02 February 2007 - Media Statement - Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism - The 2007 World Wetlands Day theme "Fish for Tomorrow?" draws attention to the intricate link between healthy fish stocks and maintaining healthy wetlands. Estuaries and estuarine wetlands are particularly valuable for maintaining food species populations, however increasingly unsustainable development and water use reduces their ability to provide ecological services.

Speaking during the World Wetland celebration in Knysna, the Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Rejoice Mabudafhasi stated that the slogan for this year has relevance to the challenges facing everybody in the fishing industry because one billion people worldwide rely on fish as their main or even sole source of food and proteins and yet the current state of fisheries continues to be under threat.

In the Knysna Estuary, which is rated Number One in terms of conservation importance and has one of the highest biodiversity levels of any estuary in South Africa, the impact of questionable land management in its catchment and development and settlement-related pollution in its immediate basin, combined with overexploitation of fish populations, has created an urgency for appropriate management intervention.

Even though some South African estuaries are still in good condition, the health and ecological functioning of many are being increasingly reduced by various activities both in their catchment and in their immediate area Minister Mabudafhasi said. Because they lie at the end of rivers, they bear the cumulative impact of activities in their catchments where increased sedimentation resulting from activities such as agriculture, timber plantations and insensitive development, and pollution from fertilisers, sewage, mining and industry, all contribute to reducing the quality of river water.

In Knysna, the development in the immediate basin is causing the biggest impact. Already about a quarter of the Knysna salt marsh has been destroyed by urban development such as the building of houses, canalisation, land reclamation, hardening of soils and road cuttings.

As part of the ongoing law reform process in the department, DEAT has now initiated a public participation process to discuss the Integrated Coastal Management Bill which will become an Act of Parliament in the near future. The Bill emphasises the enormous social and economic benefits of marine and coastal resources such as wetlands.

The Bill further addresses issues of mismanagement and degradation of the marine environment and coastal resources and calls for a "National estuarine management protocol" which will ensure that Estuaries within our country are managed in a co-ordinated and efficient manner in accordance with the protocol", said Mabudafhasi

Considering the imminent impacts of climate change and increasing development, the protection and, where necessary, restoration of wetlands plays an important role in ensuring that there is no increase in human vulnerability in near future years.

The economic value of estuaries is estimated at R153,000/ha/year and the estuarine recreational fishing industry in South Africa is worth about R2 billion.
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