Bot / Kleinmond Estuarine System Overberg Region, Western Cape
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
C. A. P. E. OVERSTRAND ESTUARIES MUNICIPALITY PROGRAMME ESTUARY MANAGEMENT PLAN for the BOT / KLEINMOND ESTUARINE SYSTEM OVERBERG REGION, WESTERN CAPE PART 1 : SITUATION ASSESSMENT REPORT F I N A L FEBRUARY 2009 PREPARED BY iRAP CONSULTING Postnet Suite 5 Private Bag X7 Muizenberg 7950 FOR WESTERN CAPE NATURE CONSERVATION BOARD SITUATION ASSESSMENT REPORT FEBRUARY 2009 PROJECT TEAM CapeNature: Pierre de Villiers Overstrand Municipality: Neville Green iRAP: Jenny Whitehead Kathy Leslie Errol Cerff Grant Benn Marlene Laros Jane Turpie Lara van Niekerk iRAP CONTACT DETAILS: Jenny Whitehead Kathy Leslie cell: 083-661-6621 tel: 021 6719350 e-mail: [email protected] cell: 083 325 5615 fax: 086-685-8482 e-mail: [email protected] postal: Postnet suite 5, Private bag X7, Muizenberg 7950 fax: 088 021 671 9350 Preface to the Final draft (February 2009) The Draft Part 1: Situation Assessment Report was made available for public scrutiny in September 2008, and followed by a public meeting held on 16 October 2008 in the Thusong Hall at Hawston, affording stakeholders and interested and affected parties the opportunity to comment and provide further input into the process of drafting the Estuarine Management Plan for the Bot and Kleinmond estuaries. The Consultant, on behalf of the C.A.P.E. Estuaries Programme, received numerous submissions from the public in the weeks following the meeting, all of which are recorded in the Annexure to this, the updated and final situation assessment report. During the course of consultations and in the written comments, many people expressed concern about the emphasis, in the Situation Assessment Report, on development and socio-economic issues, which they considered to be counter to the primary objective of the estuarine management plan. They suggested that the EMP should be focused on the management of the “environment”. The province-wide assessment of development potential and subsequent identification of Hermanus as a leader town for development in the Western Cape (WCPSDF, 2005), brings huge pressure to bear on the Bot’s estuarine catchment, which demands very careful assessment and a proactive approach in order to manage this pressure through forward planning, rather than reactive adaptation, as is the case when communities rely on developer- and municipality driven EIA processes to inform decisions on the form that development should take. The Consultant viewed the preparation of an Estuary Management Plan to be the appropriate opportunity for a proactive approach to development planning that would take into account the needs of all of the people who have an interest in the Vlei, as well as the inevitable future demands for land for all types of development in the Hermanus – Kleinmond area, all from a point of view which has the Vlei as its central point of concern; that is, what is proposed is an integrated approach to planning the use of the land around the Vlei and to managing activities that relate to the estuary itself. The cue for adopting this integrated approach to the management of human activities within the estuaries’ catchments, which includes urban development and socio-economic development, comes from South Africa’s policy for sustainable coastal development (DEAT, 2000). Further cues for an integrated approach are provided by the national policy framework for sustainable development which depicts a ‘nested’ view on development, where development of the economy is dependent on the health of socio-political systems, both of which cannot exist without the ecosystem services, or “environment”, which support them. Internationally, the approach to ecosystem management planning (such as an EMP) relies on identifying and addressing the causal factors of impacts (i.e. human actions and behaviour) because, by changing those, long-lasting sustainable solutions to environmental problems become possible. Hence the importance, for example, of considering why facilities in the past have been vandalised, and aiming to create a future situation where people behave differently. The differences between this, final version of the Situation Assessment Report, and the September draft are broadly as follows: Corrections and additional information provided by the resident community and key roleplayers, as recorded in the Annexure, have been incorporated into this report. This was facilitated by the responses that the Consultant provided in the comment report (iRAP actions). The addition of Section 5.7.5 is a summary of items raised by the resident community and key roleplayers which will need attention during the implementation phase of the EMP. The Ecological Assessment, which was prepared by Lara van Niekerk of the CSIR, has been updated by herself through the addition of a list of 41 species of fish that have been recorded in the Bot, and a proposal for revised breaching criteria. The latter represents a useful and well-informed guideline for consideration at the forthcoming Indaba scheduled for April 2009, and should be further interrogated following the Estuarine Ecological Reserve Determination study which, it is hoped, will commence later in the year as a result of the C.A.P.E. Estuaries Programme. The valuable contributions of all of the people who took the time to attend meetings and respond to the invitation to comment on the draft situation assessment report are gratefully acknowledged, as are the original and additional contributions from stakeholders and members of the project team. ESTUARY MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR THE BOT / KLEINMOND SYSTEM, WESTERN CAPE i Summary The development of management plans for estuaries in the Cape Floristic Region is a recent initiative co- ordinated by the C.A.P.E. Estuaries Programme, hosted by CapeNature and supported by a number of government line departments, including Water Affairs (DWAF) and Marine and Coastal Management (DEAT- MCM). The preparation of an Estuary Management Plan (EMP) for the Bot is co-funded by the Overstrand Municipality. The Situation Assessment report presents the findings of the first phase of the project. The estuary of the Bot River, known also as die Vlei , Hawstonvlei or Botriviersvlei , is the third largest in the Cape Floristic bioregion. The Situation Assessment is premised on the view that the Bot and Kleinmond estuaries, and intermediate wetlands of Rooisand and Lamloch Swamp, must be managed as an inter- related system on the basis that, at the current time, water flows between them. The diversity of habitat types within the system, and the expanse of the water body, make it unique in South Africa. The health of an estuary is affected by activities on the land that surrounds it and in the upper catchments of the rivers that feed into it. The assessment must therefore include all of these areas and activities. Its aim is to provide a foundation for an integrated management plan that addresses not only the biophysical aspects of estuarine management but also the drivers of the threats to estuarine health, which include social and economic issues. Mouth management Mouth management dominates the discourse on estuary management at the Bot. It is a bone of contention between parties who hold different views on whether or not, and how, the Bot estuary should be artificially breached. The mouth is mostly closed. At present it is breached artificially approximately once every three years. In the last 60 years the system has breached naturally three times. The expertise and data to formulate a breaching policy is available but what is absent is a clear and consensual decision on what the breaching policy should aim to achieve. A review of the policy will be undertaken early in 2009. This will have to take into account the findings and objectives of the EMP, inter alia , and the increasing importance of the nursery value of the Bot estuary. In the context of a global decline in fish stocks, the irreplaceability of the Bot estuary’s nursery function adds weight to the business case for managing the estuary as a resource-orientated service area in the interests of the national economy and global food security. The scientific view that the system is naturally transforming to a freshwater lake has been countered by a body of research that indicates that the rareness of natural breaching occurrences is the result of human interventions – reduced flow of water from the catchments, artificial breaching of the Kleinmond estuary and, in earlier times, the stabilisation of the Middelvlei dune field to the east of the mouth. More frequent opening would support a greater stability of the ecosystem than infrequent opening and would reduce the impact of gill-netting on stocks of marine fish. Views on mouth management are influenced by economic interests. Considerable investment has been made in property development in the upper reaches of the lagoon, and high water levels are favoured for recreational purposes and scenic value. More frequent opening of the mouth increases biodiversity and optimises the nursery function of the estuary, thereby serving regional commercial fisheries’ interests. More frequent opening is also supported by local residents from Hawston, the community that formerly managed the estuarine fishery, because it results in replenishment of marine fish stocks in the estuary. Issues of global, national and regional significance Some aspects of the Bot / Kleinmond estuarine system are of interest only to local residents, investors, managers and recreators, whilst others have a regional, national and even worldwide significance. The Bot and Klein estuaries together represent 40-50% of the estuarine nursery habitats required to support marine fish stocks in the area between Cape Point and Breede River. The value of the Bot’s nursery function to the fisheries industry – estimated at R22- to R55 million – is significantly higher than the economic value of the estuarine-based exploitation of marine living resources . Fisheries around the ESTUARY MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR THE BOT / KLEINMOND SYSTEM, WESTERN CAPE ii world are collapsing because stocks have been exploited beyond sustainable levels.