Kruger2Canyons.com

MASSINGIR- On Monday, Mozambican President Armando Guebuza visited a site where houses are being built to resettle people who had previously been living within the boundaries of what is now the Greater Limpopo National Park (PNL), in the southern province of Gaza.

Guebuza visited Chinhangane, on the outskirts of Massingir town, where 20 of the 148 families transferred from the park are being rehoused. The other 128 will live in the locality of Banga.

The resettlement project is budgeted at 2.2 million euros (about 2.9 million US dollars).

The main attraction of the resettlement is that the National Park is guaranteeing better housing for all those who move. At the very least, each family receives two brick structures- the main house and an adjacent latrine. Barns and hen coops are also provided.

Thus families living in homes built of flimsy materials valued at 25,000 meticais (1,000 dollars) will receive a brick house valued at 125,000 meticais.

In cases where the family was living in a rather better, but still traditional, two room house, valued at around 40,000 meticais, their new home will be larger, budgeted at 162,000 meticais.

Those whose original homes were already built of brick will receive a house of the same size, but using improved materials and technologies.

The project also compensates the families concerned by providing them with new fields and fruit trees.

The establishment of the PNL affects about 28,000 people living along the Limpopo and Elephants rivers, and particularly along the Shingwedzi river (about 6,000 people), which is in the heart of the park.

The PNL is part of the Greater Limpopo Cross-border Park, which also includes the Kruger National Park in South Africa, and the Gonorhezou park in Zimbabwe.

Tourism between these three connected parks began in earnest in 2006, when the Giriyondo border gate, on the Mozambique/South Africa border was inaugurated by Guebuza, and by his South African and Zimbabwean counterparts, Thabo Mbeki and Robert Mugabe.

The first quarter of this year saw about 4,500 tourists pass through the Giriyondo gate.

Labels: conservation, great limpopo park, greater limpopo park, massingir

LONDON- In the shadow of towering cliffs streaked with yellow and red, Nile crocodiles bask beside the swirling waters of Olifants gorge.

This corner of Kruger National Park, one of South Africa's premier attractions, serves as an ideal breeding ground for hundreds of crocodiles. They dig nests in sandy river banks along the eight-mile gorge, laying about 50 eggs each.

But much of this vista- and countless nests- will soon disappear under water. Thirty miles upstream in neighbouring Mozambique, work has begun on raising the Massingir dam, a project that will increase the gorge's water level by about 30ft.

At a stroke, the crocodiles will lose a major breeding ground and the natural beauty of one of Africa's most famous national parks, which attracts a million visitors every year, will be diminished.

Nile crocodiles are not facing extinction. They are found in rivers, lakes, swamps, and freshwater marshes across most of sub-Saharan Africa, the Kruger being the southern extent of their range. They appear on the world conservation union's "red list" of endangered species and trade in their hides is banned.

If Kruger, one of Africa's best protected national parks, cannot safeguard them, conservationists say their future is bleak. "Crocodiles are persecuted all over Africa," said Lawrence Anthony, the founder of the Earth Organisation ecological group. "This is one of the world's most famous protected areas. We can't afford to lose a major breeding ground. "

The Mozambican authorities did not consult Kruger about raising the dam. The park has not been officially informed when work will be finished - even though one of its safari lodges is also expected to be flooded.

Constantly growing numbers of poverty-stricken people surround every national park in Africa. Even if poaching is reduced to minimal levels, as Kruger has managed to accomplish, the wildlife can still be threatened by developments outside. When complete, the Massingir dam will provide water to tens of thousands of subsistence farmers. If the interests of human beings clash with those of Nile crocodiles and an area of outstanding beauty, the Mozambican authorities have no doubt about whose should take precedence.

The dam could be raised by a smaller amount to allow some crocodile breeding areas to survive. But nobody discussed a possible compromise with Kruger. The park authorities say there has been no cross-border co-operation and as far as they know, Mozambique did not even conduct an impact assessment.

"We understand that people over the border need water and they need help," said Raymond Travers, a spokesman for Kruger Park. "We have had very good co-operation with the Mozambican side in the past but it was not forthcoming this time."

Labels: central kruger, conservation, crocodiles, massingir, olifants

Different arms of the government are at one another’s throats over a proposed 21-storey dam on a major river that passes through the Kruger National Park and feeds Mozambique.

South African National Parks (SANParks) has threatened legal action against its principal sponsor, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry.

Water Affairs plans to start building the R4billion De Hoop dam on a tributary of the Olifants river in the middle of this year, mainly to feed mining interests.

But SANParks and critical NGOs protest that the project violates national and international laws and pits ministries against each other.

“It will boil down to which department has the most political clout,” said Nick King, executive director of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), which rejects the project. “Water Affairs’ mandate is the delivery of water; Environmental Affairs must conserve the resource base and SANParks protects biodiversity.”

In last year’s State of the Nation speech, President Thabo Mbeki announced the proposed De Hoop dam is “to provide water for platinum mining and agriculture”. Half a dozen platinum mines are planned for surrounding Sekhukhuneland, which straddles the border between Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

But the Steelpoort river, where the dam will be built, is a major tributary feeding the Olifants. For the first time on record, the Olifants stopped flowing last year for 78 days because of drought and growing demands on its water.

Late last year, Environmental Affairs approved Water Affairs’ application for construction of the dam in a controversial record of decision, against which SANParks and at least four NGOs have appealed.

Water Affairs said one reason it wants to build the dam is to supply three local municipalities with domestic water. But, asked the EWT in its appeal, “How will domestic supply be guaranteed? No evidence is provided that local communities will receive water, let alone be able to pay for it.”

In its appeal, SANParks said the dam would negatively affect tourism, wildlife and concession areas in the Kruger. “If our rivers dry up, the value of the tourism experience in Kruger will be diminished and tourism support for the area will cease.”

If the project went ahead without clear assurances that Kruger would continue to receive its share of downstream water— known as an “ecological reserve”— “SANParks will have no alternative but to approach an appropriate court for appropriate relief”.

SANParks added that the dam proposal “seriously compromises the relationship between South Africa and Mozambique”, which is upgrading the Massingir dam on its end of the Olifants river. Massingir has also come in for criticism, because it will flood parts of the Kruger and endanger an important breeding habitat of the Nile crocodile.

Vera Ribeiro, coordinator of the Mozambican environmental NGO Geasphere, said the Mozambique government had been notified about the De Hoop development. “But we are concerned there hasn’t been enough information adequately disseminated or disclosed on the project and about the potential impact on communities. The available information is mostly in English and almost impossible for Mozambicans to assess and make informed decisions on.

“The two governments must adhere to the Southern African Development Community’s protocol on shared watercourses, with close cooperation to ensure the sustainable use of shared water bodies.”

Ribeiro expressed concern not only about the quantity of downstream water on the Mozambican side, but that chemical pollutants and heavy metals from mining would affect water quality.

Ironically, the EWT added, environmental affair’s own research had identified the Sekhukhuneland region as one of nine national conservation priority areas because of its high biodiversity and ecosystems service value. At least 20 species of plant found nowhere else on Earth will be flooded by the 1,700ha dam, along with at least 20 animal and reptile species already threatened with extinction.

Opponents of the dam were furious when environmental affairs released its record of decision in late November, giving them 30 days over the holiday period to appeal. SANParks said it was given no official communication of the decision, but “only received notification early in December 2005 through other means”.

JP Louw, head of communications at environmental affairs, said there was nothing malicious or intentional about the timing. “The fact that both the Wild Coast [N2 tollroad] and De Hoop decisions were issued towards the end of the calendar year is purely coincidental, and there is certainly no deliberate intent by the department to issue decisions on big or controversial applications during this period.”

After the furore over the Wild Coast decision in December 2004, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk extended the appeal period for 30 days. But no such concession was made for the De Hoop dam this week.

“The law does not provide for an extension of the appeal period. Appellants will, however, be provided a second opportunity to make inputs when the minister avails the applicant’s responses to the grounds of appeals to appellants,” said ministerial representative Riaan Aucamp.

Read about the Kruger Park's river systems here.

Labels: conservation, dams, de hoop, massingir, olifants, SANParks, van schalkwyk

HOEDSPRUIT (Kruger Times)- The small village of Massingir, about 330km north east of Maputo, is slowly shedding her rural leathers and garbing herself in urban feathers. The driving force behind the new electricity supply, more buildings, upgrade of the local clinic, school, even the waste disposal system and road network can be traced to the rehabilitation of the Massingir Dam. This is not perceived as good news all round.

The project has been met with diverse responses ranging from resistance to gratification, on both sides of the border.

In Mozambique, the government obtained an US$80million loan from the African Development Bank and assigned ARA-Sul (Administraco Regional de Aguas do Sul) as Executing Agent, under the chairmanship of the National Directorate of Water (DNA), to co-ordinate the rehabilitation of the dam and Xai-Xai smallholder agricultural project downstream.

DNA appointed the Project Implementation Unit (PIMU) to manage the various rehabilitation activities of the project. PIMU comprises two Component Implementation Units (CIUs) for the dam and the irrigation activities.

The Olifants River Forum, comprising stakeholders such as the Lepelle Water Board, the Kruger National Park, Palabora Mining Company, Sasol, Foskor, Eskom and other corporations with a stake in the river maintain serious concerns about the ecological impacts the dam will have on the river and its unique habitats, because of the scale of construction that is being undertaken.

The rehabilitation could lead to the destruction of sections of an 8km gorge that has no parallels elsewhere in South Africa. Though the South African and Mozambican governments seem well aware of these effects on the Olifants River gorge in the Kruger National Park, no interventions are apparently planned to prevent the destruction of this pristine and one-of-a-kind wilderness area.

The matter has been raised by conservation organisations like the Olifants River Forum, as well as at a workshop that was initiated by the Kruger National Park and held in Letaba last year, but there seems to have been a lack of coordination at the various sectoral levels that should have ensured consultation and consequent implementation of measures that would have prevented an ecological disaster to a national asset– Kruger National Park.

The upper sections of the Massingir dam, the second largest in Mozambique, is about 4km downstream from the eastern border of the Kruger National Park (KNP). It was built in the early 70s, in terms of an agreement between South Africa and Portugal, prior to South Africa’s current environmental and water laws, to ensure irrigation to the Lower Limpopo Valley in Mozambique and to possibly supply hydro-electrical power.

The Mozambican civil war hampered the final completion of the dam, notably the installation of the sluice gates. These are now being repaired and will be installed as part of the rehabilitation process. Rehabilitation also entails restoring the dam wall to enable the dam to carry its full reservoir of 2 800 million cubic metres.

Environmental Impact Assessment

The process around the initial Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Rehabilitation of the dam is confusing. It appears Kjell Essel of Norplan did an EIA for the Mozambican ministry of Industry and Energy and African Development Bank in 1993. Though the Kruger National Park is a primary interested and affected party, it was never consulted and neither has a copy of the EIA ever been made available to the Park for comments.

The Department of Water Affairs (DWAF) told the Kruger Park Times it could not trace the EIA either. Themba Khumalo, spokesperson, said a professional service provider has been appointed to do a further EIA at this time. “They would also make the terms of reference available to South Africa but it is still awaited,” says Khumalo.

The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism told the Kruger Park Times that it “shares a view that the rehabilitation of the Massingir Dam has a potential to cause ecological impacts on the Olifants River gorge in Kruger. This matter has been raised at the Joint Management Board and Ministerial meetings of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park initiative. In these meetings, Mozambique undertook to conduct an environmental impact assessment. Further consultations are underway regarding this matter to ensure that impacts on the KNP are mitigated.”

Mitigation measures

According to Dr Freek Venter, Head of Conservation Services in the KNP, there is no mitigation work that could be done to save the Olifants River gorge.

“The dam will cause massive sedimentation in the gorge and even possibly as high as the Olifants Wilderness Trails camp, but there is no information available because no proper study has been undertaken. The sedimentation will destroy the deep pool-rapid ecosystem in the lower Olifants and Letaba rivers.”

”Once lost this national treasure cannot be regained. It will be lost for ever,” says Venter.

It is unclear how DWAF hopes to mitigate the impacts as the rehabilitation is currently ongoing without specified intervention to ensure the gorge will not be destroyed.

On the Mozambican side, PIMU contracted specialists to identify, propose and implement mitigating measurements. These include fauna and flora, ecosystems, land issues, maintenance of watercourses and environmental mitigating measures during construction.

Marcus Wishart from Australia, has been doing different Environmental Impact studies on the dam and river on behalf of IMPACTO, a private company in Mozambique.

Douw Swanepoel, a crocodile expert, has been contracted by PIMU for baseline monitoring of wildlife in the Massingir area.

The wildlife assessment project comprises three basic phases – a census during the first year, correlation and verification during the second year and to monitor the impact of the dam when it is full during the last phase.

The rehabilitation will be finalised in October 2006 when the dam will be filled.

Floods and filling the dam

In their newsletter a year ago the Olifants River Forum stated its concern that when the Massingir dam is full, and it rises an additional 10m, the dammed water will push back into the gorge section of the KNP. During floods the water will push even further up the gorge, depositing silt. The inflow area of dams is where sediment is dropped when water flow reduces speed.

Two major floods of the Olifants River in 1996 and 2000 filled up deep pools in the lower third of the gorge with sand. What was previously a single, narrow channel with a large, slow flowing water body and deep pools, inhabited by large populations of fish and hippopotami, has been changed into a shallow, sandy stream.

The Massingir dam has already slowed water in the Olifants River in Kruger down, especially during floods, increasing the siltation of the gorge.

This has resulted in increased siltation within the lower third of the gorge. Almost all the deep pools in the lower part of the gorge were filled with sand, so much so that they have disappeared completely. It is now feared that the rest of the gorge and further upstream in the Olifants and Letaba rivers will be destroyed.

When the dam overflows, it is likely to back up the water even more, as the water rises above the crest of the dam wall. This will deposit sediment even further upstream than occurs when the dam is only partially full.

A build-up of siltation has already occurred in the upper reaches of the Massingir Dam itself where sediment has been deposited in a fan-like delta as a result of the flow rates decreasing due to the dammed up water. It can be expected that this process will continue.

According to the Olifants River Forum one mitigation option that was proposed is to operate the dam at a lower level than normal for several years to allow smaller floods to remove the sediment from the gorge. Unfortunately, due to the restricted release from outlet valves in most older dams, it is not possible to manage dams so that they have lower levels during extreme flood events.

Crocodile population

The gorge section of the Olifants River differs completely from the rest of the 100km of river and all other gorges in South Africa. It has a deep, single thread, pool-rapid structure and is well known for its deep clear pools and prolific crocodile populations.

According to Swanepoel the initial indication show the major impacts will be on the fish, crocodile and hippopotamus populations in the river, and specifically, the gorge.

The fish population in the river has already been severely depleted with the number of dams (2500) in the river.

Crocodiles are prehistoric animals and “are some of the most adaptive species on earth,” says Swanepoel. He believes, as the dam fills the upper 1,5km of the gorge, the crocodiles will do one of three things.

“They will either stay in the remaining 3.5km of the gorge, or move upstream or into the Massingir Dam.”

He does not think it is likely the animals will move upstream due to the general condition of the river and believes it probable that they will move on towards the dam.

These studies are ongoing.

by Lynette Strauss, Kruger Times

Labels: conservation, crocodiles, massingir, olifants