Harry Antel, one of our finest aviators and a man whose heart and mind were truly concerned with the protection and preservation of the environment, tragically lost his life on a private flight on 29th July 2006.  We were deeply shocked and saddened by the news.

Harry always took a humble delight in flying missions for us, and his integrity and intimate knowledge of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands and Pondoland Coast was quite legendary.  These qualities, together with his warmth and commitment to aviation and the environment, made him the quintessential Bateleur pilot.

Harry was very loved and respected by his fellow aviators, as demonstrated by the moving obituary written by Bateleur director and pilot, Steve McCurrach, with which we conclude this Newsletter.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and to all those who were privileged to have been close to him. 

After almost two years, the South China Tigers under a re-wilding programme in the Free State have settled in very well.  All three tigers have become proficient hunters and have successfully learnt life skills to survive in the open habitat.

The snow that fell during the first week in August (the first such heavy snow fall in 40 years) suited them and they literally frolicked in it until they were drenched.

It is expected that the reserve in China to which the progeny of these tigers will be relocated, will be completed on time and the deadline of returning wild tigers to China will be met.

Turning seventeen original sheep farms into a nature reserve, together with the establishment of a new reserve in China, will truly serve the goal of conserving biodiversity in both countries.

The Bateleurs flew the tigers to their new home in the Free State during 2004.

Working for Wetlands, is a governmental programme which has the extraordinary role of looking after sources of our fresh water supplies.  It concerns itself with the rehabilitation of wetlands that form a vital part of our river systems. Some lie in conserved areas, others abut communities, some lie against mountains, but almost all are difficult to survey because of the lack of roads and because of what they are. This makes them ideal terrain for aerial inspection during which areas requiring rehabilitation can be pin-pointed, which in turn allows ground teams to concentrate on the necessary steps to be taken.

When John Dini approached us to ask whether The Bateleurs would fly some of their key personnel over twelve areas in which they wanted to identify degraded wetlands (eight flights) "... in the next two weeks", I thought "ooops! . . . but let's try”, and so I put out a call for volunteers. One by one our trusty pilots answered our/their call for help to identify the problem areas from the air instead of 'floundering' (sorry John) on the ground. This made their work of planning and budgeting for the coming year all the easier, by allowing them to see clearly the extent of their challenges.

The Bateleurs provide an opportunity for teams to gain an overview of catchments, and this enables them to identify specific problems where rehabilitation intervention is required, as well as tracing the causes.  Understanding the cause and effect relationships allows teams to design appropriate interventions that will ensure the sustainability of rehabilitation. In addition, the flights enable teams to validate existing wetland inventory information.

The information generated through the flights will form the foundations for wetland rehabilitation plans being developed by Working for Wetlands. It is anticipated that the programme will be able to allocate R65 million to rehabilitate over 90 wetlands next year, and in the process create 1,900 temporary jobs.

And fly them we did - although it took more like seven weeks for seven flights (with one still to be flown in August). The missions were hard flying - "turn left here" doesn't work at low altitude and with flaps down. And many more hours were flown than anticipated. But tough flying regardless, each one of our pilots commented on how interesting they found the people, the areas and the work.

Dries Lategan kick-started this whole string of missions, flying Trevor Pike, Donovan Kotze and Eric Munzhedzi over the Seekoeivlei and Upper Wilge catchments near Harrismith where he is based. An article in The Gumboot (the newsletter for Working for Wetlands) commented: "The area is badly eroded and with much of the land privately owned, getting a sense of the issues on the ground would have been particularly problematic. The team was particularly grateful for pilot Dries Lategan's contributions to the flight. Not only do you get the benefits of being in the air but you can also draw on the local knowledge of the pilot and that adds value to the flight.”

Dries reported in a down and safe email:  "We successfully completed our aerial survey this morning. It was a beautiful crisp winter's morning in Harrismith, the temperature at 06h30 was -5ºC. Our flight was three hours long, and we covered the Seekoeivlei wetland area north of Memel, and the wetlands in the catchment areas of the Meul and Wilge rivers in the Warden-Memel-Harrismith triangle.”

From the left:  Trevor Pike (Engineer : Land Resources International), Donovan Kotze (Researcher : University of KwaZulu-Natal), Eric Munzhedzi (Regional Co-ordinator : Working for Wetlands) and Dries Lategan (pilot).

“Twenty-eight wetland sites (with potential for rehabilitation) were identified within the Wilge catchments, and fourteen wetland sites (with potential for rehabilitation) were identified in the Seekoeivlei catchment areas.  Numerous other wetland sites with potential for rehabilitation were also identified outside the catchments.  The majority of the problems associated with the wetland related to erosion gullies.  The flight was effective in reducing the otherwise lengthy process of having to identify on foot the problems within identified catchments.” 

Ivan Marx flew the survey over the Nylsvlei Wetlands for the survey team of Craig Cowden, Andre Beetge and Mbavhi Mukhoro, as well as the flight over the Sambandou wetlands, for Craig Cowden, Doug McCulloch, and Colin Nemadodzi.

Craig prepared the reports for these missions, and the extract below describes the usefulness of these aerial surveys -:  

“The flights served to eliminate from infield surveys large areas of the quaternary catchments, due to the lack of extensive wetland areas and/or the lack of degraded wetland areas.  However, the survey teams were able to identify a number of erosional features currently threatening wetland habitat within the quaternary catchments and recorded these for detailed infield assessments.”

Note:   quaternary (adj.) belonging to or dating from the most recent geologic period, spanning the last two million years.

The northern catchment on the Mutale River

The same survey team (Craig, Andre and Mbavhi) was flown by Tony Kent over the Verlorenvallei and Upper Usutu catchments.  The paragraph below has been adapted from the Results section of the report prepared by Craig. 

The survey team was able to identify a number of erosional features currently threatening wetland habitat in both the cachment areas, and recorded these for infield assessments.  A number of wetland areas were also identified for infield assessment as they had been modified by the excavation of furrows and drainage canals, or canals utilised for irrigation dams during past agricultural activities.

From the left:  Andre Beetge, Mbavhi Mukhoro and Craig Cowden.

Bateleur pilot Kim Robertson flew the survey team of Doug Woods, Pete Illgner and Japie Buckle over the wetland habitat in the Penny Park (Kokstad), Franklin Vlei, Cedarville and Matatiele areas.  This is an extract from their report -:

“Numerous wetland sites with potential for rehabilitation were identified during the flight.  The majority of the problems related to alterations/interference of the systems in the forms of drains and berms, as well as headcut erosion threatening upstream wetland systems.  The wetland rehabilitation will be focusing on the problems identified from the flight.”

Note:  berm (n) an earthen embankment or wall, usually erected to provide protection from the weather or act  as a landscaping screen.

From the left:  Doug Woods, Peter Illgner and Kim Robertson (Bateleur pilot).  Japie Buckle took the photograph

Bateleur pilot Louis Smit flew the fifth mission for Working for Wetlands, assisting Pete Illgner, Japie Buckle and Claret Walker to survey the Gatberg and Wildebees catchments in the Eastern Cape.  We have decided to include more detail from the report prepared by Claret, as her report gives a little more information for the layman -:

“We left the Margate airstrip at approximately 09h00 and headed directly west, in the direction of the towns of Ugie and Maclear.  Peter took GPS co-ordinates of some of the wetland sites that were identified as problematic and which will have to be verified during site visits.  

The main objective of the flight was for the wetland assessors to look at the current state of the wetland areas, to identify major crises happening within these areas (erosion problems and major degradation of the natural systems) and then to develop a prioritisation model for these problem areas. After further detailed site visits, the specialists will have to make professional recommendations to the WfW Programme, as to where, why and how they have to pursue rehabilitation interventions for the problem areas, for the coming financial year.

This strategic exercise (flying over the catchments/wetlands) will be followed up with field visits, where the same group of assessors will investigate the problems on the ground. The benefit of having done the strategic aerial survey is that it provides the assessors with a big picture overview, and a far better idea as to how the various individual wetland systems (and their problems), come together in the bigger catchment area.”

This photograph indicates some of the problems which the Wetland Rehabilitation teams are faced with, and have to deal with during their implementation

Bateleur pilot Louis Smit and Claret Walker, one of the Working for Wetlands team members. 

Jock Kannemeyer flew the team that surveyed the Berg River catchments (near Paarl), in mid-July in his Robbie 44.  He departed from Cape Town International at 10h30, with team members Japie Buckle and Peter Illgner on board.  They flew to the new Berg River dam site in Franschoek then followed the Berg River through Paarl, with his passengers inspecting and photographing various sites along the way.  Jock reported that Japie and Peter were very pleased with the trip, especially with the access to very difficult sites made possible by the aerial advantage.

In his last Newsletter from the Cape Leopard Trust, Quinton Martins wrote: 

" 'Johan' is cruising over an even larger area than previously expected. We have now downloaded several hundred GPS fixes that show that he is regularly utilising an area of well over 600km2. This news, though exciting and awe inspiring, is also very daunting. What happens if by some chance he is killed by someone ¡V an unsuspecting victim of a ¡§typical problem animal¡¨ situation?

Luckily we have a brilliant understanding with all the farmers in the Cederberg, who are doing their utmost to support the project and find new means to protect their livestock.  But with such a massive home range Johan is moving over the properties of many different landowners.  We have begun to communicate with these landowners, hoping that the holistic approach to problem animal management which Cape Nature and the CLT are promoting will convince them not to destroy a possible stock thief by means of setting gin traps or using poison."

The daunting task of tracking leopards in this terrain is made ever so much easier from the air. 

“… After all that effort and now he has a flat battery – well, actually the GPS component has run flat, which means we can still track him with VHF, but cannot download any more GPS fixes. There was a slight hitch in our testing the collar which resulted in more battery power being used up than expected. This is a set back, but we have set cage traps for him again with the aim to put a new collar on him soon. EcoAire's Peter Turnbull, who “adopted” him at our last fundraising event, is quite excited to have an opportunity of seeing ‘his’ cat when we capture him – and that is when and not if.” 

A little while after that Quinton e-mailed to say -:   "We have caught the bugger again!!!  Houdini once again has a collar that works.  We got him on the weekend!   Awesome! It was a late night exercise, finishing at 3am. All very exciting!!"  

So guess who are going to be flying again?

Quinton acknowledges our support, saying:  "Once again we must thank The Bateleurs and their amazing pilots, Johan Ferreira and Jock Kannemeyer, for their dedication to this project."

The team that re-captured and re-collared Houdini, with Houdini in the back of the truck 

Having heard so many conflicting reports on the Olifants River and its tributaries, and whether the De Hoop Dam was already in progress or not, and where the site of the intended Richmond Dam was, The Bateleurs decided to check the area themselves. 
Packing Col. Bill de Pinho and Sven Kreher into his new C182, “with a dashboard like a Boeing”, Avroy Shlain took off …

Avroy on the left and Sven on the right, checking the aircraft prior to take-off 

“We took off from Lanseria at 09h00 on Sunday 4th June 2006, and flew via Wonderboom to Groblersdal to Steelpoort.  Photographs were taken in the areas of the Klein Dwars, Dwars and Steelpoort rivers, and we returned via Groblersdal to Lanseria via HBV, landing at 12h10 – three hours and ten minutes later.

Our objective was to ascertain if construction had begun on the controversial Richmond and De Hoop Dams.  The Richmond Dam is planned on the Dwars/Klein Dwars River System, which flows into the Steelpoort River, which flows ultimately into the Olifants River System, north of Steelpoort.  The De Hoop Dam is planned for further upstream on the Steelpoort River itself.

We could see existing dams on both river systems, but found no new dams nor any signs of dams under construction in the area.

We observed various weirs and pumping stations, and a tremendous amount of mining activity. There is a large mine located close to Steelpoort, and Anglo Plats is responsible for extensive mining activity on the top of mountains and on the side of mountains and mountain ridges. 

A number of slimes dams were clearly visible, but we could find no indication that work on the proposed De Hoop and Richmond dams had begun."

Upstream from the Olifants River and south of Steelpoort

Note the slimes dams and erosion on higher areas 

Early this year we were asked to fly a survey of the  Steenkampsberg Plateau for the Endangered Wildlife Trust.  The  flight took place in June and below is the report from Nick King. 

"The Bateleurs undertook a flight on behalf of the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) on June 7 over the Mpumalanga Escarpment, with Tony Kent as pilot.

Several large golf and housing estate developments are underway in the biodiverse escarpment region, especially along the sensitive Steenkampsberg Plateau and the EWT has been actively participating in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) processes, providing expert input and raising concerns where relevant. This flight was required in particular to photograph the extent of infrastructure development and adherence to the conditions of a development Record of Decision (RoD).  The EWT has had serious reservations about the approvals process from the Mpumalanga authorities, as well as the quality of the EIA and the conditions of the approval - to such an extent that the EWT had appealed the RoD as well as launched a judicial review enquiry into the process.

The flight provided ample evidence of non-compliance with the conditions of the RoD.  But, despite all this and other evidence, the judge, in his wisdom, made no finding on the merits of the case, saying that it would 'not be in the public interest' to overturn the development approvals at this stage due to the large investments already undertaken by the developer - despite this being 'at risk'.

This is an astounding outcome, begging the question as to what is intended by our environmental legislation, and what indeed is the 'public interest' - the excessive profits of a few, to the detriment of the many, via the degradation of the landscape, loss of biodiversity and negative impacts on scarce water resources?

The EWT expresses its sincere appreciation for the support given by The Bateleurs."

. . . our volunteer Bateleur Pilots and Committee Members, all other Supporters and, especially, our Sponsors, who keep us in the air . . .

• ANGLO  AMERICAN  CHAIRMAN’S  FUND
• AVENG
• DATAPRO
• THE  FELIX  SCHNEIER  FOUNDATION
• THE  TONY  &  LISETTE  LEWIS  FOUNDATION
• RAND  MERCHANT  BANK
• READ  HOPE  PHILLIPS  THOMAS  &  CADMAN  INC.
• TABACK,  PELKOWITZ  &  BERMAN
• WILD  FOUNDATION  AND  SIERRA  CLUB