The War on Nature

It must be more than ten years since I last saw, or even heard a barn owl in Pearly Beach. The Cape eagle owls, though increasingly rare, are still around and their hooting is sometimes audible on a moonlit night. But the screech and hiss of the barn owl is never heard and I presume it has taken a dislike to this area and has moved away, much to my regret.

It was a delightful surprise then to learn that these beautiful birds of the night have not emigrated but merely decided to put the R43 between them and us. At Kos and Sarah’s place, just a kilometre up the dirt road leading to Baardskeerdersbos, two of them were perched side by side in a gum tree. Clearly visible in the twilight, they bore a striking resemblance to a pair of nuns, and I recalled that their common name in Afrikaans is nonnetjie-uil.

Later, when it was dark, I stood outside and listened to a tumult of insects and frogs and was reminded of how life in Pearly Beach had been 40 years ago. It was before the advent of electricity and our candles and gas and paraffin lamps attracted a great variety of moths, damsel flies, longihorns, flying beetles and other insects. Some would flutter at the windows while others would find their way inside and career about the lights. Then came electricity and more and more houses until now even moths have become rare at night.

Almost all other forms of wildlife have followed the trend and the porcupines, grysbokke, hares, lynxes, polecats, badgers, otters, mongooses, tortoises and snakes have either disappeared or are seen but seldom. Similarly, there are now far fewer birds in the air and fish in the sea.

To conserve what remains of the local fauna and flora the Pearly Beach Conservancy attempts to educate residents and visitors about the importance of caring for the natural environment. A small band of dedicated members try their best to eradicate invasive alien plant species and to promote indigenous water-wise gardens. They spread the message that one of the most attractive features of life in Pearly is that it is not like living in a city suburb and that it still feels ‘out in the country.’ To keep it that way every effort should be made to lessen the human impact and allow other forms of life to flourish.

Unfortunately, the Overstrand Municipality does not see it that way and regards all vegetation on undeveloped properties as a fire hazard. By insisting on the clearing of all vacant plots the Municipality demonstrates a lack of respect for the environment that is out of step with a growing global concern for the protection of endangered species and the need to nurture biodiversity.

It is now a matter of urgency for the Local Authority to consult with Conservation Societies in the Overstrand and to draw up new environmental protection guidelines. If the current devastation is not halted, we run the risk of finding ourselves living in a sterile wasteland and not a vibrant Conservancy.

This is an example of a plot that has not yet been devastated in the war on nature. Apart from removing the Manatoka at the back, it should be left just as it is, pleasing to the eye and teeming with LIFE.

"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. … Whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."

- Charles Darwin

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Sand

Sand is formed when rocks are eroded by wind and water over millions of years. Only sharp angular sand produced by water erosion can be used in construction, and the fine rounded sand found in deserts and on most beaches is unsuitable for making cement and concrete. With the growth of the human population and rapidly increasing urbanisation, sand has become the second most consumed raw material after water. An estimated 50 billion tons is being used up annually, with many countries having to import what will soon be a scarce, non-renewable (on the human time scale) commodity.

This information does not surprise me. It is further evidence of our collective refusal to acknowledge that there are far too many of us and that a global economy based on growth and consumption is unsustainable. 

There are, however, a few of us who do not aspires to a way of life based on short-term materialistic self-gratification. Some rare individuals understand the interconnectedness of everything in the natural world and the need to tread lightly and with care.  This respectfulness is often expressed in mystical language that appeals to me, even though I have no belief in the supernatural. William Blake, for one, was able to feel reverence for a single grain of sand.

And Bob Dylan echoed these sentiments in his song, Every Grain of Sand:

 As for me, I often take pleasure from watching the movement of sand on the beach and along the line of dunes. The sea and the wind are constantly at work, sometimes imperceptibly and at other times with dramatic violence. Knowing that this fine white sand has been in the making for hundreds of millions of years helps me to shun the delusion that my life is of any consequence. To talk of achievements, successes and failures is laughably absurd. In a day and a night, the strong northwester erases all footprints and reshape the crest of a dune formed by a week-long southeaster. In a hundred years’ time what trace will be left of my existence? And in a few thousand years there will be little evidence left to show that a pernicious species of animal blighted the planet for a brief period before becoming extinct.

If, after 50 years, this is all that is left of the houses at Plaatjies Kraal, in another 50 years all evidence of human habitation will have been erased. Only sand will remain.

To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.