Memel, Free State
Memel is a small town in the
Free State Province of
South Africa, named after the port city of
Memel,
East Prussia (today
Klaipėda,
Lithuania).
The name means
surrounded by water in
Old Prussian. The
Seekoeivlei Nature Reserve, a massive
wetland spanning some 3000
hectares, surrounds the town, which was declared a
Ramsar site in 1999. It is unique for housing more than 250 species of birds, and the town is now a popular destination for bird enthusiasts. It is also home to some
hippopotamus,
Seekoei being the
Afrikaans translation.
Decades earlier, farmers built numerous drainage canals to create arable farming land. This dried the wetland out, and only in the
1990s Rand Water started a rehabilitation programme to restore the wetland. Part of their motivation was due to the realisation that clean water could be supplied more cost-effectively by foregoing chemical and mechanical treatment, and rather letting the wetland push its water back into the
Vaal River where it augmented the water scheme already in place. The whole project cost two million
Rand.
