Cape of Good Hope. Photo by Zaian at en.wikipedia
South Africa is world renowned for its natural beauty: the diverse landscapes, the starkly contrasting climatic regions, and the almost ubiquitously abundant wildlife combine to create a region that in itself should be declared a modern world wonder.
There is no doubt that every native South African should be immensely proud of the natural splendour that pervades our country. Additionally, we South Africans ought to further entrench, and possibly even do our best to successfully export, a philosophy that firmly places our existence within a natural world upon which we depend for our survival and, perhaps, even for our spiritual well-being.
This philosophy is not, however, some abstracted academic debate that hardly ever produces tangible, real world solutions: it is instead a philosophy that manifests itself every day in a very concrete way. This is to say that along with the physical areas of valuable land that are legally protected nature reserves, South Africa plays host to several world heritage sites. Beyond these areas (here understood as expressions of a passionate sensitivity towards nature), many South Africans are deeply imbued with a consciousness of how our actions impact upon the environment. It is thus that conservation efforts are widespread throughout the region, and often enjoy the support of local communities and the public at large.
There are, not surprisingly, economic benefits enjoyed by local communities and eco-entrepreneurs due to the ever-increasing amount of eco-tourists that visit South Africa. Eco-tourism is a growing sector, and has captured a significant share of the total tourism market. It would seem that as the world awakens to the desperate need for ecologically sensitive solutions to economic demands and increasing consumption rates, it is looking towards countries that have made concerted efforts at environmental conservation for models of how to proceed. It would be overly simplistic to imply that a balance between consumption and the needs of the environment will be easily reached; but, simply put, if a workable balance is not found, humans will soon destroy the planet-wide macro ecosystem and its various species of inhabitants.
The indescribable circumstance mentioned above would be as profoundly tragic as it is unimaginable. It is thus that our national consciousness has strongly tended towards the notion of sustainability over the past decade. Guided by governmental, NGO and private sector efforts, sustainable development and ecological resource management is at the forefront of many built-environment, economic and socio-cultural initiatives. In this, South Africans are lucky as we still have a natural environment to put under our custodianship. Many highly industrialised regions around the globe have all but devastated their own environments, and efforts at conservation have come too late.
As part of a celebration of the nation’s eco-heritage, SABC 2 conceived of “Shoreline” to showcase the diversity and beauty of one of South Africa’s lesser known, but no less spectacular, natural resources: our coasts.
The TV series was aired on a weekly basis, in a one hour time slot. The mandate of the series was clear and ambitious: to document the wonder and magnificence of the roughly 2 800km of South African coastline that stretches from the lush, dense and tropical north eastern border with Mozambique, all the way down the east and south coasts, into the Transkei and Eastern Cape region, down into the Western Cape, and up to the arid and sparse West Coast border with the predominantly desert nation, Namibia. Along the way, the documentary would look at sites that were inhabited by some of the earliest humans, the remarkable life forms that rely on the land-sea transition for their survival, and the beautiful landscape formations that have been carved out of the continental land mass by the power of wave action.
Anyone who was privileged enough to follow the series will recall that it was thoroughly researched, inordinately informative, and stunningly photographed. Each episode in the series followed a standard format where a presenter would introduce the theme of the episode, followed by expert testimony and discussion of the particular topic/ area of the shoreline. In addition to this, several other guests, including the well-known Max du Preez, were invited to relate historical events that occurred within the surrounding area of the section of coast under examination. The personalities, in a nice touch of well thought out detail, all have a personal link to the area in question. During the screening of the series, viewers were given the opportunity to win a DVD set containing all of the episodes aired (which I would have loved to have won).
It is without hesitation that it can be asserted that the series was remarkable.