Kleinzee
| Kleinzee | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Coordinates | 29 ° 40 ′ 37 ″ S , 17 ° 4 ′ 14 ″ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | South Africa | ||
| North Cape | |||
| District | Namakwa | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | ZA-NC | ||
| local community | Nama Khoi | ||
| surface | 9.1 km² | ||
| Residents | 728 (2011) | ||
| density | 80 Ew. / km² | ||
| founding | 1942 | ||
 Landscape near Kleinzee
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Kleinzee also Klein Zee ( Afrikaans Kleinsee ) is a tourist resort in South Africa in the municipality of Nama Khoi , Namakwa District , Northern Cape Province . It is west of Springbok , which is the seat of the local church. Kleinzee is a settlement on the Atlantic coast and next to the mouth of the Buffels River . In 2011 the place had 728 inhabitants in 301 households.
description
The name refers to a small lake, which refers to a lagoon in the estuary . The Kleyne Zee farm had already settled here before the development of the settlement in 1942 . There is no port here.
The region surrounding the place belongs to the coastal plains of the Northern Cape and is characterized by overgrown sand dunes . The landscape resembles a semi-desert and receives a low annual amount of precipitation due to the occasional winter coastal fog, which increases slightly inland. The vegetation cover consists of knee-high succulent or xerophytic plants. Between the Atlantic and the Kleinzee settlement, there is a sandbar ( bar ) in the dry mouth of the episodically descending Buffels River, which protects the inland from the ingress of sea water. There is only very seldom a connection to the Atlantic.
In 1925 it came in the sand dunes at Kleinzee to the discovery of diamonds . The deposits found were taken over by the Cape Coast Exploration Company and later mined by De Beers Consolidated Mines .
The alluvial diamond deposits of the South African coastal zone in Namaqualand were first discovered by W. Carstens near Port Nolloth in 1925. Between 1926 and 1927, Hans Merensky and the geologists Izak Celliers and Ernst Reuning explored other deposits in the sands on the coast . In the course of the extensive mining activities of De Beers , the village grew to 7000 inhabitants. With the decline in diamond production between 2009 and 2011, the population fell back to less than 1,000 people.
The former diamond mining areas extend almost continuously as strip areas from the north bank of the Buffels River along the coast to Port Nolloth. The Kleinzee diamond deposits were known for their high yield. As a result of this extensive mining, the natural landscape in a strip zone along the coast and the north bank of the Buffels River over 5 kilometers inland were completely remodeled, severely affecting the flora and fauna. The morphology of the affected area has changed considerably and there are forms of soil erosion in the area of the mining dumps and their peripheral areas . The coastal areas of the Nama Khoi Local Municipality were mainly used by De Beers for diamond mining. Until about 10 years ago, the town of Kleinzee and the mouth of the Buffels River were mostly only accessible to the staff of the diamond mines, as the town was owned by De Beers.
De Beers has now sold a substantial part of its mining stakes to the TransHex consortium. The new owners intended to resume mining operations in the coastal zone with a planned workforce of 500 (as of 2016). In this way, the remaining two to three million mined carats of diamonds with an annual production capacity of 100,000 carats are to be extracted. The consortium was also given responsibility for the environmental remediation of the decade-long dismantling. De Beers, the cost of environmental liability were approximately 200 million Rand estimated from the circle of environmentalists, we assumed that the actual number could be as high three times. De Beers started activities to reduce environmental liability to around 85 million rand in order to make the takeover by TransHex economically viable.
From the Kleinzee to the south to the area around the Koingnaas settlement , there was diamond mining in several places in the coastal zone, albeit not as extensive as in the direction of Port Nolloth.
Attractions
The sights consist of the remote landscapes of the coastal zone and the sea beach with colonies of fur seals. The Molyneux Nature Reserve is a 5.5 hectare nature reserve created by De Beers in the north of Kleinzee. It is said to be dedicated to the geologist Richard Molyneux who used to work here and who campaigned for sustainable development in the area. There is the Trapsuutjies hiking trail here. In addition, the place offers its visitors the Kleinzee Museum , which provides information about nature, the history of settlement and diamond mining.
Economy and Transport
The place lives mainly from its tourist offers, which include various forms of nature observation (bird watching) as well as excursions into the dune landscape. The tourist offer also includes a golf course . A caravan stand is available. On the southern outskirts there is an airfield with two intersecting runways. The coastal town can be reached by land via the approximately 105 km long regional road R355, which branches off the national road N7 in Springbok . There is also a road that runs roughly with the coastline, which leads from the south of Hondeklipbaai and Koingnaas .
Plans for the installation of wind turbines were initiated by Eskom around 2011 .
Web links
- Anonymous: Kleinzee info . on www.kleinzeeinfo.co.za (English), tourist site with some information about the place.
- Pete Fielding: Situation Asessment Report towards Development of an Estuary Management Plan for the Buffels Estuary . Department of Environmental Affairs. East London 2016, online at www.namakwa-dm.gov.za (English, PDF).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b according to OSM
- ↑ 2011 census , accessed May 24, 2020.
- ^ Peter Edmund Raper : Dictionary of Southern African Place Names . Lowry Publishers, Johannesburg 1987 (2nd ed.), P. 178.
- ↑ a b SA venues: Kleinzee Museum . at www.sa-venues.com (English).
- ↑ Traugott Molter: Water balance and irrigation agriculture in the Cape . Franz Steiner Verlag , Wiesbaden 1966, p. 33.
- ↑ Pete Fielding: Situation Assessment Report towards Development of an Estuary Management Plan for the Buffels Estuary . Provincial Department of Environmental Affairs. East London 2016 (English, PDF), PDF document p. 11; Doc. P. 2.
- ↑ Anonymous: Namaqualand: A chronology. 1996 . online at www.pastmasters.net (English), PDF document p. 103.
- ^ A b South African History Online : Kleinzee, Northern Cape . at www.sahistory.org.za (English).
- ^ A b R. A. Pelletier: Mineral Resources of South-Central Africa . Cape Town, London, New York, Toronto, Oxford University Press , 1964, pp. 48-50.
- ↑ Megan Adderley: Kleinzee . at www.namakwa-info.co.za (English).
- ↑ Pete Fielding: Situation Assessment Report . 2016, PDF document p. 45; Doc. P. 36.
- ^ Pelletier: Mineral Resources . 1964, p. 42.
- ↑ SA venues: Molyneux Nature Reserve . at www.sa-venues.com (English).
- ↑ Megan Adderley: Kleinzee . on www.namakwa-info.co.za (English), tourist information about the place.
- ↑ Experience the Northern Cape: Kleinzee Caravan Park . on www.experiencenortherncape.com (English), tourist information about the place.
- ^ Tony Barbour, Schalk van der Merwe: Social Assessment for Scoping Report Eskom Kleinzee Wind Energy Facility, Northern Cape Province . Sun Valley 2011, online at www.eskom.co.za (English).