Complaint from landowner in Wilderness - SAHPA/RAASA/CAA Procedures

A serious and urgent matter re the rights of both landowners and paragliders needs to be dealt with as a collective by the Garden Route Paragliding Community. The text appearing below is a direct extract from a mail received from SAHPA Chairman Wayne Heuer, the content of which is largely self-explanatory.  Subsequent to receiving this on Friday night, I have had personal discussions about this matter with Bruce Watney, Joerg, Roland,Roy and Deon. Some of these people undertook to let me have some background information and some of it has started to arrive per e-mail, quite a body of evidence, by the looks of it.


REMOVED PER REQUEST FROM SAHPA/RAASA

I shall be collecting and collating the pertinent information received, and have a look from a juristic point of view at the position of the landowner in these circumstances, as well as those of the relevant Apex bodies, and the position of commercial operators and also recreational pilots affected.  This will be done in anticipation of a meeting where all attendees can share information and opinions, so as to arrive at an action plan and nominate a person or people to represent the paragliding community in this particular instance.  I do believe that the question whether it is a Skywings matter or not is vexed,  it is abundantly clear that this is now a broader matter and needs a more encompassing approach than previously adopted.

Pertinent to the last sentence of the previous paragraph and also raised individually by the people I had discussions with, Bruce/Joerg/Roland/Roy and others, is the risk that if this matter is not dealt with properly it could open the door for a number of other instances or parties with a similar approach, and that a number of sites could then be placed in jeopardy. This over and above the threat of this and other sites being closed by the CAA, pending a full investigation…

  

Any inputs, in whatever form or manner, will obviously be appreciated and we hope that through our collective and constructive efforts this matter can be dealt with speedily and to the satisfaction of all concerned.

The gist of this communication has also been distributed per our mail group, along with the attachment which reflects the details of the complaint, so please check your mailboxes. If it should not be there, please mail me at cobus@mopay.co.za and I shall send you a complete copy.