DEAR Editor,-
Community policing initiatives are vital aspects of security, law enforcement and the maintenance of order in South Africa, and the men and women volunteers who give up their time to work with the SAPS to keep their towns safe deserve our thanks and admiration.
Without these wonderful people I dread to think of how crime stats would soar.
However, if the recent, highly-illegal hacking of a primary dune at Trafalgar beach and the complete destruction of its natural vegetation was done because the vegetation was seen as a security threat, it highlights a danger that should be guarded against by all involved with community policing.
There is a temptation for some individuals in a community to become vigilantes, to feel that when it comes to security matters, they can break inconvenient laws, particularly environmental laws, whenever they see fit.
There are other ways of dealing with the problem of vagrants living in the Admiralty Reserve.
For instance, Uvongo Community Safety Forum frequently does joint bush clearing patrols with the SAPS, clearing the bush of illegal dwellings and ensuring the bushy areas are not used for illegal activities. Members of these work parties do not damage the environment in any way. In fact there is always a good turnout of Uvongo Community Safety Forum members picking up litter and cleaning the marine environment during the annual international beach clean-up days.
Trafalgar is a beautiful little beach, situated on a particularly lovely, reasonably unspoiled stretch of South Africa’s coastline. Its Blue Flag is an internationally recognised symbol of excellence and probably attracts a number of foreign tourists to the town. The fact that the beach is the entrance to a marine reserve is also a great tourism draw card.
To put a monetary value on this beach is impossible. It is simply priceless and the whole community should be protecting its beach, not only for the town’s residents but for their children and the generations still to come. It is horrific to think that an individual or group of individuals appears to have seen fit to wreak destruction on this, the town’s greatest asset and to damage the dune irreparably. Even with the best rehabilitation that money can buy, the vegetation will never be 100 percent the same again.
Many people seem to think that environmental laws are something those crazy environmentalists have thought up just to annoy them and that they can simply be ignored or flouted when they cause inconvenience.
Remember, though, that environmental laws are not only made to protect the environment. They are also created to protect property – and even human life – from the environment. The tidal surges in 2007 caused massive damage to beachfront properties, but experts pointed out that properties well protected by healthy Admiralty Reserve vegetation sustained minimal damage.
With global warming we will be seeing more and more violent storms and other extreme natural incidents in the future. When this happens, Trafalgar beach, without its protecting primary dune, will be in the front line. Those who illegally cleared the dune can count themselves responsible for the massive damage that is sure to be inflicted on the existing infrastructure at Trafalgar’s valuable beach. Hopefully, when storms hit our coastline, their short-sighted actions won’t cause loss of human life.
JADE
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