GEORGE NEWS - Avril Dawson is a retired high school teacher with a mission to ban the use of pesticides and herbicides. She is writing a series of articles with which she hopes to raise public awareness regarding the prevalence of and the hazards connected with poison use on our health and in the environment:

I wonder how many people know our piece of paradise in Wilderness is a Ramsar site? I discovered this fact recently and now know that Ramsar isn't an acronym, but the name of a city in Iran where, in 1971, an international treaty known as The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was signed, and ratified four years later.

Signatories agreed to protect wetland areas of their countries and treat them as sacrosanct to preserve biodiversity and create safe havens for birds and other species across the earth. 

Wetlands would thereby continue to be places where natural systems flourish. There are about 900 sites internationally and 172 contracting parties to date (see Wikipedia: "List of parties to Ramsar Convention").

South Africa signed the Ramsar treaty in 1975 with ethics and diplomacy holding us to our agreement not to pollute or use poisons near our 28 sites, in particular our lakes here in Wilderness.

I would like to extrapolate the concept of protection and non-polluting to all feeder rivers and lagoons in our surrounding areas because they are interconnected. 

The Wilderness Lakes area is one of only 28 protected Ramsar sites in South Africa. There is an international awareness of a need for more protected sites, as wetland restoration and creation becomes a priority in the light of climate change, development and habitat destruction.

Preserving wetlands for posterity

Finally, the reality of development must force us to ask questions about what we can or can't, should or shouldn't do in order to sustain and preserve our wetlands for posterity. Mother Earth will continue to support us in spite of any unwise actions on our part. The element of reciprocity, in the form of respectful use, is important when we have received a free gift as beautiful as our lakes and rivers.

In future articles, the issue of living and working poison-free for the sake of health will be explored.

The next article will be titled Poison-free cities and towns in the international arena.

‘We bring you the latest Garden Route, Hessequa, Karoo news’