The END OF DECENCY - AN UPDATE ON THE TROUT WARS Ian Cox The journalist John Yeld, interviewing his friend Dr. Guy Preston on his retirement, wrote of “the as-yet unresolved controversy over the status of alien trout species in South African waters” as one of the negatives in his career. Preston then went on to lump trout collectively with other socalled invasive species which he said had collectively posed a real cost to South Africa of “probably in the order of hundreds of billions of rands”.
government’s control over South Africa’s biological resources. This is having the effect of incrementally depriving South African’s of the private property rights they once enjoyed in respect of biological resources. This process of an incremental nationalisation of private property rights is very much part of the broader ANC strategy of bringing the economy and all resources under direct government control.
The computer modelling that resulted in that estimate has been overblown in much the same way as the COVID modelling of epidemiologists has grossly exaggerated the effects of the pandemic. This should not come as a surprise. There is a natural tendency amongst those who make their living out of disasters to exaggerate things in support of their cause. The very considerable industry that Dr. Preston led in his fight against alien and invasive species is no exception to this.
I have spent some time in explaining this back story because it goes some way to explaining what ordinarily would be the extraordinary step the minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy, took in amending the 2014 and 2016 alien and invasive species lists even though the legality of the publication participation process that preceded this law is the subject of the ongoing court action.
This may be why the attempts of the environmental affairs to deal with alien and invasive species have been largely unsuccessful. Like Aesop’s boy who cried wolf, so it is that the excesses of the invasive species cult are increasingly being ignored.
Sadly, this has not been entirely unexpected. Her predecessor the late Edna Molewa did much the same thing in the case that the Kloof Conservancy regarding her failure to list species as invasive within the time periods stipulated in the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act or NEMBA.
It is also becoming increasingly obvious that the so-called war on so-called invasive species that Dr. Preston has spent so much of his life on has little to do with whether these species cause harm to human health and wellbeing. The focus of these and other so-called biodiversity conservation laws is really on increasing the www.saflyfishingmag.co.za
Dr. Preston was very much involved in this as the deputy director-general responsible for environmental programs. This included the invasive species control program run by what was then the Department of Environmental Affairs. 90
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