Breaching of Lake St Lucia Estuary Pleases, Disappoints

Artificially breaching Lake St Lucia’s estuary mouth has been welcomed by northern KwaZulu Natal residents, fishermen, farmers, and the business community. While they are utterly delighted that St Lucia Lake has been successfully reconnected with the sea, a group of estuarine scientists are less enthusiastic. They want the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy, to find out why this happened.

Lake St Lucia is the largest estuary in South Africa. It falls within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, which is South Africa’s first World Heritage site (recognised by UNESCO in 1999). It constitutes 60% of the total estuarine area nationally and 80% of the sub-tropical estuarine area with a critical role as a fish and prawn nursery ground along the east coast. It is also one of the most important of waterbird habitats along the east coast.

For the first time in almost a decade, the estuary has been dredged, enabling the flow of water from the lake into the sea. This is seen to be a short-term solution to assist the system to function in its natural state as an estuarine functional zone.