ROBBEN ISLAND SHAMBLES June 22, 2008
Posted by frostygirl in News.trackback
For nearly 400 years, Robben Island, about 12 kilometres from Cape Town in South Africa, was a place of exile and imprisonment where rulers sent those they regarded as outcasts and troublemakers.
This island is most famous for being Nelson Mandela’s home for 18 of his 27 years imprisonment and was declared a world heritage site in 1999. Nelson Mandela went on to become the first black President of South Africa. It has since become a symbol of the strength and endurance of its political prisoners, and “the triumph of the human spirit, of freedom, and of democracy over oppression. ”
While Robben Island was run by the prison service they and the prisoners took great pride in the fauna and flora of the Island and it was a lush beautiful place with a large variety of animals and birds living on it.
But now this Island is in an environmental crisis through lack of proper management by the Robben Island Museum who is supposed to look after this world heritage site.
Once again we find a typical situation where blacks, who are not trained, are placed in situations they cannot manage. They are supposed to protect the nature to ensure that this site remains the tourist attraction it has become.
The main problem is the explosion of ferrell rabbits eating everything in sight and despite the warnings given by the environmentalists to the museum management over 3 years ago of the ecological disaster waiting to happen, nothing was done.
Now there is a major crisis as many animals like the deer, springbok, bontebok and rabbits are starving to death. One can clearly see up to what height the animals could reach to eat leaves off the trees and bushes and when they could not reach anymore they died from starvation.
Footage of a buck eating a carcase of a dead animal was taken by the environmentalists and that is shocking in itself because buck never eat meat, so the poor animal had to be desperate!
Once again the citizens of the country have to dig into their own pockets to help the starving animals. Relief workers are taking food and fruit across to Robben Island to keep the few remaining animals alive.
Now that this problem has been highlighted hopefully the museum management team will get together with conservationists and implement a plan to reduce the ferrell rabbits, see what they can do about the animals who are not indigenous to South Africa, like the fallow deer, and restore the vegetation and animal life to what it was before.
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It’s such a tragedy that it’s been allowed happen. I’m surprised that the World Heritage people haven’t had anything to say about it, but perhaps they’re less interested in the environment in this case.
Is it possible to transport and introduce the buck into other conservancies. I live in Durban and notice that the D’MOSS has many areas that could possibly accept a scatter of these poor God’s creatures. However, this must be done in a sustainable manner and in association with our local environmental offices. Dr Deborah Roberts has done some sterling work for Natal and her input would be imperative. I understand that this may be an expensive exercise, and pledge R2000 towards the successfull relocation expenses, hoping that other concerned parties also contribute in order to achieve this goal.
That is a generous offer “Joe” it would be wonderful if more people could be so caring. In my update on this story on 8 July 2008 I mentioned the name of a business man Searl Derman who has also offered financial and manual assistance I will see if I can get more details on him and then we can start routing your pledges through to him.