MARINE, COASTAL, ESTUARINE

"Africa's long and beautiful coasts and the abundance of marine resources can contribute to providing economic, food and environmental security for the continent. These coastal and marine resources, like the rest of Africa's environmental resources, cannot continue to be exploited in a manner that does not benefit Africa and her people. This is a paradox of a people dying from hunger, starvation and poverty when they are potentially so rich and well endowed."

The White Paper for Sustainable Coastal Development in South Africa (April 2000) states that - our coast is a rich national heritage contributing enormous benefits to the people of South Africa. The coast is also a distinctive, complex and interconnected natural system, with resources that are finite and vulnerable to overuse and degradation, and that pose risks when not well managed. The coast is a place subject to direct and indirect influences where activities far out to sea or far inland impact on the narrow zone of direct land-sea contact. Maintaining the diversity, health and productivity of our coast is central to realising and sustaining the economic and social benefits it provides.

For coastal development to be ecologically sustainable, it should involve protection of coastal ecosystems and wise use of marine and coastal resources. For coastal development to be socially sustainable, it should emphasise public awareness and shared responsibility, empowering disadvantaged individuals and communities, including women and the poor. For coastal development to be economically sustainable, it should diversify opportunities, provide jobs and facilitate access to productive resources. For coastal development to be institutionally sustainable, it should involve creative partnerships between government, civil society and the private sector.

The key issues relating to the marine and coastal environment were:

• degraded habitats and biodiversity loss,
• unsustainable harvesting of resources,
• increased pollution into the coastal and marine environment,
• sea-level rise/flooding and
• ongoing maintenance and sustainable use of marine and coastal ecosystem services.

Sea level rise/flooding is a generic issue that does not only apply to the Marine, Coastal & Estuarine theme. It is therefore covered through the Atmosphere & Climate indicator AC07. Ongoing maintenance and sustainable use of marine and coastal ecosystem services are overarching issues that relate to all the other issues (in that the others are related to marine and coastal ecosystem services) and are addressed through the biodiversity indicators. The Response to each of the other issues will be an indication of South Africa's commitment to ensure maintenance and sustainable use of marine and coastal ecosystem services. For this reason it is not addressed separately.

For this report, degraded habitats and biodiversity loss and increased pollution into the coastal and marine environment were both placed in the broad issue category of Resource Quality; unsustainable harvesting of resources was placed in the issue category of Resource Management.

DESCRIPTION OF ISSUES

Resource Management

Over exploitation of marine living resources is a major pressure in the marine and coastal environment. Offshore resources in South Africa are almost exclusively exploited by large-scale commercial operators, with a small contribution from the recreational sector. Although many of these fisheries have been overexploited and in some cases even collapsed, most are now well managed and efforts are being made to rebuild depleted stocks. Inshore resources, on the other hand, are exploited by commercial, recreational and subsistence fisheries; they are for the most part not very well managed and are operating outside of sustainable limits, stocks of exploited species in many cases are overexploited and are in decline.

Resource Quality

• A certain percentage of all types of coastal and marine habitats along the South African coast be conserved/protected to promote long-term sustainability
• Water requirements of estuaries and adjacent near-shore marine environment be assessed when planning water abstractions or waste discharges in upstream catchments
• Development encroachment into the coastal zone be strictly controlled to prevent further destruction of important habitats
• Coastal mining activities be strictly controlled and managed to protect and rehabilitate important ecological areas.

Major pressures include development encroachment in response to increased population growth and demands. Development also often leads to change in land-use and loss of coastal habitat. Estuaries are also particularly vulnerable to man-induced alterations; being places where rivers meet the sea, they are impacted both by activities in their catchments, such as water abstraction as well as actions in the adjacent coastal zone. In addition, pollution of the coastal and marine environment has been identified as a priority area in South Africa's environmental legislation and policies. This is of particular relevance in large coastal towns and cities, where municipal waste and industrial effluents are discharged to sea. Even more concerning are the large volumes of diffuse sources of pollution (i.e. contaminated storm water runoff and agricultural runoff) that finds its way into the coastal and marine environment from land. Coastal pollution may pose serious health risks to humans, either directly through the pollution of bathing beaches, for example, or indirectly through the contamination of certain resource species. South Africa's coastline also carries heavy shipping traffic and polluting of our coast either by accidental oil spills or through deliberate dumping at sea, is of particular concern.