Eerste River

This is the Eerste River near its Dwarsberg origin in the Jonkershoek Valley. Initially it was called the Eersterivier, before political correctness started its attack on indigenous languages.

Attractive where its rocky bed is clean, the river is here fast-flowing and its banks overgrown. When reaching the flatter land, it slows across the east of the Cape Flats. The Eerste River’s notable tributary, the Kuils River starts east of Kanonkop, augmenting the shared flow of water and undesirable extras, continuously delivered into False Bay.

The length of the River is given as only 40 km. It is, however, well-known beyond its size, even famous, because without it there would not have been a town at Stellenbosch or a university, let alone an often-performing rugby team, a world renowned choir or a delightful botanical garden.

The Eerste River was once home to the Berg River Redfin, scientifically Pseudobarbus burgi, a freshwater fish considered by the IUCN to be endangered. It has now become extinct in the Eerste River.

Rivers the world over are sadly not what they used to be, not in appearance, water purity or ecological richness. People living nearby in great numbers inevitably do river biodiversity mischief, intentionally and unintentionally.

Every human generation in the civilised world since the Industrial Revolution loses track of an unknown number of biodiversity mishaps, species departing without even being “discovered” or named.

Not much better or even worse: those losses recorded in scientific accounts of the extinct, the lists of "soldiers" and civilians of all species, fallen not so much in the endless human wars but the more dangerous human peace.