Letter to the Editor: Fernkloof deserves better protection.

Letter to the Editor: Fernkloof deserves better protection

Rob Fryer & Pat Miller Whale Coast Conservation

The editorial in The Village NEWS of 24 February 2021 (Fernkloof gets what it deserves) refers.

As a proclaimed nature reserve protected under the Protected Areas Management Act (NEM:PAA), Fernkloof Nature Reserve (FNR) must be managed for the purpose for which the reserve was proclaimed, in accordance with an approved management plan, known as a Protected Areas Management Plan (PAMP).

This must be a tactical five-year plan, containing performance measures, that concisely sets out what the management authority (the OM is the management authority for FNR) undertakes to do to fulfil its responsibility to manage the reserve for the purpose for which it was proclaimed – nothing more, nothing less. It must contain a budget and progress in the implementation of the plan must be reported upon annually to the provincial MEC for Local Government and Environment.

The submission of the FNR PAMP to Council for its approval is certainly not good news for FNR. And what FNR deserves is for the Overstrand Municipality (OM) simply to manage FNR in accordance with the purpose for which it was proclaimed – which is the conservation of its natural ecosystems. This the PAMP cannot facilitate, despite OM’s spin to the contrary, focused as it is on the contradictory strategy of making FNR “pay its way”. In this area there are plenty of places well placed to cater for the public’s need for entertainment and amusement. Tourism development belongs there.

In 2017 the PAMP developed by the OM caused widespread public outrage, as it would have opened most

of FNR to infrastructure development. Although the latest 2019 version does restrict the area open for this, it uses a zoning sleight-of-hand that would enable the OM to decide what infrastructure is allowable by allowing wide consent use discretions for development. Given the OM’s record in this regard this loophole should not be allowed. The record includes not only the 2017 PAMP but also the OM’s applications since 2008 for a bypass road to be routed through FNR.

Click on the newspaper below to read more (see page 5).