A snow fight over a remote 4x4 track in the Western Cape mountains has escalated into a legal brawl involving lawyers, environmental groups and government investigators.
The zigzagging route up to the snowline on the Matroosberg has long been contentious due largely to an illegal car park below the summit used by day visitors.
Now, on the eve of snow season, the Western Cape government has ruled the road illegal, and has given the owners of the Matroosberg Private Nature Reserve outside Ceres an ultimatum to prove otherwise.
Irrespective of the legality of the road to the summit, the road in its current state is completely undesirable from an environmental and conservation perspective.
— Cobus Theron, Endangered Wildlife Trust spokesperson
The reserve insists the road is legal and so remains open, and its claims are under investigation amid calls from environmental groups for the route to be closed with immediate effect due to its impact on the once-pristine mountainside.
The Matroosberg is within a world heritage site and is home to rare mountain fynbos and several endangered insects only found at or near the mountain’s summit.
The 4x4 route was allegedly constructed more than 20 years ago without the necessary approvals and has since deteriorated. It also crosses a neighbouring farm despite the neighbour refusing permission.
This week the Western Cape government confirmed it had instructed the reserve owners on May 10 to stop using the route and rehabilitate the road and car park.
“The alleged offender (owner of the reserve) was issued with a predirective to cease the utilisation of the parking area and illegal road situated above the 1,280m split from the Spekrivierkloof road and rehabilitate the affected areas,” confirmed Rudolf van Jaarsveldt, spokesperson for the Western Cape department of environmental affairs and development planning. The predirective was issued on May 10.
The reserve did not respond to queries, but Sunday Times Daily has established that the owners claim to be in possession of road approval. Their environmental consultant also declined to comment but confirmed the matter was still under investigation.
Rudolf van Jaarsveldt, spokesperson for the Western Cape environmental affairs department, said the reserve had been given a last-minute reprieve “while the department is considering the representation and the perusing the historical files on the matter”.
“At this stage of the investigation, a directive and compliance notice was not issued yet, which will compel the landowners to close off the 4x4 tracks and rehabilitate the affected areas. Noncompliance with the said enforcement notices is a criminal offence, and may result in penalties, upon conviction, with a maximum fine of R10m or 10 years’ imprisonment or both such fine and imprisonment,” he said.
Two years ago, the reserve was ordered to remove a concrete cellphone base station built on the mountain summit without permission. To build the tower contractors also bulldozed their way through a highly sensitive summit area, prompting another government directive to rehabilitate the area.
The Endangered Wildlife Trust last week said the road needed to remain closed while the landowner claims were investigated.
“Irrespective of the legality of the road to the summit, the road in its current state is completely undesirable from an environmental and conservation perspective,” said EWT’s Cobus Theron.
“The Matroosberg in the Hexriver mountain complex is part of our rich SA biodiversity heritage. It is a flagship for our high-altitude mountains. The mountain has enormous nature-based tourism opportunities that can be developed and enhanced without the need for motorised access,” said spokesperson Cobus Theron.
The 4x4 road has also raised the ire of the Wildlife and Environment Society of SA (Wessa), who drew attention to the mountain’s biodiversity including rare endemic beetles.
“It has been proven with the aid of a sequence of aerial photographs that the 4x4 road was bulldozed after 5 September 1997 (but before 2000), and as road construction of this nature was a listed activity (as published in terms of the Environmental Conservation Act) from this date, it should surely have been considered illegal,” Wessa Western Cape chair Patrick Dowling said in a letter to DEA&DP earlier this year.
“To our knowledge no application was made to have it authorised in terms of this act. We trust that DEA&DP and CapeNature will take as dim a view as we do of the processes around allowing such activities to happen and letting them continue for so long without redress,” Dowling said.
Meanwhile, light snowfalls were reported in some areas last week as two powerful cold fronts moved across the country, bringing flooding to parts of Cape Town. This follows widespread flooding in the Overberg earlier this month due to torrential rain associated with a cutoff low pressure system.
The wet start to the winter season has yet to relieve “day zero” water fears in the Eastern Cape, where authorities this week announced new tariffs to avoid “water shedding”.
According to the water-use trajectory, the Kouga Dam supplying Gqeberha will run dry in six weeks. Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality dam levels are at just 12%.
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