by Carmel Rickard
Have you been to see the flamingos at Kimberley’s Kamfers Dam yet? If you have not, you’d better get there quickly: even though this is one of the great birding sights of the world with potential to become a major tourist attraction, the local municipality has happily approved a new development project in the area that will scare off all the birds.
News of the proposed Northgate development reached the rest of the world last month when Carte Blanche ran footage of a public meeting on the issue followed by an interview with the then executive mayor of Sol Plaatje municipality (Kimberley), Patrick Lenyibi.
The mayor was understandably keen for the city to host a development that would see work and houses for many people, but he could not accept that there was a problem about siting it on the shores of Kamfers Dam where tens of thousands of Lesser Flamingos are breeding for the first time.
He was asked why the city had approved the rezoning necessary for the development project to go ahead, without waiting for an environmental impact assessment to be done. His reply was that this was the way Sol Plaatje municipality always did things. “We don’t wait for the (Environmental Impact Assessment). We approved a piece of land, and once the approval is done, then that’s it.”
He also told the interviewers that the development would not result in the birds leaving. Why? Because the council had taken a decision that they would stay.
There have been three important developments since then. The mayor has resigned because of political pressure, apparently over the state of the city’s finances. The raw sewerage that was noticed on the dam by the Carte Blanche team continues to flow into the Kamfers Dam and though some work has been going on to fix the input of toxic and raw sewerage, it is not nearly enough. The third development is an international effort to persuade the municipality and other role players to re-site Northgate in order to save the flamingos. It is just too heart-breaking that just when these beautiful birds have been enticed to stay and breed, by the provision of their own island in the dam, they are put at risk by inappropriate building.
If you’d like to support this important venture, please contact me on 082 551 3293, or go to www.savetheflamingo.co.za on the Web.
