Ecological experts fear the artificial breaching of the Lake St Lucia estuary mouth on Wednesday afternoon poses a major setback for a multimillion ecological restoration project financed by the World Bank to reverse decades of human interference in the natural functioning of the heartland of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a World Heritage Site.
Four years ago, the Isimangaliso Wetland Park Authority and then Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa won a landmark victory in the high court against local sugar farmers who had demanded that the lake be breached to protect some of their fields from back-flooding as a more natural water flow was restored to the lake. The court victory – later affirmed by the Supreme Court of Appeal – opened the way to reconnect the uMfolozi River to Lake St Lucia, which has been increasingly starved of water due to nearly 50 years of human interference.