SCLI seminar highlights the need for better environmental planning in the Garden Route
The annual Southern Cape Landowners Initiative (SCLI) seminar, co-hosted recently by Eden District and Knysna Municipalities, raised the bar as far as environmental management and stakeholder engagement in the Southern Cape are concerned.
Setting the scene for the seminar was Dirk Smit of the Southern Cape Fire Protection Association (SCFPA), reflecting on how Brenton-on-Sea had to be evacuated twice during the relentless and all-consuming fires.
Says Cobus Meiring of SCLI and seminar coordinator: “The Knysna fire disaster -the largest of its kind in recent memory – was a definite game-changer in as far as environmental management in the Southern Cape is concerned”.
“Where SCLI stakeholders in the past focussed their attention on the impact of invasive alien plants only, it is now clear that broader issues around land management, (such as climate change and the management of the urban/ rural interface), must also be brought into the environmental management equation”.
Commemorating the Knysna (7 June, 2017) fires, SCLI invited a host of high-level environmental speakers and facilitators to Brenton-on-Sea for its 16thseminar.
The objective of the seminar was not only to reflect on measures taken to rehabilitate the Knysna burn scar but, more importantly, to take a look at the various scenarios pertaining to environmental management which lie install for the Southern Cape in coming years.
Planning is key to the future
Key to determine a new direction in land management, Design Thinking specialist, Dr Roy Marcus, was invited to address the gathering. Reflecting upon, and drawing parallels between very significant political changes in the South African make-up in the recent past, Dr Marcus amplified the need for better management and decision- making in the environmental sector.
A follow-on presentation by Dr Rob Fincham of Nelson Mandela University, and Stephen Stead (UKZN), looked at how the influx and increase of population into the Southern Cape will put more and more pressure on natural infrastructure and resources in the area.
“What is evident from all the presentations made at the seminar, is that we are running the risk of losing a lot of the allure of the Garden Route, should we fail to plan around the trends that are already showing,” says Cobus Meiring.
The Southern Cape landowners Initiative (SCLI), is an environmental think-tank for landowners and land managers in the Southern Cape. SCLI is supported by the Table Mountain Fund and The Nelson Mandela University (Sustainability Research Unit).