Two illegal homes to be demolished in heritage park

A DURBAN judge yesterday ordered the removal of two illegal holiday homes from the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site that encompasses SA’s largest and most important estuary. This brings to 44 the illegal developments eradicated from the park.

Judge Greg Kruger’s orders fulfil the commitments SA made to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) and its world heritage committee following the listing of iSimangaliso as a World Heritage Site in December 1999.

iSimalgaliso was the first site in SA to be listed as a World Heritage Site.

Park CEO Andrew Zaloumis said there were very few illegal operations still in the park. Some were home-based accommodation businesses — the park has legal residents — and others were encroachments from properties in the town of St Lucia, which is encompassed by the park.

Unauthorised developments in the park placed it and its World Heritage status at risk. They also negatively affected the natural operation of the Kosi Bay estuary. One of the developments to be removed was built on a dune close to the sea, causing vegetation to die, creating a risk that a second estuary mouth could have formed. This would have altered the way in which the four interlinking Kosi Bay lakes, some of which are tidal, operated.

Mr Zaloumis said the litigation was “not aimed at disenfranchising people who have historical and legitimate rights, but rather to remove people who have attempted to appropriate rights which are not theirs and have not been taken up legally”.

Judge Kruger ordered that the developments — one a 10-year-old holiday home — be removed by January 15 next year, and the sites rehabilitated. The orders were granted by consent.

A recent KwaZulu-Natal Treasury study showed the wetland park has outperformed other tourism sites in the province, including Durban, Mr Zaloumis said. Between 2000 and 2010 there had been an 84.6% increase in tourism establishments around the park.