Article by: Guy Rogers, The Herald, 09 May 2011
NELSON Mandela Bay will soon have its own Kirstenbosch, creating the possibility for a major upswing in environmental protection, tourism and job creation. The news was announced by the metro’s environment portfolio chairman Councillor Noluthando Mapu, at a biodiversity celebration function at Cape Town’s famous Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, a landmark attraction in the Mother City.
The event was hosted by the Wilderness Foundation, which is based in Port Elizabeth, and guests included representatives from key local authorities in the fynbos belt of the western and eastern Cape together with leading conservationists, businessmen, artists, and social activists.
Mapu said the botanical garden is one of a number of projects that the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) is working on, with the aim of protecting and utilising its huge environmental wealth.
Asked further about the project, NMBM environment management director Joram Mkosana told The Herald the development will include St George’s and Victoria parks, plus Settlers’ Park through to and including Dodd’s Farm in the Baakens River Valley.
In the same approach that has worked successfully at Kirstenbosch, the over-arching theme will be a celebration of indigenous biodiversity, but the existing parks will be themed in different ways. Victoria Park, will focus on vulnerable and endangered plant species, St George’s on plants from around South Africa and Settlers’ on plants endemic to this region while at Dodd’s Farm the vision is recreation with a mountain bike park and even an overnight lodge.
The areas will be linked by a suitable tourist-friendly and low-emissions’ transport system, possibly using golf carts. Jobs will be created through this and all other segments of the project.
Mkosana said much of the security issues that have beset the Baakens Valley would be solved by the botanical garden project.
“Up to and including Dodd’s Farm it will be fully fenced as part of the botanical garden, and there will be full security in keeping with this development. That will leave less of the valley, higher up, to secure against the muggers. We will have guys patrolling but not as many will be needed because the area will be smaller.”
The tender for the project is due to be issued soon and work on it will get under way before the end of the year, if not sooner, he said.
In related comments, NMBM public health department executive-director Dr Mamisa Chabula-Nxiweni said she had been excited by the suggestion by permaculture activist Naomi Suzane communicated in The Herald’s Elephant’s Ear column that communities living alongside the Baakens could be involved in a programme to look after the valley, with reduction of water or power tariffs as an incentive.
The incentives would tie in with the recognition of the huge economic value of environmental services, she noted. Earlier in the evening, a presentation by the SA National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi) flagged the figure of R10-billion a year as the total economic value of the fynbos-dominated or “Cape Floristic Region” – of which the NMBM forms the western border.
As one of the hottest botanical hotspots in the world, the region includes 9600 plant species, 70% per cent of which are found nowhere else on the planet.
Sanbi programme manager Mandy Barnett told the members of the audience that, with these figures in mind, they had a critical role to play in helping to make wise environmental decisions.
“These are decisions which create jobs and deliver services, but which also protect the natural systems that underpin our economy and society.
“Protecting large areas of fynbos can have great benefits – improving water supply in our catchments, promoting sustainable agriculture for food security, creating jobs in tourism and environmental public works and buffering against increased floods, droughts and fires with climate change.”
Chabula-Nxiweni also liked the scheme presented at the function by the little Bergrivier municipality which focused on the integration of art into their public open spaces.
Bergrivier municipal manager Christa le Roux said the scheme was aimed at protecting but also using their unique biodiversity to stimulate tourism and create greater opportunities and enjoyment for a wider cross-section of residents.
Mamisa Chabula-Nxiweni said the scheme could work well in the NMBM.
“ I think our township artists would be interested in the concept. It would be a way for our people to develop an intrinsic gift which was stifled by apartheid.”
In her speech, Mapu also highlighted the efforts been made by the NMBM to link its much-envied public open space systems including Van der Kemp’s Kloof.
Asked about this and the controversial stone quarry project which got under way this year in the middle of the kloof after receiving a controversial approval from the national department of mineral resources, Mkosana confirmed that the NMBM had lodged their objection to the project.
“All we can do now is to monitor it closely through the five years which it has been given and to ensure that they rehabilitate it properly.”
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