Members of the public are invited to comment on the Draft Qinira Estuary Management Plan (EMP) and will have until February 15 to do so.
Project leader and Coastal Environmental Services director Dr Alan Carter said the draft formed part of a larger series of estuary management plans in the province organised by the department of environmental affairs.
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“They are mandated to establish estuary management plans for all estuaries in the Eastern Cape. Obviously they try to prioritise the ones under pressure,” he said.
Carter said the aim of the EMP was to try and address the many threats the Qinira estuary currently faces.
Ongoing development in the area, for example, is putting strain on the estuary’s natural resources with runoff from streets and storm water drains contaminating the water supply.
This is not helped by failing sewerage pumps dumping effluent into the Qinira River.
The ongoing scourge of water hyacinth – which residents became acutely aware of recently when the floods dumped it on the beaches – are partly a result of this.
Carter also drew attention to problems stemming from illegal fishing, hunting and logging in the estuary zone.
In Section 4.2 of the draft document, eight key objectives are laid out.
These include conserving the natural habitat within the estuary, improving public access to the estuary’s natural resources and putting measures in place to mitigate the effects of climate change.
“Thankfully the estuary was fully protected in 1988 by the then-Beacon Bay municipality but there’s lots of land around the estuary that should also be protected because if you destroy that, then it’s going to affect the estuary as well,” Carter said.
“A very important part of [the process] is getting stakeholder comment.”
A copy of the draft management plan can be found online and copies will be available at the Beacon Bay and Gonubie libraries. Public comments can be submitted via email to a.carter@cesnet.co.za.
