Our coast – to till AND to keep (Gen 2:15)

A week has passed. Last week Thursday we left for Alexander Bay. We were both excited and as well as nervous about everything awaiting us - the prospects and the challenges! For a week now Jacobus has skirted and hiked through diamond fields and saw first hand the damage done by human activities on the coastline north of Hondeklipbaai.  You even saw it with your own eyes in the images we pulled from Google Earth. It is horrifying how much damage we managed to do to God's creation in this small amount of time! 

I am at Varswater in the Namaqua National Park, on a dune, my feet buried in the sand. As far as my eyes can see, everything is so desolate. Nobody in sight. No towns, no cities. This here is a national  park, after all.  But if I look carefully, walk down to the sandy beaches, study the pools and rocks, I can see God's creation suffering - yes, even here! The effects of human interference, negligence, recklessness, waste and littering has demanded its pound of flesh. And it makes me worried. Worried not only about what awaits us when we start hiking in more inhabited areas, from Strandfontein down to Cape Point, but also worried about what awaits us in the future. What does the future have in store for our coastline if it goes on like this?

The coast of South Africa is 3000km long, 1700km of it sandy beaches and the rest rocky coasts or a combination of sand and rock. Apart from sand and rock, the coasts boast a huge variety of habitats: kelp forests, lagoons, estuaries, salt marshes, cliffs and dunes and on the Eastern Coast  furthermore coral reefs, mangroves and coastal forests.  Each of the habitats supports its own community of plants and animals adapted to the special conditions experienced here.  A lot of the habitats are vulnerable as a result of and for human influences.

People love the beach and enjoy the sea and sand in different ways. For a lot of our population, the coast is where they live, work and relax. Therefore it is no wonder that quite a few of South Africa's biggest cities were built at the coast. Apart from Cape Town with a population of 3.74 million and a population density of 1 530 people per square kilometer, other biggish towns like Lambert's Bay, Velddrif, Saldanha Bay and Milnerton are still waiting for us. Smaller towns like Strandfontein, Dwarskersbos, Paternoster and Langebaan are also bursting at the seams this time of year. The human impact on our coast is enormous.  

All this and we haven't even touched on the subject of how the growing development and mining activities impact nature further south along the coastline. Towns grow because of the new tendency of people wanting to holiday or retire along the coastline. Different mine corporations are applying for mineral rights along the coast. Other corporations are looking for the rights to put up wind stations, solar stations, nuclear power plants or other constructions. We build roads, houses, bridges and stuff that constrict estuaries We mine our dunes, drain our salt marshes, build harbours and breakwaters.  And off course pollute God`s creation as if there is no tomorrow…

God gave us the creation or cultural mandate and ascribed to humankind the tasks of filling, caring, subduing, and ruling over the earth. We are allowed to use what God has given us, but within limits. We cannot ever overstep the boundaries. We cannot let ourselves be ruled by greed. We may not dishonour God's creation by our own hands, because the earth belongs to our Lord and the fullness thereof. Psalm 24.

The coast offers job opportunities to thousands, attract more than 20 million international and local tourists annually. And everybody needs a home and a place to relax. All this generates annually more than R15 billion - which is wonderful, obviously.  But the one may never be in spite of the other.

Our coast possesses more than 11 000 species, about 5% of all marine species in the world.  Around 17% of these species are not found anywhere else than in our country... This rich biodiversity is God's gift to us. These species also need a "home", a "place to work", a "place to relax".

We may use and must conserve and protect. To honour God. And it is this part about conserving that has me worried when I look southwards from where I sit on the beach.