The admiralty reserve is a strip of natural vegetation between the beach and built-up areas.
The benefits of maintaining dune vegetation, as well as some natural forest between the water and buildings, was recognised many decades ago and so the notion of the admiralty reserve (as well as its colonial-style name) was put into law.
Why, one might ask, would public administrators make a point of declaring this part of the landscape a no-go zone for development?
Simply put, the admiralty reserve protects coastal properties by acting as a buffer against extreme water events at sea (such as storm surges, tidal waves and tsunamis). The admiralty reserve absorbs and slows down the movement of water, thereby protecting the coastline, stabilising the dunes, reducing erosion and wave damage and protecting infrastructure.
The admiralty reserve should be around 45 to 60 metres wide, inland of the high water mark, but is currently quite patchy in KZN.
Tragic events such as the destruction of Mariners Restaurant in Palm Beach last September testify to the dangers of building directly on the beach rather than maintaining the admiralty reserve; unfortunately, as climate change continues to bring more and more extreme weather events, many properties on the coast are increasingly vulnerable.
In cases where vegetation inland of developments has also been removed, there is an ever greater risk of damage as flood waters from inland erode the soil – as we saw in Umdloti in April 2022, when mudslides engulfed luxury apartments on the beach.
Umdloti again experienced landslides and mudslides a few weeks ago.
Apart from the admiralty reserve, mangroves, dune vegetation, wetlands and estuaries protect buildings and infrastructure from the impacts of extreme weather events at sea.
Residents with properties close to the beach stand to benefit from leaving indigenous vegetation in place and increasing the density of endemic plants between themselves and the beach. Plants like red and white milkwoods, dune soap-berry, Natal guarri, strelitzia nicolae (wild banana) and coastal silver-oak are easily propagated and, apart from protecting human homes, provide food, shelter and movement corridors for wildlife.
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