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His offices were recently robbed, yet the only item stolen was his Iscor file containing all his correspondence with the company.
Winterbach also recently discovered sand in the sump of his aeroplane. “It’s not fair to point the finger of suspicion at anyone,” he says, “but this has never happened in my 24 years of flying.”
The looming environmental battle has received the support of the Wilderness Foundation, which was at the coalface of the successful fight in the late 1980s to stop the mining of titanium on the dunes of St Lucia in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The attorney for the St Lucia case, Oliff d’Oliviera, has agreed to look into the Wavecrest matter.
Says Andrew Muir, director of the Wilderness Foundation: “This smacks of St Lucia all over again. With titanium being available in several less sensitive areas, we find it strange that one of the few pristine areas left on the coast is being threatened.”
What are the alternatives? Stopping development for the sake of conservation alone is hard to justify and rarely succeeds without compromise.
Can the area be used to improve living conditions for its inhabitants without gross environmental and social degradation? It appears so.
The Xhosa people are not intent on changing their traditional lifestyle overnight and, by doing so, creating an uncertain future. Instead they want a healthy future, with small investments creating stable rural employment, sustainable harvesting of shell and other fish, woodlots, ecotourism and other opportunities that may be created through the forest, the fields, the shore and the sea.
Cattle farming can be improved, indigenous species can be reintroduced and it may also be possible to explore the possibilities of aquaculture, such as abalone farming.
In other words, the area has vast potential. It just needs to be implemented at an appropriate level.
In 1994 Winterbach decided it was time for strategic change. The hotel could no longer be just a limit-free fishing resort, but had to take on the responsibility of preserving the natural wonder and providing its people with new skills.
The hotel began by banning 4x4s and other off-road vehicles from the beach, jetskis and speed boats were no longer allowed in the estuary mouth and anglers were asked to restrict their take to their immediate needs.
This has had an impact on the hotel’s profitability, but Winterbach takes the long-term view of building up a new kind of clientele who will support the ethic behind these measures.
The local communities were approached to develop a list of priorities. Winterbach helped them build a small school. A brickworks has been constructed at the back of the hotel and consultants are being brought in to assist in the provision of woodlots, vegetable gardens and improved farming techniques.
James Black and Arlene Cameron work for Earthyear Environmental Communications in Seapoint
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