Not for profit award, commendation: Save the Flamingo
Kamfers Dam, a large wetland near Kimberley, is one of the most important feeding sites for lesser flamingos in the region and supports the largest permanent population of Lesser Flamingos in Southern Africa .
At times there are up to an estimated 60 000 birds there, more than 50% of the Southern African population.
The flamingos are attracted to the wetland because of the high concentration of their food — blue-green algae — in the dam’s water. Unfortunately it is in serious trouble.
The Save the Flamingo Association, a non-profit organisation, is working hard to protect the dam and its flamingos from untreated sewage flowing into it and a large housing development near its shores.
The untreated sewage comes from the Homevale sewerage treatment plant, which scored poorly on the department of water affair’s Green Drop report that rates sewerage plants.
The flamingos and other wildlife that depend on the dam and the people who live nearby are at risk, Save the Flamingo said. The organisation is trying to persuade local authorities to take the threats to this precious water body seriously .
‘Without urgent action, the dam will become a polluted cesspool, devoid of birdlife and a hazard to the people of Kimberley,” the organisation said.
Apart from addressing threats to Kamfers Dam and its flamingos, the association has taken responsibility for the construction and maintenance of a breeding island in the dam for the flamingos.
‘Kamfers Dam is an internationally important site and one of only six places in the world where the Red Data-listed lesser flamingo breeds and the only breeding place in South Africa,” said Mark Anderson, the executive director of BirdLife South Africa.
‘During the past three years the flamingos have bred on the artificial island that was constructed by Ekapa Mining,” he said. Ekapa Mining, a winner of the prestigious Nedbank Capital Green Mining award, built the sheltered island for R500 000.
It is an S-shape and solar panels power a submersed pump that feeds water to four ponds on the island, which provide the flamingos with mud for building nests. In the first year, 2008-2009, an estimated 9 000 chicks were hatched.
The next year produced a ‘baby boom” with 13 000 chicks. But last year only 3 000 chicks hatched because of flooding and increasingly poor water quality. Anderson said thousands of chicks drowned and eggs were lost in November because the island flooded.
The association takes regular water samples, which are analysed. These show that the water quality is deteriorating. These have been sent to the minister of water and environmental affairs.
‘Although some work is being done at the Homevale waste water treatment plant, there’s absolutely no progress in the upgrading of the sewerage works,” said Jahn Hohne, chairperson of the association.
‘More than R200-million is required to upgrade the works so that it can process Kimberley’s waste water and treat it to an acceptable standard, funding for which the Sol Plaatje [municipality] does not have.
‘These threats not only include the water problems,” said Hohne, ‘but also the massive Northgate housing development that was proposed for construction on the property adjacent to Kamfers Dam.”
The flamingo island project was the brainchild of Anderson but he ran into trouble with his former employer, the Northern Cape department of tourism, environment and conservation, when he joined the association in his private capacity, opposed the housing development and raised concerns about the quality and quantity of water flowing into the dam.
Apart from the association, the Booth family, which owns Kamfers Dam, has opposed development and is taking the Northern Cape government’s decision to go ahead with it on review.