Four years ago the beach at Sodwana in northern KwaZulu-Natal could have been mistaken for the Ben Schoeman highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg. Off-road vehicles kept speeding past you, only reducing speed to avoid children building sand castles. Returning from a swim, you had to remember to look left and right before crossing the beach back to your towel.
If you did not drive an off-road vehicle, you stood out like a sore thumb. The major attraction at Sodwana consisted of taking your shiny new vehicle for a spin along the beach and then stopping alongside another to compare notes. Who cared about swimming, if you could camp out alongside your four-wheeler?
Business boomed for the local population, who sold anything from off-road vehicle accessories to scale models of the pride and joy of every driver. Drivers could pick out their brand of 4×4 from among the wood carvings or wire sculptures the local entrepreneurs had made. The local art and craft market did a roaring trade and the campsites were booked out.
But these days Sodwana’s highway is only for the turtles and birds wandering on the beach. The only human traffic comprises solitary families walking through the entrance to the beach where 4x4s once roared past.
One of former minister Valli Moosa’s more controversial moves during his term in office was to ban the use of 4x4s on beaches. Since December 21 2001 the country’s beaches have been a drive-free zone and the wildlife has happily reclaimed areas where previously they risked instant death.
The regulations for the control of vehicles in the coastal zone do not totally prohibit or ban vehicles from the coastal zone, said Shaun Schneier, principal environmental officer of Marine and Coastal Management at the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
Some uses of vehicles within the coastal zone are permissible, including the use of a vehicle on a public road, in an emergency situation and by an employee of the state for the purposes of performing public duties. The regulations also allow applications to be made for special licences to access beaches.
Off-road vehicles may only park at the designated ‘recreational use areas” on the beach at Sodwana. Patrons complain that this area is too small for Sodwana’s traffic. But for the meantime that is the only place where the 4×4 enthusiasts may legally park their vehicles.
The ban has put an end to the activities of the ‘brandewyn brigade” – those ‘enthusiasts” who support ‘adventure” activities like drinking and then revving up a dune to prove their manliness. In punishing these ‘enthusiasts”, 4×4 clubs claim, the minister spoilt things for everyone. Anglers no longer have access to the beach, boat launchers are struggling and outdoor enthusiasts are unhappy. Coastal businesses claim they have lost revenue, because tourists are boycotting beaches because access has become too difficult.
A businessman in Sodwana proclaimed on national TV that South Africans are too lazy to carry their cooler bags to the beach. He told the news reporter that there was too little parking available and therefore people were not coming to the beach any more.
Local newspapers have been filled with reports about tourism dropping alongside the northern KwaZulu-Natal coast due to the ban. Community newspapers such as the Zululand Observer were bombarded with letters from locals complaining that their voices were not heard when decisions were made about the ban.
In Alexandria in the Eastern Cape, residents are up in arms over their lost revenue. During the peak summer holiday period, the community used to generate up to R90 000 from tourism, but subsequent to the introduction of the ban this ‘went down sharply”, the local community told Premier Makhenkesi Stofile during an imbizo in the province at the end of last year.
‘Thousands of rands were spent on beach tourism, but the investment resulted in a loss because of the closure,” a member of the Alexandria community complained to the premier.
The Beach Action Committee of South Africa (Bacsa), which claims to represent the interests of beach users, accused the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism of having ulterior motives in deciding on the ban. The organisation said the ban was intended to clear the way for an exclusive R340-million investment project in the surrounding Greater St Lucia Wetland Park.
‘The minister publicly denounced those who want to use the beach for 4×4 recreation as ‘ruffians’ or ‘hooligans’ in Parliament, albeit knowing that he and his department were planning even more drastic damage to the environment within a world heritage park,” Bacsa said in a statement. ‘The question now arises, who in this fairy tale is in fact the ‘hooligans’ or ‘ruffians’?”
Fishing locations
Andrew Zaloumis, CEO of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, says all sorts of conspiracy theories are doing the rounds about the beach ban, including that the government wants to use the ban to generate more money from investors.
‘But the ban has benefited the park’s ecology and made it more enjoyable for those coming to the beach,” he says. ‘The problem is controlling the number of 4x4s on the beach and their activities. The vehicles were doing a lot of damage that we simply could not control.
‘While the beach can accommodate a small number of 4x4s driving responsibly, it was not able to handle the mass quantities of vehicles driving all over without considering high and low tide marks.”
Regarding the reported drop in tourism in the area, Zaloumis points to photos taken at Sodwana on last New Year’s day. The photos show the parking lot crammed with vehicles and the shoreline filled with crowds of people. ‘Can you show me where there is room for 4x4s on Sodwana?” he asks.
Environmental consultants Lara Atkinson and Barry Clark investigated the impact the ban has had on beaches at the end of last year. However, their report excluded the KwaZulu-Natal coastline. The government plans to do a comprehensive economic study of the St Lucia region to evaluate the economic implications of the ban.
‘The use of off-road vehicles on dunes and beaches in South Africa remains a highly controversial and emotive issue,” the consultants say in their report. ‘Many off-road vehicle users are recreational anglers and formerly used their vehicles to transport angling equipment to desirable fishing locations.”
Fishing activities provided social interaction and opportunities for individuals of all ages to access the outdoor environment, by making the vehicle a base for people to shelter and relax in.
But the two consultants also found that noise pollution, ecological damage, danger to pedestrians and a general detraction from the wilderness value of the coast were caused by off-road vehicles.
Anglers are one of the groups that have suffered most severely under the ban. In the past angling enthusiasts could access remote beaches with their off-road vehicles, as well as follow the fish hordes without having to carry their heavy equipment. But the new legislation has made life difficult for the anglers, who now have to practice their hobby on foot.
In February 2002, the South African Shore Angling Association and the Oyster Bay Rate Payers Association took the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism to court in an attempt to have the regulations declared unlawful and unconstitutional. They argued that Moosa had no jurisdiction to implement the new ban, because his department had no authority over vehicles. The association said the ban was the domain of the Department of Transport.
But the judge disagreed and the case was dismissed with costs, making the legislation a harsh reality for the fishermen who had hoped for a last-minute intervention.
Serious anglers generally have a good reputation and are considered to be responsible beach drivers. A survey done in 1990 by an environmental consulting firm in the Eastern Cape found that ‘generally bona fide anglers were considered responsible off-road vehicle drivers, and non-anglers were held responsible for most of the disturbance and/or damage to the beaches and dunes”.
Lara Atkinson says this could be attributed to a sense of ‘self-policing” among fellow anglers who belong to a club, who are local residents or frequent visitors and who have a vested interest in obeying regulations. ‘Non-anglers who make use of off-road vehicles, however, are frequently tourists on holiday seeking some ‘fun and adventure’ and would possibly only return to the area in six to 12 months’ time, and therefore have a reduced sense of responsibility for the well-being of the environment.”
The angling community argues that they are the eyes and ears of park rangers and are in a good position to report poaching of marine resources. Because they no longer have access to these remote areas, overworked rangers will be stretched even more, the South African Shore Angling Association said in a statement.
But Clark and Atkinson point out in their report that the ban will help protect marine resources, because fish will be able to take shelter in remote areas that fishermen cannot access.
Historical problems
Though the ban on off-road vehicles driving on the beach was only introduced during Moosa’s term, the idea of controlling vehicles on beaches is not new. The current legislation goes back 20 years, when the then minister of environmental affairs expressed concern about the increasing impact of 4x4s on the coastal environment. He appointed a council to investigate the increasing popularity of driving on the beach and the council recommended that beach access should be regulated.
‘The minister requested the then administrators of the coastal provinces to implement the recommendations of the above-mentioned council for the environment’s report,” Atkinson and Clarke report, ‘but this request had no legal standing and its effect was thus limited.”
In 1994 a new policy was implemented that introduced a permit system. Vehicles were banned from bathing areas, beach areas adjacent to bathing areas which were used by the public for walking, and ecologically sensitive areas.
Atkinson and Clarke say efforts to implement the policy after it was promulgated indicated several shortcomings. ‘Some of these concerned shortcomings of the policy itself and others concerned inadequate implementation of the policy by local authorities,” they write. ‘A significant shortcoming was a lack of criteria or standards with which permit systems introduced by relevant controlling authorities had to comply. Some permits — were nothing more than a receipt indicating payment to a local authority had been made.”
In 2001 Moosa decided enough was enough and introduced the complete 4×4 beach ban. Except for strictly regulated recreational use areas and boat launch zones, which are designated by the director general of the department, South Africans’ beach-driving days became something of the past.
‘Ignoring this growing threat [of off-road vehicles damaging beaches] would have meant that the government is failing in fulfilling its duty of protecting the environment, as entrenched in the Constitution,” said Moosa.
The use of vehicles for recreational purposes on the coast was increasing, Dr Niel Malan, deputy director of coastal management, said at the time the ban was introduced. ‘This use is increasingly damaging coastal ecosystems and historical sites, and diminishing the quality of the recreational experience of the general public.”
Historical sites were being destroyed when vehicles drove over shell middens and the prehistoric dumping sites of coastal civilisations, which provide scientists with information from as far back as 120 000 years ago.
Making a comeback
Tony Williams, an ornithologist at Cape Nature Conservation, says the ban has benefited beach birds tremendously. Though he cannot yet comment on the second season since the ban was introduced, monitoring of the first season indicates that shore-breeding birds’ numbers have picked up.
‘Several shore-breeding birds, especially the endangered Damara tern, and the ‘near-threatened’ African black oystercatcher, are breeding successfully on beach areas,” he says. ‘In the case of the Damara tern, it has enabled them to breed successfully far earlier in the season than in other monitored years.”
A report in 1997 conducted by Cape Nature Conservation and the University of Cape Town revealed disturbing patterns in the African black oystercatchers’ breeding patterns. On the West Coast the birds’ breeding success was 15% of that needed to maintain a stable population. On the Eastern Cape Coast there was no evidence of successful breeding at all.
The government noted that the alarming correlation between a decrease in the oystercatchers’ breeding success and the increase in the sales of four-wheel-drive vehicles in South Africa could not be ignored.
Conservationists have reported immediate benefits, said Schneier at the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. ‘Dunes and their associated vegetation have recovered in certain areas, there are fewer mortalities of turtle hatchlings becoming trapped in tyre tracks on the northern KwaZulu-Natal beaches,” he said. ‘Ghost crabs are reappearing on northern KwaZulu-Natal beaches formerly subject to vehicle use.”
Generally, beach driving should be restricted to below the high water mark, between the spring low water mark and the spring high water mark. But the problem in regulating beach driving is that, if only one driver strays from this route, he causes damage to the coastal environment.
‘A study conducted in 1996 on beaches in the Alexandria coastal dunefield in the Eastern Cape showed that between 17% and 25% of vehicles on the beach drive above the high water mark, even though signboards clearly indicated that this was forbidden,” Atkinson says.
Coastal land forms that are particularly vulnerable to vehicle traffic include dunes, salt marshes and estuarine sand and mud flats. Driving on dunes causes them to sag, creating blow-out, which will become a bare area and no longer provide a buffer. Driving on dune vegetation destroys the foredunes. This is the area were many birds nest.
The Damara tern and the African black oystercatcher both nest in the foredunes. If the tyres don’t crush the eggs, the adult birds are disturbed and leave the nest, leaving the eggs unprotected.
Other species that have benefited from the ban include the loggerhead turtle and the leatherback turtle. Both species are on the list of the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species. Between October and February each year, these turtles beach at night to lay their eggs on the high beaches and later in the year, between December and March, the hatchlings make their way across the beach to the sea.
In the past, 4x4s simply sped over the eggs or ran over the hatchlings making their way back to the sea. The tracks of vehicles also forced the hatchlings to make a detour to the beach, giving seagulls and crabs more opportunity to prey on them. The ban has significantly improved the turtles’ chances of survival by removing at least one unnatural enemy on their path.
When female turtles haul themselves out on to the beach, they can be distracted from their purpose by the presence of bright lights, such as vehicle headlights and torches. ‘It has been shown that the mere presence of human habitation on beaches seems to reduce the likelihood that turtles will nest on adjacent beaches,” Atkinson and Clarke say in their report.
Early reports from rangers in the Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park indicate that the turtles’ breeding patterns have definitely improved since the ban.
New horizons
With South African beaches now off-limits to 4x4s, beach drivers are testing out neighbouring countries. Mozambique has become a popular destination.
Mozambican beach driving is regulated by a permit system, but the terms and conditions of the permits are often unclear and visitors report conflicting prices, as well as widespread corruption in the system. Also, it seems the friendlier you are with officials, the more you can enjoy driving on the beaches.
In the south of the country, one campsite can only be accessed by driving along the beach, thus creating a semi-permanent road that runs along the beach. The patrons of this campsite are allowed to drive on a stretch of beach.