African Wildlife & Environment Issue 78

CONSERVATION

Map of the Cape Colony in 1886 showing Thomas Baines hand written drawings of the proposed transfer of water from the Orange River to Port Elizabeth.

the unintended consequences of interventions that alter the flood pulse of any river system. Once altered, the sediment-carrying capacity becomes a growing problem, as estuaries are starved of the water needed to continue functioning as viable aquatic ecosystems. An estuary starved of flood pulse naturally becomes a lagoon, and this permanently alters the assemblage structure in the wetland. The single biggest lesson that we learn, is that it took a century for the hydraulic mission to become mainstream policy, so we can anticipate that any attempts to alter this will take an equal period to effect change. We also learn that the management of water resources, and the provision of water services, are both profoundly political acts. Therefore, to articulate the interests of conservation, will require scientists and NGOs to enter that political discourse, if they wish to effect change. Reluctance to do this will merely exacerbate the prognosis for a desirable outcome.

FURTHER READING Bain,T. 1886. Water-finding, Dam-making, River Utilization, Irrigation. Saul Solomon & Co, Cape Town. Brown, J.C. 1875. Hydrology of South Africa; or Details of the Former Hydrographic Conditions of the Cape of Good Hope, and causes of its Present Aridity, with Suggestions of Appropriate Remedies for this Aridity. Kirkaldy, London. Brown, J.C. 1877. Water Supply of South Africa and the Facilitation for the Storage of It. Oliver Boyd,Tweedale Court, Edinburgh. Swyngedouw, E. 1999. Modernity and Hybridity: Nature, Regeneracionismo, and the Production of the SpanishWaterscape, 1890-1930. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89(3), pp. 443–465. Turton,A.R., Meissner, R., Mampane, P.M. & Seremo, O. 2004. A Hydropolitical History of South Africa’s International River Basins. Report No. 1220/1/04 to theWater Research Commission.Water Research Commission, Pretoria. Waterbury, J. 1979. Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley. Syracuse University Press, NewYork.

Prof Anthony Turton Centre for Environmental Management University of the Free State

13 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 78 (2021)