The Pride shines a light on mining and abalone poaching →
My 20th African thriller novel, 'The Pride', shines a light on two serious, but lesser known threats to the natural environment - abalone poaching and mining.
South Africa, like my 'other' home, Australia (it's a toss up as to which I really call home these days) is blessed with stocks of abalone, a highly prized coastal shellfish.
Abalone commands a premium price, particularly in restaurants in Asia, most notably Hong Kong. There is a legal, regulated abalone industry in South Africa, where quotas for harvesting are issued by the government, but that is literally the tip of the iceberg.
It has been estimated that demand for South African abalone is about 17 times the size of the legally available amount of shellfish. This booming demand has spawned a huge and highly organised illegal operation over a number of decades.
I've touched on this in 'The Pride', in which my returning character, female soldier of fortune Sonja Kurtz, and her feisty daughter Emma fall foul of Abalone poachers and the Cape gangs who run the trade.
The action in the book quickly shifts to Zimbabwe (because while writing the book I quickly shifted to Zimbabwe!) where in recent years another serious problem has evolved - the encroachment of coal mining on the country's flagship game reserve, Hwange National Park.
While I was writing the book, something so bizarre happened in real life that I had to include it in the novel. Some people from a wildlife NGO were travelling through the park when they stumbled upon a hitherto unknown camp. It was a bunch of Chinese coal miners who were conducting a drilling operation in search of coal.
There was a huge uproar at the time, with the mining company claiming they had a special presidential permit to conduct their explorations INSIDE the park.
The area around the town of Hwange, bordering on the park, has long been known for its coal deposits and for many years there has been an underground operation (ie a legal mine), which posed little visible impact on the adjoining wildlife areas.
Several years, ago, however, a Chinese company received permission to establish an open cut coal mine near the Sinamatella Gate entrance to the park. In an appalling lack of judgement, the mine was developed astride one of the main roads leading into this world-renowned national park.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the miners inside the park claimed they had a right to be there. In the wake of a sustained public campaign to highlight the problem on social media and the mainstream media, the President of Zimbabwe decreed that the exploration had stopped.
That was a small victory for common sense, though mining continues on the edge of the park, in areas frequented by wildlife.
In 'The Pride' Sonja also finds an illegal drilling operation in Hwange National Park. Without giving too much away, she does not rely on social media to shut it down!
I hope you enjoy 'The Pride', and that the book helps raise some greater awareness of these two threats to our precious natural envrionment.
'The Pride' is available online and in bookstores in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and online only in print, ebook and audio from your favourite online retailer everywhere else in the world.
