidal ebb and flow will not have the scouring power needed to agitate, then pick up and remove this SILT.

The panel of experts did seem to understand our concerns, and asked some relevant questions. This panel of experts is set to deliver their findings and recommendations in March 2022, which is on the other side of our rainy season. We are currently in an extended drought, from the late 1980's so we do have serious issues with water quantity and quality. Then there is so called GLOBAL WARMING which is somehow not properly in the picture.

The amount of silt that will enter our lake and esturine systems before actions are taken to separate the Umfolozi mud stream from the St. Lucia  lake system in the far north is going to cause some real nasty problems. The burm between the Estuary systems and the ocean is (currently Nov 2022) quite high, and wind born sediments coming from the North are accumulating on the burm, growing it higher. This wind born sediment is rather serious, as the beaches between first rocks and the estuary mouth are currently rather long,  in some cases being in excess of 500 meters at low tide. This can change overnight with one big wind and associated sea current moving all this sand in less than 24 hours.

So things are dynamic, and can change Rather suddenly. These sudden changes will not, and can not remove compacted dried silt on the estuary basins or the water flow channels due to the excessive reed growth within the system which was exacerbated by the 2017 ecological and Environmental terrorist activity by the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority, ( GEF PROJECT) which was sanctioned and approved by the minister. 

The joining of the Umfolozi River and the northern sections of the lake was a true disaster, which the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority put forward as REHABILITATION. 

This so called rehabilitation was in my mind not rehabilitation, but an active ecological disaster in the making. Over the years the Umfolozi River has been manipulated by different groups, and the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority has contributed greatly to these bad river management tactics through their attitude towards problem solving and being extremely autocratic and non co-opperstive at many levels, including the local municipality IDP PROCESS,  which the IWPA refuses to acknowledge and participate in, claiming "WORLD HERITAGE STATUS" 

This needs to be addressed, as the iSimangaliso Wetland Park no longer meets the criteria for world heritage status, and many folks would now like the area to be stripped of this world heritage status as things have just deteriorated since the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority took over management of the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park way back in December 1999. Name changes aside, this management structure is not conducive to co-,operative governance and this task team investigating the estuary management issues needs to be pro-active and place blame for bad decisions  where it belongs.

Folks here on the ground tried many different approaches to discuss these problematic issues with the IWPA, but AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP by the Andrew Zaloumis management team at the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority (IWPA) did just as they please. This management team should be held accountable for their actions, and be criminally charged with crimes against the environment.

The panel of experts was tasked to hold stake holder engagement meetings, then generate a report on the way forward as far as estuarine management of the St. Lucia lake and connected estuarine rivers within the iSimangaliso  Park World Heritage site and surrounding areas is concerned. One of the panel members is a hydrologic specialist with deep level knowledge of waterflow and related  siltation load distribution factors. The rest of the team are mostly involved in socioeconomic studies, so we are hopefully on a good wicket, but ball tampering and damaged bats are an issue of concern. In the past those appointed by the minister have not played fair, and team selection was for party political purposes and not outcome driven.   Let's hope this team has been selected to achieve community engagement and good relationships between all role players. 

Let's hope that the panel of experts puts forward in their recommendations that  Andrew Zaloumis along with his management team need to be held accountable, and that criminal charges be laid against them for CRIMES AGAINST THE ENVIRONMENT which is now unable to support the ecological processes that ensure the natural renewable resources within lake St. Lucia and the St. Lucia estuary systems is functional and able to sustain the local economy of the area in question.

The Andrew Zaloumis management team has prepared the area for mining, the lake and estuary systems are silted beyond the point of no return, and now the only solution is to remove the silt load mechanically.

This problem was created by deliberately, and with criminal intent,  by passing the natural filter system of the Umfolozi Flats, and allowing the Umfolozi mud stream to drop it's silt load within the extreme northern sections of the lake, where nature can not create sufficient water flow volumes to scour the bottom of the lake and the rest of the St. Lucia estuary systems. 

What to do ?

 Which path to take? 

How can we solve these problems ?

Your views and comments will be helpful in establishing a better path forward. 

 Please share and ask others to share as well. We need diverse opinions and open minds to solve this rather nasty problem which was exacerbated by the Andrew Zaloumis management team at the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority, when they implemented the GEF PROJECT,  even after being warned of the drastic silt problems that would follow, which we now need to remove by mechanical means. 

The Andrew Zaloumis management team need to be held accountable for the biological and biodiversity collapse within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage site. 

Looking forward to the next step along the path to restoring the functionality of the St Lucia Estuary and lake systems.

The #4u2fish campaign is greatful to our sponsors and those who made attending these meetings possible.

Black Hawk Security supplied transport to and from the meetings.

Accommodation in St Lucia supplied by Bundu Basher Inn 

Research and internet publication by Info4u and associates. 

Social media marketing by #Frankie2Socks and associates

September 2020 update

 4U2FISH update 15 September 2020

We understand that this blog has been in-active, and the sole reason was #FINANCIALRESOURCES

Well that has been addressed, just a little, so you will soon be reading more about myself ( #Frankie2Socks )  and the many different efforts to get the issues of the closure of the St. Lucia estuary addressed at the highest levels, as the problems are diverse, plentiful and carry heavy financial burdens which the poorest of the poor are expected to bear the brunt of these costs. 

#PeepSee our petition here 

The primary issue here is the loss of economic opportunities associated with the natural renewable resources of Lake St. Lucia and surrounding waterways, which in the past sustained and supported  a very large rural population, before the state in the form of (1) the old NPB, then (2) in the form of the IWPA, and its allies, within the various different government departments, manipulated financial and socioeconomic information to mislead many different organizations and world bodies about the true situation on the ground.

Basically  the economies that were in place sustaining the rural populations around lake St. Lucia and interconnected waterways were ignored, then systematically destroyed, to ensure that the domestic tourism market, connected to the sustainable consumptive tourism associated with the natural renewable resources, within Umkhanyakude was removed from the equation.

In simple English  NO FISHING .... No tourism associated with fishing.... lots of job losses....

In my opinion this is all about control and management of the largest tourism attraction in KZN, the old #Maputuland Coastline, or the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, and the surrounding rural areas. Big tourism companies are pushing hard to exclude the domestic tourism market, and ensure that only the international market exists. National government is involved in this push for international tourism at the exclusion of the South African Domestic tourism market.

These are vastly complicated issues, where local folks have been vilified, and through efficient and effective  public perception management techniques, are currently perceived to be poachers, thieves and untrustworthy folks.  The folks on the ground need their dignity returned, and their rights in terms of section 24 as quoted here, need to be addressed.

Quote "Chapter 2, section 24 (b) iii  of the South African Constitution reads  as "Every one has the right to have the environment protected, for benefit of present and future  generations through reasonable legislative measures that secure ecological sustainable development and the use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development." end Quote

 

This stance needs to be tested at the constitutional court, so we need your support, mostly moral, coz if we have enough moral support, then financial support will flow like water.   the issue is to get the first 200 folks on board, then get them to assist by speaking about the problem, and asking others to #PEEPSEE and follow a hashtag or three (well just 2 #4u2fish and #reviveStLucia ) 

 

Please help this cause by sharing our posts and talking about the use of natural resources  within the sustainable tourism sphere of influence.

#Frankie2Socks @ Bird Island lodge on the #Nibela #Peninsula for the #ReviveStLucia campaign

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.

Sea water flow issues in the St. lucia Estuary, KZN South Africa

St. Lucia estuary is in a very seriously degraded state. The IWPA or iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority are the government-appointed body that manages the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park in terms of the World Heritage Convention act.

This region was declared a World Heritage site in December 1999, and later renamed as the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, or the IWP,    the IWPA has been mandated by the government to manage the IWPWHS ( iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage Site)  and as such, this is the authority that is responsible for the ecological functioning of the IWPWHS, as well as the tourism business generated through the fact that the area is a World Heritage site.

The ICMA or integrated Coastal Management  Act mandates the state to have an estuary management plan in place for each estuary, and dictates who is responsible for the implementation of this plan.  the current situation is that this plan is not clearly attributed to any speific body to implement,  and we as local residents within the St. Lucia area have no idea who to turn to solve our problems that come along with an ecologically degraded and non-functional estuarine environment. 

In my opinion, the IWPA has failed us, and we need serious government intervention to fix the problems caused by no seawater flowing in and out of the St. Lucia estuarine system as the ocean tides change.   this is due to many factors, with the current drought conditions being the major driver of these problems.

#FRANKIE2SOCKS Has done a little digging and some research producing this report for us at the #4u2fish  blog.