Coastwatch KZN co-founder hangs up her sea gloves
The authorities’ neglect of the marine and coast will have dire consequences in the future, writes Myrtle Ryan
ENVIRONMENTALISTS never just ride away into the sunset. Even though 70-yearold Di Dold, one of the founders of Coastwatch KZN, says this will be her “exit” year, she confesses she will always be a “beach bum” and will never be able to turn a blind eye to a problem confronting her beloved coastline.
Back in 1997, while Dold was working for Wessa (Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa) the organisation decided that the coast and marine environment was being ignored. Clearly there was an urgent need to alter this situation, and in 1998 Coastwatch was launched at the Sharks Board premises.
Clearly the issue touched many hearts. “We had a wonderful turn-out with over a hundred people from all walks of life, but all with a love for the coast and marine environment,” says Dold.
At present there are only approximately 25 members, although this figure fluctuates. “A lot of people have emigrated, or become despondent with the lack of political will to safeguard says sadly.
Asked what over the years had proved to be the organisation’s greatest challenge, Dold said it was definitely the issue of land-derived waste which is pumped into the marine environment.
Even so, Coastwatch members can look back with pride on their achievements. According to Dold, they worked tirelessly with various pipeline owners, as well as the departments of Water Affairs and Coastal Management; various ethekwini provincial departments; and the CSIR. “We eventually had a full impact survey our coast,” she done in 2006 to see what was happening along our coast. A further survey was meant to be done 10 years later, but this never happened.”
“There is a real concern about the authorities’ lack of interest in what happens at sea – out of sight, out of mind.”
While young people are very passionate about the state of affairs, Dold says most are either not prepared, or unable due to family commitments, to put their shoulder to the environmental wheel on a voluntary basis. It was the volunteers who in the past were the bedrock of Coastwatch.
So what does she feel is the greatest environmental threat KZN faces?
“Our rivers. To all intents and purposes they are pipelines which discharge into the sea, but they are terribly polluted and I worry about the state of our oceans and their health.”
Dold maintains while the old Department of Environmental Affairs often left a lot to be desired, she is not exactly flattering about the present body. “The current political situation is only looking at short-term problems with a knee-jerk reaction, and this is going to come back to bite them in the future.
“Nobody wants to make a decision in case it is a wrong one, so nothing happens except talk, talk, talk, and more talk.”
After spending 12 years as a volunteer, then serving for four years on the Department of Environmental Affairs’ Provincial Coastal Committee, she resigned. “It was just a talk shop. It was very frustrating.”
Certainly Dold does not pull her punches. She says there is a general attitude that we can do what we like with our coastline and the marine environment, with no thought for tomorrow and the generations that will come after us.
While the authorities seem entrenched in the belief that everything in the ocean simply “goes away” and that the marine environment can heal itself, such a concept is absolute rubbish, she says impassioned.
“We have become a selfish, self-centred, commodity obsessed people, and I believe we will only wake up to the value of our natural environment when it is too late.”