On the Fiday (29th Dec) my brother decided to go and see if he can find the "new" dirt track which leads to the beach about 25km north of Richards Bay. It's not a proper road, but rather an access road for the RBM mining trucks (look it up - Richards Bay Mining). Some of the more ardent fishermen had scouted around, and found that some of these roads led to the top of the last / seafacing dunes, which meant access, by foot, to the remote deserted stretch of beach.
Well, we must have covered about 50 km on these little paths / roads, in some of the most beautiful natural coastal bush area, and never found the right path. We did get to the beach though, along some treacherous roads, which had not been in use for some considerable time. Anyway, much fun was had by all.
But I raised a concern. The agreement with RBM is that they can mine the dunes, as long as they rebuild them afterwards, which they are doing very well. However, revegetating them is another matter. I was under the impression that they would be planting the same type of flora that originally existed on the dunes, thereby creating a natural forest again. I realise that this would take many (hundreds?) of years to grow back into its original look, but was happy with this status.
They are not planting the original flora. Instead they are planting a type of pine tree, a la forest style. Straight lines, for kilometers, in geomertically correct patterns. Just more forestry if you ask me. And it can and will never look anything like the original forestation. It's sad, and disgusting, and maybe a rethink / relook is required. Anyone out there have the time to take up the challenge?
Salagatle!
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