Local Hero nominee Dean Knox, 44, has dedicated his life and business to teaching tomorrow’s local leaders to love the ocean and protect the rich coastal lifeline that borders bustling Buffalo City. On Nahoon Beach scores of young schoolchildren have been involved in environmental programmes run by Knox’s eco-adventure and environmental organisation Joninenge.
Beaches are full of sewage, toilets are blocked, overflowing and do not flush, holidaymakers at the beach are darting into the bush to do their business, but Buffalo City still claimed on Wednesday that “our coastline is currently the number one tourism attraction”. BCM spokesperson Luxole Komani commented on a list of woes afflicting five BCM beaches.
Schoolchildren I teach on the beach at Nahoon have often heard me talk about how ideas for a cleaner, more wholesome world should start from the spot where they sit surrounded by Nahoon Point Nature Reserve and a Marine Protected Area and flow like a green ripple to the surrounding society.
Studying the social world requires more than deference to data. In some cases, it may even require that we reject findings no matter the prestige or sophistication of the technical apparatus on which they are built.
Not even wet, miserable weather nor a denied interdict was enough to keep local ocean warriors away from the beach on Sunday morning. From musicians to scientists, bakers, tour operators, educators, high school students and even the odd dog, Nahoon Beach saw activists from all backgrounds campaign to get Shell out of our waters and let the Wild Coast be.