Reprieve for Karoo as fracking moguls back off
AS A motorist I was naturally delighted when the petrol price dropped significantly, although not for long. It’s rather frightening to find half my income disappearing into the tank of my car. Now the low oil price seems to have discouraged the oil companies from fracking up our precious Karoo.
The “powers-that-be” don’t seem to realise what a special and unique part of the planet the Karoo is. Why should they?
They mostly live and work in big cities and the only knowledge they have of the Karoo is when they look down from the first-class seat of a Boeing and see what looks like a lot of shades of grey wasteland.
Why should anybody care whether it is fracked up or not?
The truth is that it has taken many generations of hard-working farmers to understand how this tough, yet fragile, ecosystem works.
I can remember when large tracts of the Karoo consisted of deep, scarred, red “dongas” with all the topsoil washed away as the result of over-grazing.
One generation of farmers tried to stop the erosion by building weirs across the dongas to stop the topsoil going away. That worked for a while, then the weirs filled up and fresh erosion began.
The next step was to shut off all the eroded areas, fence them in so no stock could graze there, and wait for Nature to carry out her own repairs.
The Karoo is home to an incredible variety of plants and small animals, all adapted to that unique environment. Some plants have shallow root systems to take advantage of even the smallest shower of rain before the heat dries it all up. Others have roots that reach right down deep to collect the store of underground water the Karoo hides.
Gradually the small grasses came back, followed by tough little Karoo plants that caught the twigs and debris when it rained and created a new ecosystem.
Modern farmers have seen photographs taken by their parents and grandparents of the devastation that over-grazing can cause. They’re not going back along that route. Today they treat the Karoo with deep respect, knowing it can produce the best lamb, mohair and wool in the world – but only with great understanding of the area.
I was horrified to learn that oil companies were prepared to tear all that up. It wouldn’t have been just a few holes in the ground. It would have been roads carrying great water tankers, prefab villages housing temporary workers, heavy machines ripping up the fragile plants, runways for the aircraft of the oil moguls, oil depots to keep the machines roaring. A nightmare for those who love the Karoo. We can only hope that, by the time the destroyers think about returning, we will have developed batteries efficient enough to run our vehicles on electricity.
If Eskom is still producing it, of course.
Last Laugh
The police chief was interviewing a new recruit.
“You will sometimes be faced with difficult domestic issues,” he said. “What would you do, for example, if you were called to arrest your wife’s mother?”
The rookie thought for a moment and then replied: “Send for back-up.”
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