'We have problems'

Robben Island managers concede that they don't have adequate resources to deal with all the environmental
problems on the island, including the severely degraded state of the natural veld.

But they strongly deny ignoring these problems or not having proper environmental management plans
that take into account all the island's unique natural and cultural resources. They also deny that poor management is to blame.

Two funding proposals that will allow them to institute a range of measures designed to improve the natural environment, including temporarily removing all the antelope to allow the veld to recover are currently with the Robben Island Museum council for consideration


and the national department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism is among those being approached for extra cash.

This emerged during a frank interview on Thursday with two of the island's management team - senior manager of marketing Shoni Khangala and the manager of the
conservation unit, Shaun Davis - following reports in the Cape Argus this week about the environmental crisis on the World Heritage Site.

Davis said they intended to permanently remove almost all the remaining fallow deer from the island, apart from a small group of about 10, as well as all he handful of remaining feral cats and the European rabbits that have devastated virtually all the natural grazing on the island.

Ideally, they would also like to be able to temporarily remove the remaining two bontebok, the springbok and the steenbok to allow the veld time to recover.

But Davis said this was not possible in terms of the current conservation budget, which had remained static for the past few years.

Khangala said they would like to have a more formal relationship with SA National Parks to help manage the island's natural environment as the Robben Island Museum was primarily an institution that looked after the cultural heritage of the island - "we cannot have expertise and resources to deal with all these other things".


To date, the national parks authority has only been involved peripherally, through the donation of three male bontebok some years ago and by overseeing an alien vegetation clearing project two years
ago.

"The conservation budget is not as adequate as it could be", said Khangala.

The island's top management structure recently came in for a pasting from Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), which wanted to know, among other things, how a forensic probe into the museum's finances was proceeding.

Two senior managers are on extended leave, with full pay, following the discovery of financial irregularities that include a deficit of R25-million in the 2006/7 financial
year.

The museum has also received two qualified reports from the Auditor-General.

Davis agreed that the populations of bontebok and springbok had declined sharply over the past few
months, despite game capture operations last year to remove a substantial number of them.

However, he said, a more thorough evaluation by a veterinarian, including the taking of blood samples, would be necessary before it could be stated categorically that
the "missing" animals had starved to death following destruction of their grazing habitat by the exploding rabbit population.

For example, a copper deficiency had been identified in the antelope some time ago, and lick blocks had been brought in as a way of addressing the problem, he pointed out.

"Yes, there is limited food, especially for the bontebok which is mainly a grazing animal and it (a shortage of grazing caused by the rabbits) probably contributed to stress levels within the bontebok.

"But I don't think that without a proper examination one could actually ascribe (the drop in numbers) to just being purely starvation."

Davis also said there had been "quite a lot of goodwill" that had emerged from the Cape Argus reports this week.

"I don't think there's ever been a case where there's not been a plan to address the (environmental) issues.

"There might have been some challenges with regard to it, but I think there is a clear vision where we, as an institution, want to go with regard to the natural environment and having key stakeholders with
expertise is surely the way to go."