Environmental activists are pitting government departments against each other in a desperate bid to save Gauteng’s last wild mountain space from becoming a concrete jungle.
Without drastic intervention, they warn, the popular Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens on the West Rand — including unique breeding eagles which draw hundreds of thousands of tourists each year — will be decimated by townhouse estate development.
Lobbyists sent an urgent appeal to national Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk earlier this month, urging him to support the development of a reserve along the Roodepoort-Krugersdorp Ridge to protect it from urban encroachment.
Under the banner of the Sisulu Reserve Working Group, the activists are trying to prevent the provincial department of agriculture, conservation and environment from approving thousands of townhouse units planned for the ridge.
They are also fighting plans by the local municipality, Mogale City, to build a six-million-litre water reservoir a few hundred metres from the eagles’ nesting site.
”I just hope people don’t wake up when it’s too late to what a great resource the gardens are for Gauteng. It will be a great loss if they are lost to development,” said Elinor Sisulu, human rights activist and Walter Sisulu’s daughter-in-law, recently.
The gardens were named after struggle hero Walter Sisulu in March 2004 ”because it was felt that the values he stood for were in line with the values of the botanical gardens”, she said.
Situated 24km from the Johannesburg central business district, the 275ha gardens are managed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi), a statutory body within the national environment affairs department.
About 180 000 people, mostly city dwellers, visit the gardens every year, with the resident Verreaux’s (black) eagles being a major drawcard.
The raptors have been nesting on the ridge since the early 1940s and are the only eagles in the world known to breed in an urban environment. The most recent chick was born in early June and was named ”Freedom” by the local Black Eagle Project, because ”he also has the right to be free — free from disturbance, and free to survive in a human-dominated world”.
Arthur Albertson, chairperson of the Sisulu Reserve Working Group, pointed out that numerous endangered animal and plant species were threatened by the encroaching development. Less than 2% of the grassland types found on the ridge were protected in Gauteng.
”Should these areas continue to be degraded and further shrink in size, it is likely that many species, including the Verreaux’s eagles, will disappear, as the area will simply be too small and disturbed to sustain them,” he said.
The eagles are immediately threatened by the proposed water reservoir, which Mogale City maintains is needed to supply the demands of rapid urbanisation in the area. Albertson said reasonable alternative sites had been identified for the reservoir, but the municipality seemed intent on building it near the eagles’ nest.
”The anticipated 330-day construction period, involving the removal of large quantities of rock and massive disturbance from construction crews, earthmoving and drilling equipment, will result in significant noise, dust, visual and solid waste pollution that threatens to force the black eagles to permanently vacate their territory,” he added.
Albertson and various supporters are lobbying for the declaration of a reserve to protect some 2 000ha stretching westward from the botanical gardens to the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. It would be a vital urban ”green lung” reserved for recreational and tourism use, similar to Central Park in New York and Kenya’s Nairobi Game Reserve.
Van Schalkwyk said he supported the reserve concept and referred it this week to his department’s directorate of biodiversity and conservation. Sanbi was due to discuss the matter at a strategic meeting on Thursday.
However, the provincial environment affairs department defended its go-ahead for development of the area and the reservoir. Spokesperson Sizwe Matshikiza said the projects were necessary for economic development, to reduce unemployment and to help fight poverty.
”No scientific proof has been provided that the black eagle at the site will be forced to vacate the spot. On the other hand, empirical evidence of the huge benefits of the development of the reservoir to local communities, including the most disadvantaged, is abundant. People will benefit from further economic development in the area, from job creation and poverty alleviation,” he said.
Bongani Gaeje, director of communications in the office of the executive mayor at the Mogale City Local Municipality, said alternative sites for the water reservoir had been rejected by independent environmental consultants and engineers for various technical reasons. The proposed urban wildlife reserve was the ”brain child” of Mogale City, though it still had to be approved by the local council, he added.