Have you seen your neighbour removing indigenous plant materials? Have you noticed an unusual section of clearly transplanted synodon dactylon strangely close to the ocean? You need THE VEGETATION POLICE.
Rick and Ernie stroll thousands of kilometres up and down our sandy beaches every year so that you can rest easy at night. When Rick and Ernie are on the job the very least they will do is fine perpetrators for the illegal removal of indigenous plants and plant materials, sometimes they will even stop the removal taking place. Those instances are rare, but they have happened. The small fee option is admittedly more likely. But Rick and Ernie are on the never-ending case of vegetation policing, that you can be sure of.
Sceptics of the policing program ask why there are only two officers to patrol the entirety of the South African coastline. The question is made even more poignant when one realises that Rick and Ernie never even split up, a safety concern they say. You never know when one fully armed policeman isn’t going to be enough to deal with a miscreant plant remover. Besides, the job would get lonesome otherwise.
Repeatedly intoning that indigenous habitats and ecosystems are important to them, politicians must of course be giving their all to the program. If it seems strange at first that there can only be enough funds set aside for the salaries of two officers, that is because you don’t have all the information. Please, stop emailing us with complaints and negative criticism, and instead call THE VEGETATION POLICE.
Rick and Ernie stroll thousands of kilometres up and down our sandy beaches every year so that you can rest easy at night.