The iSimangaliso Tipping Point – Commercialisation, Community or Conservation?

The St Lucia estuarine system, one of Africa’s largest estuarine lakes located in northern KwaZulu-Natal and a core feature of the iSimangaliso World Heritage Site, is changing. In its present state, due to its shallowness and intermittent connectivity to the sea, it is prone to large fluctuations in salinity and water level – but now this is all changing. An analysis of recent monitoring data has provided clear evidence that St Lucia is at a ‘tipping point’, with the system about to change forever into a freshwater wetland. This progression has been speeded up by human-caused increases in sedimentation. The stark reality is that soon St Lucia will no longer be able function as an estuarine system and South Africa will have lost half of all its estuarine habitat.