Ndlambe is one of three coastal areas in the Eastern Cape expected to have the highest growth pressure over the next 25 years, thanks to an influx of people, and the municipality’s capacity to provide services. That’s according to a draft scoping report, drawn up by environmental consultants Abantu and the CSIR, which is being used to review the Eastern Cape’s Coastal Management Plan (CMP).
Ndlambe, Mnquma, Mbashe, Kouga and Nelson Mandela Bay municipalities alongside the department of water and sanitation, environmental law enforcement, Ndlambe ratepayers organisations and the Royal Alfred Marina were among the entities represented at a workshop to review the plan organised by the Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs & Tourism (DEDEAT). The event at MyPond Hotel on Thursday March 6, 2025 was the second of two such meetings held in the province: the first was in Mthatha two days earlier.
Access to the coast for ordinary citizens where there are coastal developments; fishing rights for subsistence fishers in marine protected areas; the incompatibility of mining rights with sustainability; and broadening the definition of cultural heritage assets were some of the issues raised by participants in the workshop.
It’s a requirement of the National Environmental Management: Integrated Management Act that the CMP, which was gazetted 11 years ago, is reviewed every five years. This is to see whether it’s been implemented successfully, but also to update it to fit changed circumstances or priorities.
The CMP was gazetted in March of 2014, the same year that former president Jacob Zuma promoted Operation Phakisa (“hurry up”) as the solution to national development.
Key to Operation Phakisa was the notion of the Oceans Economy. The strategic roadmap for the Oceans Economy (find it at dedea.gov.za/services/policies-2) is based on the ocean providing new economic frontiers – specifically, the Eastern Cape coast.
Front and centre, according to Operation Phakisa, were offshore oil and gas exploration, and aquaculture. These were viewed as catalysts: quick and high-return projects that would then provide funding for other aspects of the Oceans Economy – marine transport and manufacturing; marine protection services and ocean governance; small harbour development and coastal and marine tourism.
Subsistence fisher communities, including several on the Ndlambe coastline, have held that seismic surveys to explore for oil would cause significant environmental harm, negatively impacting their livelihoods. A landmark ruling in the Makhanda High Court in September 2022 set aside the right granted to Shell for oil exploration.
A curve ball for those opposing oil exploration was the signing into law in November last year the Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Act. It separates the regulatory oversight of petroleum resources from that of mineral resources.
In a statement at the time, the Centre for Environmental Rights said ramping up oil and gas exploitation would have major ramifications.
“The extraction of minerals and petroleum brings a heavy burden on local communities who carry the adverse impacts there such as environment degradation, further strained access to water and a decreased in water quality, air pollution, reduced health and well-being and land rights impacted through sometimes forced resettlement,” CER said.
In the invitation to last week’s workshop, DEDEAT noted, “It is also imperative to develop a CMP which embraces recent developments such as Operation Phakisa (Oceans Economy), District Development Programmes and the proposed Eastern Seaboard Development which will have direct implications to the coastal environment and socioeconomic priorities, but also the launch of the National Climate Change Act (Act 22 of 2024) which demands climate change adaptation to be incorporated in by all sectors and into all related policies, of which the Provincial CMP will be one.”
This is the policy, administrative and political context of the CMP that around 25 participants were asked to assess and make recommendations about during the four-hour workshop at MyPond Hotel last week.
The scientific context for reviewing the plan was the Abantu/ CSIR ‘Draft Scoping Report of the Status Quo of the 2014 CMP Implementation’, dated February 2025. The report provides tables and analysis under the headings socio-economic context; Future EC coast (including Operation Phakisa and the Eastern Seaboard Development); natural environment – condition and threats; climate – current, future and arising threats; and governance.
Coming up several times during discussions was the unrealistic siloing of factors in the coastal environment.
First was the seemingly arbitrary 20km cut-off for the geographical definition of coastal communities.
“The Bushmans River is the second longest navigable river in South Africa,” said Ndlambe Municipality’s Fanie Fouche. “And the Kowie River originates in Makhanda.”
Both estuaries were profoundly affected by what happened upstream, beyond 20km, Fouche pointed out.
“There needs to be input into the catchment management plans,” another participant said.
In a setup that makes little environmental sense, catchment management forums have an entirely different set of administrative structures with little or no collaboration with their downstream cousins.
Fouche also noted that while the provincial CMP focused mainly on environmental factors, municipalities had to emphasise the livelihood component for their local estuary management plans to pass muster.
Another participant noted that with increased development – whether formal or informal – came increased pollution. “Drainage is affected by litter build-up and that in turn affects roads and other infrastructure,” he said. “So waste management in local governments has to be factored into the CMP.”
It was pointed out by another that the bottling industry was a sponsor of the Working for Coast beach cleanup programme in the province.
Jan Smit, chairperson of Boknesstrand Ratepayers Association, expressed concern that there were several cultural heritage sites on the Ndlambe coast missing from the CMP.
“For example, Diaz Cross and some other important monuments were not there,” he later told Talk of the Town. “We asked whether they would like us to populate the map with these, or if they would.”
The process from here and how the public can get involved
Officials told Talk of the Town that based on input from the two stakeholder workshops, the draft scoping report would be revisited and the CMP reviewed. The CMP vision and priorities would be adjusted.
There would be a second round of public consultation later this year, which would be gazette in the provincial gazette.
Read the 2014 Eastern Cape Costal Management Plan here: https://bit.ly/TOTT2014CMP
Read the draft Scoping Report of the Status Quo of the 2014 CMP Implementation here: https://bit.ly/TOTTDraftCMPScoping
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Ask to be included on the mailing list for this process by emailing nikelo@dedea.gov.za or info@abantuenvironmental.co.za
Some takeaways from the scoping report
Communities living on the coast will have to absorb many changes by the year 2050. In the Eastern Cape, about 2.33 million people live within a distance of 20km from the coast – about 35% of the province’s total population. Existing settlements and metros on the EC coast and nearby traditional settlements will see high to extreme population growth until 2025. Ndlambe is one of these, along with Kouga and Nelson Mandela Bay MM. This is based on influx of people and their inherent capacity to provide services.
In Ndlambe, the biggest growth is expected in Port Alfred, with the population expected to increase from 25 879 in 2011 to just over 30 000 in 2030 and over 34 000 by 2050.
Referring to the GreenBook (www.greenbook.co.za), the report says the ability of district municipalities to conduct effective coastal management and to fulfil other government roles depends on their economic situation and the socio-economic vulnerability of the population.
“These vulnerabilities, together with the condition of built and service infrastructure also determine how vulnerable a LM will be to external shocks, such as climate-related disasters. Further, a population’s dependence on natural resources also makes it vulnerable to external shocks on the natural resources,” the report says.