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 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 that participants raised.
The CMP, gazetted 11 years ago, is reviewed every five years. That’s a requirement of the National Environmental Management: Integrated Management Act. This is to see whether it’s been implemented successfully, but also to update it to fit changed circumstances or priorities.
New economic frontiers
The Eastern Cape’s inaugural CMP was launched in 2004 and reviewed in 2014. It was gazetted in March of 2014, the same year that Operation Phakisa (“hurry up”) was promoted as the solution to national development.
Central 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 many on the Ndlambe coastline, have raised the alarm about oil and gas exploration. They fear that the 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.
New Act
A curve ball for those opposing oil exploration off South Africa’s coast 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.
Phakisa still the main act
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.”
The CMP also needed to reflect the launch of the National Climate Change Act (Act 22 of 2024). It demands that climate change adaptation to be incorporated in all sectors and into all related policies, of which the Provincial CMP will be one.
This is the 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 on March 6.
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.
Threats to the coastline
The draft scoping report lists key environmental pressures and risks affecting the Eastern Cape Province’s coastline as climate change, unsustainable resource use, agriculture,
overgrazing, human development, and invasive alien plant species.
In the Eastern Cape, about 2.33 million people resided within a distance of 20km
to the coast, which is about 35% of the province’s total, the report says. Of these people, about 147 872 lived in coastal zones between the highwater mark and the 20 m elevation contour, constituting about 2.4% of the province’s total population.
“Population projections indicate that the currently existing settlements and metros on
the EC’s coast and nearby traditional settlements will see high to extreme population
growth until 2025,” the report states. “Not all LMs and settlements will be able to absorb the increase in population easily, which will require additional service and infrastructure provision… Those LMs and coastal settlements which are expected to have the highest
growth pressure, based on influx of people and inherent capacity to provide services include Kouga, Nelson Mandela Bay MM and Ndlambe.
Silos
Coming up several times during discussions was the unrealistic and unhelpful 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, well 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
Read the draft Scoping Report of the Status Quo of the 2014 CMP Implementation HERE
Ask to be included on the mailing list for this process by emailing xolani.nikelo@dedea.gov.za or info@abantuenvironmental.co.za
- This article was first published in Talk of the Town, March 13, 2025. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
