Page 16 - Blue Valley_Issue 2_2022

NATURE

Water Dikkop at bird-rich Panic Dam in the Sabie-Sand basin Typical scene along the Lower Sabie road

THE SABIE RIVER

BY JAMES CLARKE, PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARY BROADLEY

The most biologically Almost half the river’s length is in Kruger Park. The town of Sabie has allowed its sewerage
diverse river in Its species of fish alone total 47. Its frog life is also plant to deteriorate and pollute the river.
Hazyview is becoming overwhelmed by
southern Africa remarkable and so is its variety of birds. I’d guess hastily erected homes and ad hoc small
at more than 400 species of birds including what industries – just a dozen kilometres from
here’s a river in Mpumalanga, a mere birders nowadays try to spot – the ‘Big Six’. These Kruger Park.
230km long, that is unique – unique not are the lappet-faced vulture, ground hornbill,
Tjust in South Africa, but in the world. Pel’s fishing owl, the saddle-billed stork, the The good thing about the Sabie River itself is
martial eagle and the Kori bustard. that it springs in the wild, generally unpolluted
It is called the Sabie and it rises 2 000 or so metres mountains and flows through many rapids
up in Mpumalanga’s Drakensberg Escarpment. Its variety of mammals is a world wonder and which are excellent for oxygenating the water
It then drops rapidly down to the Lowveld after includes the original ‘Big Five’ – elephant, black and, therefore breaking down some of the
racing through the small but wildly growing rhino, Cape buffalo, lion, and leopard – and pollutants.
town of Sabie and, 50km on, through Hazyview there’s 19 species of antelope plus a bewildering
and into Kruger National Park. From there, it variety of smaller mammals. And, fortunately, the Sabie is not, so far, losing
crosses into Mozambique, to be swallowed up a critical amount of water to thirsty pine and
by the Inkomati River, which empties into the The Sabie-Sand River Basin (the Sand River eucalyptus plantations. However, in 1999,
Indian Ocean. merges with the Sabie in the park) covers 7 000 the Department of Water and Sanitation
square kilometres including the Sabi Sands completed the Injaka Dam on the Marite
Biologically, considering the Sabie’s modest Game Reserve and four smaller reserves on River, a tributary of the Sabie, ostensibly ‘for
length, it is probably the richest stretch of river Kruger’s western flank. irrigation’ but it also provides water for resorts
on the planet. The Amazon has nothing to that have since developed around it and for
compare with the Sabie’s wildlife in and out of A big concern is what is happening west of Bushbuckridge itself – a municipality that is
the water. these reserves. growing as steadily as Sabie and Hazyview.

The Lower Sabie near Skukuza

14 • Issue 2 2022 • BLUE VALLEY NEWS