Page 12 - IFV_Issue 3_March_2022

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 diverse river in southern Africa.

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

The Lower Sabie near Skukuza

10 • Issue 3 2022 • The Villager