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| EMF and Koppie Alleen |
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| Written by Administrator |
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At a recent feedback meeting for the Environmental Management Framework commissioned by Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rurual Development (GDARD) a zoning anamoly raised concern. Here Niko Knigge, the Doornrandje representative on the committee, writes to the consultant The koppie and its surroundings are in a slight valley and any developments there can be seen from kilometres away. The area around the mountain (see blue line) attracts an increasing number of hikers, mountain bikers and eco-tourists. Whilst the area is ‘only’ dolomite grassland, it full of the most beautiful multi-coloured stone formations. Most of the properties there have no fences (an no dwellings either). Game moves freely. I personally have seen wildebeest, a hedgehog, a tortoise and some unidentified buck in various walks in the area. There are very few houses in the area, and of those about half (my guess) are abandoned. The abandoned houses are at present recycled / stolen: With or without permission of the owners, trucks have moved in taking the houses apart, presumably to sell building materials. The biggest house has almost disappeared, only ¼ of a wall has remained. We have a situation where nature claims its space back! The koppie itself holds great historical, archaeological and geological interest. The officials from SAHRA ascribed historical and living cultural significance to the Koppie. There are iron-age structures on Koppie Alleen, stone-age hand tools have been found "littered" on the southern and south-western side of the hill and its surrounds. There are numerous caves in the slopes of the Koppie, some may yield more artefacts from times gone by. It is also clear that animal inhabit the caves. Old African people living in the area call the hill “N’thaba Nkonjan”, meaning "God's Place" and considered it sacred. So much so, that pointing at N’thaba Nkonjan directly is forbidden and such a transgression may “cause your loincloth to fall off!” Reportedly, in times of drought, elders and young girl go to N’thaba Nkonjan to perform a ceremony and on the same day the rain will come. At the stakeholder meeting there was already a developer expressing the interest of his client to develop land in this area commercially. Whatever the developer wants to do on the land will not make the slightest to Gauteng’s housing problem. Any development which may be permitted there will impact madly on the entire “highly sensitive” surroundings. I see that the REMF speaks about buffer zones. This is very good. But what if there is an area in the medium sensitive zone that falls outside of the buffer? Because the entire area is surrounded by land classified as highly sensitive (and visible from the sensitive area) any development that will be permitted there will unavoidably and irreversibly impact on the highly sensitive part of the conservancy. One point about the buffer zones: 1 km sounds much but it is actually very little in an untouched piece of land where the view is easily 10 to 50 km. When you finalise the zones please consider that it is easy lowering a sensitivity at some later stage but that it is difficult (and makes little environmental sense) to raise the sensitivity after a disturbing development has taken place. Please consider while you have a chance to protect a large relatively untouched piece of land. Please leave the conservancy in tact and consider declassifying land at the fringes that is already so disturbed that its ecological value is questionable. Thank you for consulting. Kind regards Niko Knigge
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Comments (1)
Corridors
1
Wednesday, 23 September 2009 06:57
Administrator
Nikko's point is valid. It speaks to fragmentation of a conservation corridor, which if allowed, negates any conservation effort. The conservation zones in this EMF tie in with a even larger conservation corridor, essential as a migratory zone in climate change conditions. We have no true notion of how less or more rain will alter the landscape, and so the possibility of movement or migration is vital.
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