Ignorance and greed are behind the plunder of cycads in the Eastern Cape, writes Shadley Nash
Ten percent of the cycad species E Altenstienii and the rarer Trispionsis face extinction in a scandal which has horrified environmentalists and revealed a startling ignorance of environmental matters inside
Thirty-two tons of the rare and endangered plants — many of them centuries old — were bulldozed out of the ground at two remote sites in the former Ciskei in a move which was sanctioned by the African National
A cycad expert said that the 450 plants represented 10 percent of the species. Most of the plants, which have been replanted in an unknown area of the Eastern Cape, could still die.
Meanwhile, as the row over the illegal removal of the endangered plants continued this week, angry environmentalists spoke of the damage wrought on the environment during the operation. They wanted to know who would foot the bill for the rehabilitation of the
Last Monday police seized a huge, cycad-laden truck. On Wednesday, Welkom businessman Konstantinos Juileas appeared in court in connection with the illegal haul. This was where it emerged that Juileas possessed documents from the office of Eastern Cape premier Raymond Mhlaba and the ANC’s Free State Office authorising the removal of the plants.
South African cycad expert Cynthia Giddy said: “A lot of reconstruction of the environment has to be done at the site.”
According to Giddy, about 10 percent of the species was removed during the operation.
She said operators working at two remote sites at Tholumna in Ciskei and another closer to the Fish River literally “bulldozed” the trees out of the ground.
“Over 100 are just lying in the veld. Many of the plants are badly damaged,” said Giddy.
Giddy said the operators had cut a road to the sites to gain access to the rare plants, many of which grew on steep slopes and in valleys bordering waterways. Once the roads were cut, heavy equipment such as bulldozers was brought in to remove the plants.
“The sites are very remote and not close to the main road,” said Giddy. The heavy equipment needed to remove the plants, she said, gouged “great big” tracks into the earth.
“To get to the plants close to the river bank they simply pushed mounds of earth into the river, causing a damming of the river, which serves as a source of water for people living along it,” Giddy added.
She said the operators dug out the earth around the roots of the plants and then bulldozed the plants over, causing many to snap in half. “Many damaged plants are just lying there, while a whole lot more were waiting to be loaded.”
For Giddy, the big question is who will foot the R60 000 bill — the estimated cost to replant the cycads and rehabilitate those damaged.
Cycads recovered from a truck seized by police last Monday will be replanted at a reserve near Grahamstown, but the fate of the plants lying in the veld is still to be decided.
Eastern Cape Nature Conservation spokesman Jaap Pienaar said a decision on where to replant the other cycads would be taken by conservation officials in Ciskei.
“We will give them the best protection we can,” Pienaar
Meanwhile, parliamentarians are demanding a formal commission of inquiry into the affair. Democratic Party environmental affairs spokesman Senator Errol Moorcroft this week said that in the interests of transparency, the public should know whether any politician had instigated the offence or had acted improperly.
Speaking during a snap debate in the Senate, he said that to find “the real culprits”, a commission had to establish on whose behalf the cycads were removed, for what purpose they were to be used, who paid for the earthmoving equipment and trucks used to remove the plants, and who would benefit from the possible sale of the cycads — valued at about R4-million.
He had no doubt that two officials allegedly involved in authorising the consignment “did not know what they were dealing with”.
One of them, a member of the ANC legal department in the Free State, had admitted that he did not know what a cycad was, but had still signed a letter authorising Juileas to fetch the plants.
Speakers from the National Party, Freedom Front (FF) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) supported Senator Moorcroft’s call for a commission of inquiry into the
ANC chief whip in the Senate, Bulelani Ngcuka, said he had had to visit a library to find out what a cycad
This was an indictment of how little had been done to make black people — particularly the rural community – – conscious of their environment.
Senator Musa Zondi (IFP) urged Environmental Affairs Minister Dr Dawie de Villiers to co-ordinate efforts with his provincial counterparts to ensure that the plunder of cycads was never repeated.
Senator David Malatsi (NP) said the commission of inquiry should establish who had co-operated with
“The same fate that befell Winnie Mandela should happen to those involved in the cycad scandal at a provincial level,” he said.
Senator Carl Werth (FF) said the plunder of 300 rare cycads was “the rape of South Africa’s natural heritage and should not be allowed to go unpunished”.