About Munster

Munster is a lovely town on the KwaZulu-Natal South coast that has a lot to offer: holiday accommodation, sports such as bowls, tennis and squash, the Munster Motor Museum and of course our beautiful, unspoilt and easily accessible beaches.

But most of all Munster has a wonderful natural environment and a great diversity of wildlife, plants and trees, some of which are rare or threatened. A good example, to be enjoyed by young and old, is the 30 acre Secret Sithela eco-estate, 18 acres of which have been registered as a conservancy area (the Kathleen Kinsey Nature Reserve). The Admiralty reserve is also a unique environment, offering paths to the beaches for nature lovers of all ages.

However, this beautiful environment is fragile and constantly under threat from development, mismanagement, pollution and even vandalism. That is why the Munster Conservancy was founded in 2021 by (in alphabetical order) Felicity Balcomb, Tony Balcomb, Robin Broide, Ingrid and Heiner Hedricht, Tim Hornby, Jean-Louise Kinsey, Alister Nel and Elise Scott. Since then we have lost some old team members and gained new ones, as is normal in any organization. However, our dedication to protecting our fragile nature for current and future generations remains the same.

About the Munster Conservancy

The Munster Conservancy has two basic aims. The first is to protect our natural environment. The second is to help others do the same. As far as the first is concerned we have embarked, among other things, on the following:

• A tree labelling project in which we are tagging trees in both public and private property;
• We are removing huge amounts of alien vegetation from the Admiralty Reserve and planting indigenous vegetation in its stead;
• We clean up the beaches after heavy rain;
• We have started indigenous gardens at the entrance of Munster as well as at Glenmore Beach next to the Mtamvuna Life Saving Club and the steps going down to the beach.

As far as our second aim is concerned, high on our list of priorities is raising awareness and encouraging others to care for our natural environment. Nature Lovers sometimes tend to develop a siege mentality where they withdraw into their world and see everyone else as a threat to the environment, and not protectors of it. We have consciously tried to avoid this mentality and have tried, from the day when we started, to reach out and get on board as many people as possible.

Our outreach programme includes (but is not limited to) the following initiatives:

• We are working with the local estate agent to make first time buyers aware of our presence and are increasingly being called upon by new property owners to give advice on how best they can develop their properties in ways that are not destructive to the environment.
• Some garden services that come into our area contact us before they start their chainsaws to inform us what they are doing so we don’t get too anxious.
• We have a hotline with the Forestry Department who takes seriously all our calls to intervene in situations involving the trimming or cutting down of trees. This has led, in one case, to the prosecution of one property owner who cut down all the trees on his property without permission and after he had been told by a local garden services that it was against the law.
• We have tried to raise awareness of how important the Admiralty Reserve is and that it should not be tampered with in any way except to remove alien vegetation. One of the ways we have done this is through our Admiralty Path Project which documents the six paths going to the beach through the reserve.
• We have constantly reached out to other community organisations and authorities, including those in Kwanzimakwe and, most importantly, the Munster Residents and Ratepayers Association (MRRA).

But while a lot has been done there is still so much more to do. Conservation will always be an unfinished project and we need to do much more to ensure that our natural heritage is passed down intact and flourishing to future generations. We need your help. Become a member of the Munster Conservancy or join our Whatsapp group and contribute your ideas, insights, photos and stories!

Our constitution is available in PDF format at
https://munsterconservancy.co.za/pdf/MunsterConservancyConstitution.pdf.