OSLO Beach shoreline is a horrific example of the coastal degradation that Hibiscus Coast Municipal officials were warned about in 2011.
Yet there is still no official comment three weeks after the Herald sent the municipality photographs showing dune vegetation being destroyed illegally.
It is also a blatant land grab of public coastal property (which includes the area known as the admiralty reserve) by Olso Beach property owners.
Similar crimes are being committed almost everywhere along the Hibiscus Coast shoreline with no one seeming to care.
Last year a huge swathe of dune vegetation was destroyed at the edge of Voigt Park, a protected area alongside the beach in Shelly Beach. It is believed the municipality tracked down the culprit, but no one appeared to be charged.
This flies in the face of a statement by an official from Hibiscus Coast Municipality’s environmental management department four years ago. He said looking after our embattled shoreline was no longer a green issue – it was a matter of rands and cents and even lives.
He was commenting on a Coastal Vulnerability Index compiled by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs and Rural Development and the Oceanographic Research Institute.
The index divided the province’s coastline into three classes: ‘risk’, ‘moderate risk’ and ‘high risk’. Locally, alarms bells were ringing about the fact that nearly a quarter of the coastline was classified as high risk and that most of the high risk areas were on the South Coast.
Commenting on the present Oslo Beach dune destruction, Peter Vos, of the South Coast Conservation Forum said he thought that, after the landmark Kloof Conservancy v Government decision last year, KwaZulu-Natal municipalities would have started taking their environmental obligations more seriously.
In December 2012, Kloof Conservancy initiated High Court proceedings to compel government to implement alien species legislation to ensure national, provincial and local government complied with duties in relation to this environmental threat. Judgement was delivered in October last year. It was seen as a major ‘green’ victory and a vindication of the conservancy’s efforts.
“We believe the judgment holds all spheres of government fully and appropriately
accountable to the Constitution and the law for the discharge of their
environmental duties,” a conservancy spokesman said.
Mr Vos called on the environmentally-minded people to contact the enviro incident hotline at 0800 205 005, should they notice damage to dune vegetation.
Paddy Norman, chairman of the South Coast branch of the Wildlife and Environmental Society of South Africa (Wessa) said that, despite years of effort the problem persisted. The municipality was primarily responsible for dealing with the problem, although it did not have a good track record in this regard, he added.
“Wessa nationally does not seem to have any formal position on this – it is too local for their strategic concepts – but as a branch and speaking on behalf of Coastwatch as well, we believe this kind of damage cannot be condoned. There is a clear need for better communications with property owners about their responsibilities to protect and preserve the natural environment.
“We believe if the responsible authorities fail to take prompt and appropriate action then they are themselves culpable and a part of the problem,” he said.
Mr Norman added that until a court ordered one of the offenders to pay for the damage then he doubted if many of the beachfront owners would care.
However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. The committee in charge of the proposed Shelly Beach coastal pathway has had the area between St Michael’s and Wild Waves in Warriors Lane surveyed and it is now clear where boundaries between homeowners and public property have been transgressed.
The Hibiscus Coast Municipality has issued warning letters to errant homeowners, asking them to reinstate the natural vegetation and to remove and relocate fences, buildings, swimming pools and other structures that have been illegally erected in the admiralty reserve.
