Two Bits – Policy is like a pencil

Government policy can sometimes be likened to a pencil.
The body, shaft, weight and gravitas of a pencil is a simple, elegant, well-engineered piece of equipment. Achieving that shaft has taken many people to hold countless bosberaads, discussion groups, committee meetings, budgeting drafts and redrafts, much research – even some overseas trips in business class and five star hotels – and basically a whole raft of paperwork aimed at producing said pencil.
This is a pencil that can write whatever you would want. Speeches, constitutions, life-giving grants, social grants, life to our rivers and fish stocks. Anything you want.
A lot of well-paid people will then explain at great length how much work has gone into producing this magnificent pencil and how much they value the public’s input to make the pencil even greater, all the while avoiding the obvious: the point is broken. It does not write.
So sharpen it, dear Henry! Oh no, they look embarrassed, it’s not that easy . . .
The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (a mouthful if there ever was one, so it’s called DAFF) held a public meeting in at the Ballito library last week to apparently invite public input on their new Coastal Draft Management Plan. This five-year plan, prepared by Bronwyn Goble of the Oceanographic Research Institute, DAFF and others too numerous to mention, is impressive – 78 pages displaying extensive research into the health of coastal zones and estuaries, meticulous planning, goal setting, action plans, the whole thing.
At the core of the DMP is the health of KZN’s rivers and 76 estuaries, access to the beach and health of the coastal zone and fish stocks.
About 20 people turned up for the meeting; a dozen or more government people and six concerned members of the public. At the end of the two-hour presentation everybody is a bit punch drunk with information, but nobody has mentioned the elephant in the room, namely that the policing of coastal policy is nowhere to be found.
The Zinkwazi ski boat club is a very active user of the northern end of the KwaDukuza shoreline, with over 200 members using the lagoon and fishing offshore. Chairman Nigel Simmonds is more than a little frustrated at the total absence of policing of fish catches.
“We want the beaches to be protected and we want catches to be policed, to protect the fish stocks. But that is not happening,” he says.
Clive Watson of the Amatikulu Nature Reserve honorary officers group says: “This coastline used to be pristine and should be kept that way. Today there is no law enforcement. People do what they like, go where they like and take that they like. There is gill netting in the Amatikulu and nobody can stop it.
“DAFF says they are responsible for the coast, but does not have the staff or knowledge to do the job properly.”
Di Jones of Coastwatch agrees. She is also concerned about gated estates restricting public access to beaches, namely Zimbali and Prince’s Grant, and is concerned that the planned Blythedale coastal estate will do the same. At the other extreme, beachfront homeowners build and make their own accesses onto beaches without any regard for the well-being of the coastal dunes.
The elephant in the room is that DAFF fired Ezemvelo Wildlife’s fishery staff, supplemented by 800 honorary officers, who used to keep an eye on illegal fishing, overfishing and fishing of protected species out of season.
DAFF said they’d do the job themselves, then sent a handful of staff up from the Western Cape who arrived and immediately declared “Where are the perlemoen poachers?” And they only patrol Durban and Richards Bay. In between is free-for-all territory.
Government has created a headache for itself. The summary of the 78-page plan contains this startling sentence: “The PCMP further recognises the respective mandates of DAFF, DEA, DMR, DPW, DWS and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife in contributing to the overall management of the KZN coastal zone.” That’s six government departments looking after the coastal zone! DAFF, Department of Environmental Affairs, Department of Mineral Resources, Department of Public Works, Department of Water and Sanitation and Ezemvelo (formerly the Parks Board, who still do research in estuaries).
Can you just imagine all the “No, that’s not our responsibility” going on between six departments! And that’s not counting the Ethekwini Metro, district municipalities and local municipalities, each of which also have responsibilities for their beaches.
It’s absolutely crazy. Just this morning I listened to a programme on how many jobs tourism creates (eight to 10 for each visitor). This province’s beaches are part of the attraction for foreign tourists, let alone the hundreds of thousands who stream down from inland every holiday season.
I’m in awe of everybody who produced this plan, it’s a wonderful plan. But I would like to see a single government department take charge of the coastal zone (or one set of people with steel in their spines), otherwise it’s very likely that the point of the pencil will remain broken.

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I hate it when I run out of toilet paper and I have to make the trip to the supermarket in really small steps.