HONG Kong, Kuala Lumpur… a trip up to the 86th floor (by lift) of the famous twin Petronas Towers (once the tallest building in the world) all sounds so exciting.
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt (for the equivalent of about R500). Give me the beautiful South Coast any day.
It only takes a business/pleasure trip to some of these exotic (and very expensive) places to thank one’s lucky stars for home, sweet home.
It makes one even more determined to encourage everyone to look after what we’ve got and also to find innovative ways to shore up the many gaps that divide our Rainbow Nation.
There was a bit of argy-bargy about the main story in the Herald last week concerning ‘eco vandals’ destroying our dunes.
Someone has even written to the Press Ombudsman about the report by Judi Davis (see letters to the editor this week for more detail).
Driving back from King Shaka Airport, horribly jet-lagged, gazing out over the dune vegetation and the calm, deep blue sea with a whale breaching here and there, one can’t help but to appreciate that this is paradise.
Rather this view than towering skyscrapers and even upmarket holiday homes, whose owners have just blatantly cleared away the admiralty for selfish gain.
Then to read in our sister newspaper, the Mid South Coast Mail, that a group of greedy fishermen boasted on Facebook recently about their huge catch of endangered musselcrackers, allegedly at the protected Aliwal Shoal.
If they are guilty, throw the book at them, I say.
However, at the risk of incurring the wrath of conservationists (my friend Peter Vos in particular), one still feels that there needs to be more innovative ways to help the subsistence fishermen who have been selling their catch illegally on the highway near Hibberdene for decades.
Whether they catch shad or crayfish to eat or to sell, you can bet your bottom Hong Kong dollar or Ringget that they don’t have decent jobs and are doing what they can to survive… conservation be damned.
Arresting them will be a never-ending story. These people don’t have money to pay fines anyway, so jail is the only alternative. That’s the equivalent of a ‘#feesmustfall’ university where they can achieve a ‘PhD in crime’.
Umzumbe Municipality promised to look into a local fish market after a crayfish seller was shot dead about a year or so ago. Since then? Nada.
Surely there is a brain out there who can come up with something more innovative to solve this (appropriately named) Catch 22 situation?
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