The beautiful, biodiverse Mkambati Nature Reserve has finally received its official Ramsar Site certificate from the Ramsar Secretariat in Switzerland.
A Ramsar site is a wetland designated as internationally important under the international treaty, the Ramsar Convention, to which SA is a signatory.
While there are several such sites across the country, Mkambati is the first recognised Ramsar site in the Eastern Cape.
As forestry, fisheries and the environment deputy minister Narend Singh put it: they left the “best for last”.
The 7,720ha reserve is situated on the coast of north-eastern Pondoland, between Port Edward and Port St Johns.
The Mkambati Conservation & Community NPC describes it as “one of the most beautiful coastal reserves anywhere. Pristine rivers, tumbling waterfalls, deep gorges, rolling grasslands, pockets of dense swamp forest and beautiful secluded beaches”.
It is also flanked by the forested ravines of the Msikaba and Mtentu rivers.
It enjoys fascinating and diverse flora and a large number of reintroduced herbivores, and is said to be a birder’s paradise.
It also has a unique human story, as the Mkambati Conservation & Community NPC website explains.
Seven impoverished communities, whose descendants were forcibly removed by the colonial government almost a century before, regained ownership of the reserve in 2004 through SA’s restitution process.
The reserve is now jointly managed by the community via the Mkambati Land Trust and the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency.
The community opted for conservation rather than agriculture and are now reportedly the “only community out of all of SA’s 54 provincial nature parks and reserves who own the land outright under freehold title”.
It is a model which is worth observing and replicating in other areas along our sensitive Wild Coast
In further good news, Singh committed R17m towards improvements to infrastructure and visitor access in the reserve.
He also reiterated that his department was committed to “reimagining” the beautiful Wild Coast region in a way that was inclusive and recognised both conservation and development.
It is to be hoped that he takes this into consideration in areas where destructive sand mining remains under consideration along the pristine Wild Coast coastline, often against local communities’ wishes.
Singh acknowledged the unique management, leadership and stewardship of the land via government and community agency, and said it showed just how co-governance delivered real, lasting and meaningful conservation.
It is a model which is worth observing and replicating in other areas along our sensitive Wild Coast, where communities, such as at Xolobeni, are denied ownership and the right to be stewards of conservation in the areas in which they live.
The declaration of the Mkambati Nature Reserve as an official Ramsar site should be a source of immense pride for this province.
Hopefully, it is the first of many.
Daily Dispatch
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