African Wildlife & Environment Issue 81

CONSERVATION

The uMzimkhulu OUR LAST FREE FLOWING RIVER

TheWorld Commission on Dams Shortly after our transition to democracy, the World Commission on Dams (WCD) was created.The core objective was to perform a global assessment of the unintended consequences of dams, where the cost of development was unevenly distributed across society, often by destroying future options. Professor Kader Asmal, our first democratically elected minister of Water Affairs, and a lawyer by training, was appointed When South Africa became a democracy in 1994, it created a series of expectations locally, regionally and internationally. South Africa had negotiated a peaceful end to a festering confrontation that had persisted for 350 years. That was a remarkable achievement. Central to that achievement was the rule of law as a cornerstone of our young democracy. The significance of this was manifest in many dimensions. One was the notion of equity, so carefully crafted into our Constitution.

Dr Anthony Turton

to head the WCD. This thrust South Africa into the global spotlight, but as a shining beacon of hope. More importantly, it enabled us to understand at a very deep level of analysis, the intrinsic value of free- flowing rivers. These are rare indeed, with most rivers having been reduced to a mere cascade of dams, no longer capable of maintaining their ecological integrity. This is at the heart of the National Water Act (NWA), which became the first piece of water legislation in the world to protect the aquatic ecosystem by giving it a right equal in status to that of the Basic Human Needs (BHN). These two rights – the environmental flows and human needs – are both enshrined in the NWA, manifesting as the delicate balance between protection for future generations, versus productive use for the developmental needs of the current generation. The Flood Pulse

While the WCD was executing its mandate, aquatic ecology came of age. In South Africa this was manifest as the Southern African Society of Aquatic Scientists (SASAQS), members of which became deeply involved in the science underpinning the sustainable use of water from rivers. One of the core concepts that emerged at the time was known as the flood pulse. Each river has a specific flood pulse, almost like the heartbeat of the landscape, as water is transformed from precipitation into streamflow. In general, all rivers with a functional flood pulse tend to be healthy

First forensic evidence of sand mining upstream of the St Helens Pump Station on the uMzimkhulu River is available from Google Earth on 4 September 2010.

11 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 81 (2022)