Page 12 - Dainfern Precinct_Issue2_2022

NATURE

THE SABIE RIVER

BY JAMES CLARKE, PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARY BROADLEY

The Lower Sabie
near Skukuza

The most biologically diverse river generally unpolluted mountains and
flows through many rapids which are
in southern Africa excellent for oxygenating the water
and, therefore breaking down some of
the pollutants.

And, fortunately, the Sabie is not,
here’s a river in Mpumalanga, what birders nowadays try to spot - the so far, losing a critical amount of
a mere 230km long, that is ‘Big Six’. These are the lappet-faced water to thirsty pine and eucalyptus
unique – unique not just in vulture, ground hornbill, Pel’s fishing plantations. However, in 1999,
TSouth Africa, but in the world. owl, the saddle-billed stork, martial the Department of Water Affairs
eagle and Kori bustard. completed the Injaka Dam on the
It is called the Sabie and it Marite River, a tributary of the Sabie,
rises 2 000 or so metres up in Its variety of mammals is a world ostensibly ‘for irrigation’ but it also
Mpumalanga’s Drakensberg wonder and includes the original provides water for resorts that have
Escarpment. It then drops rapidly ‘Big Five’ – elephant, black rhino, since developed around it and for
to the Lowveld after racing through Cape buffalo, lion, and leopard – Bushbuckridge itself - a municipality
the small but wildly growing town and there’s 19 species of antelope that is growing as steadily as Sabie
of Sabie and, 50km on, through plus a bewildering variety of smaller and Hazyview.
Hazyview and into Kruger National mammals.
Park. From there, it crosses into At the end of the 20th century it was
Mozambique, to be swallowed up by The Sabie-Sand River Basin (the Sand found that, of the seven rivers than
the Inkomati River, which empties River merges with the Sabie in the cross Kruger Park from west to east,
into the Indian Ocean. park) covers 7 000 square kilometres, all had, in time of drought, dried up –
including the Sabi Sands Game all, that is, except the Sabie. Uniquely,
Biologically, considering the Sabie’s Reserve and four smaller reserves on the Sabie has never stopped flowing.
modest length, it is probably the Kruger’s western flank. If ever it does, it would be nothing less
richest stretch of river on the planet. than a national tragedy.
The Amazon has nothing to compare A big concern is what is happening
with the Sabie’s wildlife in and out of west of these reserves. The town of It was partly this threat that, in 1998,
the water. Sabie has allowed its sewerage plant caused National Parks to launch the
to deteriorate and pollute the river. Kruger National Park Rivers Research
Almost half the river’s length is in Hazyview is becoming overwhelmed Programme – the largest and most
Kruger Park. by hastily erected homes and ad comprehensive multidisciplinary river
hoc small industries – just a dozen research programme ever undertaken
Its species of fish alone total 47. Its kilometres from Kruger Park. in South Africa.
frog life is also remarkable and so is
its variety of birds. I’d guess at more The good thing about the Sabie River The 10 years of seminars produced
than 400 species of birds including itself is that it springs in the wild, vital new data – but too late to
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