Robert Kirby: Loose cannon I hope this isn’t too naive a question, but do we still have a minister of environment? I seem to recall that Pallo Jordan was in charge of that area. The last I heard of him was when he gallantly saved some rare butterflies from being wiped off the planet in the cause of property development.
Pallo also rung a bell when, recently, I watched a television show about primates. You will remember that last year he sold some of our finest Chacma baboons to French scientists who, it was rumoured, intended strapping the apes into luxury Mercedes limousines and launching them at high speeds into road tunnels in order to find out exactly how Princess Diana died. Something entirely humane of course, so nobody got too uptight about Pallo’s reversal of his earlier assurance that no South African baboon was in danger of export for scientific purposes so long as he was there to protect them.
The reason I bring this up is that I, like a many other concerned South Africans, was appalled to learn that large parts of our wild areas are again being sold off to unscrupulous international business conspiracies.
A while ago, a crowd calling itself “Dolphin” had its greedy hooks in a huge chunk of what used to be called the Eastern Transvaal, including a few loss-leaders like the entire Blyde River Canyon. More recently, some nameless shysters calling themselves “Virgin” have been trying to acquire the same slice of prime real estate. Isn’t it strange how often, under the most evocative names, lurk the most reptilian of business operators?
Since the equally evocative “environment” portfolio wielded by Pallo carries the rider “and tourism”, I should imagine he would have been particularly interested in attempts to sell off not only a South African treasure of nature conservation, but a fine tourist attraction as well? So far, though, he’s been pretty silent on the issue. Or is that now the press have got hold of it, it is suddenly “sub judice”?
The other thing which makes me worry about whether Pallo’s newspapers are still being delivered, is the small matter of Dukuduku Forest in what used to be called Zululand.
Here I pick up on distant memories as a boy, but mainly on Niki Barker’s superb article in last week’s Mail & Guardian. I think her revelations about Dukuduku should be re-presented as often as possible.
Dukuduku – an onomatopoeic for the beating heart – is one of the last remaining pieces of indigenous lowland coastal forest. It hosts rare and highly specialised vegetation, animals, birds and insects – some species found nowhere else. So utterly precious and distinctive that Dukuduku forms a key feature of what must rate as one of the most inspired natural conservation schemes in the world: the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park.
Already under serious consideration as a World Heritage Site – the most effective environmental tourist attraction in the business – this park is to stretch northwards all the way through to Maputo, taking in Lake St Lucia, what Richards Bay Minerals have spared of the dune forests, the Makathini, the Pongola estuary at Kosi Bay and on into Mozambique.
If the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park does get ratified, the dreams of intelligent and responsible protection of the environment will come true. Unfortunately the Dukuduku Forest will not be included because, by the time the arrangements have been completed and all the politicians paid off, Dukuduku won’t exist. It will all have been turned into charcoal.
At present the forest is being destroyed very enthusiastically by slash-and-burn tactics, illegal squatter villages and poaching, but mostly by a crude method of charcoal manufacture -all encouraged by a profoundly maladroit local officialdom. Conservation rangers, desperately trying to inhibit the destruction, literally take their lives in their hands. Now the local MEC, Inyanga Ngubane, has actually instructed the rangers not to intervene.
The main reason a primitive mud-oven way of making low-grade charcoal is used is so that a supermarket – also called “Dolphin” – in St Lucia village will be well supplied with cheap charcoal to sell to holiday- makers. The supermarket actually supplies the charcoal-makers with the sacks into which the precious old Dukuduku forest trees may be packed once they’ve been turned into charcoal.
Has South Africa actually got a ministry which even cares about stopping this wanton devastation? Doesn’t look like it. Will someone see that Niki Barker’s article and this one get glued to Pallo’s desk. A wake-up call to Kadar Asmal would also help.
(Watch Carte Blanche – at Dukuduku – this Sunday on M-Net)