Erosion causes damage at Durban’s Pigeon Valley Nature Reserve

DELAYS in work to address the problem of erosion in Pigeon Valley Nature Reserve over the past few months has worsened the situation and left the reserve in a dire state.

According to Crispin Hemson, chair of the Friends of Pigeon Valley, work was undertaken to address the erosion on the main track of the reserve, after years of pressure on the municipality to do so by the Friends.

Hemson said the group were very pleased to hear that a plan had been agreed upon and that work would start in late 2019.

However, they could not have foreseen that the situation would end up worse than before.

Hemson said from the outset, there was a lack of attention to the requirements for public participation.

“It would have been very helpful to all concerned if a meeting of officials, contractor and the Friends had taken place. We would have raised the question of what would happen once the existing hard surfaces were removed, given that we are very familiar with the ways in which heavy rain can cause excessive flows in a very short space of time. We would have asked for assurances on how this flow would be managed,” he said.

Unfortunately, there was no such meeting and the contractor seemed surprised by the very damaging flows that occurred after work started. Much time was then taken trying to recover from that damage.

ALSO READ: Exploring Pigeon Valley: The Juvenile African Crowned Eagle

Hemson said work stopped in mid-December for the construction break, and even though the contractor returned to site in January, it seems that virtually no work has been done on site.

Although the rainfall over the whole period has been below normal, there have been enough occurrences of heavy rain for major damage to occur.

He said particular areas of concern are that two of the extremely old and uncommon Fluted Milkwood trees have had their root systems exposed, and one is showing signs of leaning over.

Two smaller trees have already collapsed into the ‘donga.’ There is now nothing in place to prevent further erosion.

“As part of the construction work, major areas have been stripped of vegetation and as yet there is no sign of any attempt to rehabilitate that. We have been in persistent communication with officials and were at one stage assured that work would restart on 24 February. There is no sign of further work and we are extremely concerned. At one stage we were given various reasons for the delays, such as load-shedding, a dispute over specifications, illness of a foreman, wet sand, and so on, but recently no reasons have been provided. We cannot accept that wet sand is a reason for delaying the project, as the fact of the heavy rainfall in the area and the inevitable wetness of soil after rainfall was well known before the project started,” said Hemson.

Three attempts were made by Berea Mail to get feedback from the municipality on when work would commence on the project, however no response was received at the time of going to print.

Do you want to receive news alerts via Telegram? Send us a message (not an sms) with your name and surname to 060 532 5535.

You can also join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

PLEASE NOTE: If you have signed up for our news alerts you need to save the Berea Mail Telegram number as a contact to your phone, otherwise you will not receive our alerts

Here’s where you can download Telegram on Android or Apple.