Wild Coast needs better roads, not toll highway
The Sunday Independent. Letters: May 27, 2007 Edition 1
Congratulations on an excellent, balanced article and editorial on the Wild Coast.
I hope all South Africans will rally in support of the local communities to prevent this quite spectacular and unique coastline being mined – by anyone, never mind an Australian company!
It seems a lot of money could be made by mining titanium at Xolobeni on the Wild Coast but – again – it will be a minority who benefit while the majority will find their lands devastated and the ecotourist potential destroyed forever.
Sustaining the Wild Coast (SWC) has long called for sustainable development for the Pondoland region. This lies in ecotourism. As you point out, there is a growing realisation that we need to take better care of our planet and the Wild Coast is one of South Africa’s few remaining natural treasures.
There are only half a dozen waterfalls in the world that tumble straight into the ocean. Half of them are along the Wild Coast. The Wild Coast, with the Mkambati Nature Reserve’s kloofs, forests, river systems and 23 major waterfalls, is one of God’s gems. It would not only be irresponsible but immoral to mine the coast and ruin the environment with a toll road cutting an 80m swathe through the countryside.
There is certainly a desperate need to improve and upgrade the roads of the former Transkei. SWC has long pleaded with the South African National Roads Agency (Sanra) to upgrade the existing roads, such as taking the road from Port Edward through Bizana to Magusheni and up to the N2 at Pakadi. SWC has also called for the building and tarring of access roads to the tourist nodes rather than the building of a motorway through the “greenfields” section and Mkambati Nature Reserve.
Reactions from local communities show that they are opposed to the mining but desperately want good roads. Because no other option has been offered, it seems they have said yes to the toll road.
It is highly questionable that, in one of the poorest parts of South Africa, people would want a road with an R80 toll fee to pass through. They need a set of roads that will give them the access and opportunity to get to centres.
The toll road process is lengthy and costly. We plead again that Sanra upgrades the roads and abandons its grandiose scheme of building five major bridges along a part of the countryside that needs to be kept unspoiled for future generations.
The Wild Coast should be South Africa’s next world heritage site. Please, let’s not destroy it before we have a chance of declaring it as such.
Bishop Geoff Davies
SA Faith Communities’ Environment Institute
Cape Town
Posted on May 27th, 2007
Filed under: Letters, Newspaper and Media
As I read many of SWS articles recently, I discover that our country is still full of environmental patriots. People who resist the immediate short term objectives of getting rich as hidden under the banner of developoment. our wild coast will only be protected when we stand and say no, when our people are given enough information about the value of our landscapes & know its impotance to their lives. It is so unfortunate that they constitute the forgotten generation. They are forgotten because they do not benefit from the tourism within their regions, outside tourism companies come to steal from them, their traditional production is still fragmented and based on individual selling which is exploitative in a way. Young boys help exploiters in cupturing of our rare speci not knowing, in a bid for cheap money. I am writing this comment not to mourn but to say if we are good environmental watch dogs lets consider an emergecy plan to work on information decemination to our people along the wild coast. Guys it is getting late and I must note; lot of unkown illegal activities are going unoticed in our wild coasts.