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
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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".
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