Halt the spread of the billboard army

Red ants sure, but white ants no, I thought, as I quaffed my first and well-deserved draft of Windhoek Lager. It was Fred who had introduced me, as a young boy, to the fascinating lives and habits of insects so I knew that once his Klippies and water, no ice, had worked its magic the truth would out.

As though he had read my mind he said, "Red ants are those guys that the government hire when they want to clear illegal squatter camps... the white ants are destroying our lush Jo'burg forests. Trees and shrubs are being slaughtered to make outdoor hoardings more visible," he explained.

It was thus that we discussed the impact of advertising on the urban landscape. We recalled how friends who had visited eastern European countries shortly after the wall came down commented on how drab, grey and unexciting the cities were. They were largely devoid of any advertising. South Africa did have in the past, pretty draconian laws that controlled the spread of roadside posters. Rumour had it that Jan Smuts introduced these laws after visiting the USA and experiencing the crass poster landscape they had allowed to evolve!

Things have eased now and it appears that the outdoor signage companies now have a free hand. Particularly galling are the "white ant's" activities on highways that were built close to residential areas. Residents there had got together and planted trees and shrubs to lessen the noise and soften the visual impact. These are now being destroyed. The tragedy is that it takes minutes to fell a tree that took 20 years of growth before it could provide any protection against the noise and visual pollution the highways inflicted on the residents.

Matters of taste and preference regarding the relative merits of a stand of trees and shrubs versus a billboard shouting down at you as you drive, we decided were so 'soft' as to not warrant any comment at all. Was it after all, not the Minister of Environmental Affairs that, in a fit of xenophobic madness, sought to ban all alien trees, we asked? Apart from the horror of the potential total denuding of our major cities, perhaps this comment has been taken to heart in that any tree is now expendable?

After all, we all know that money does not grow on trees and we also know that poster sights are very lucrative. We are fast becoming a nation driven by the fast buck, whether by actual crime or by lack of care. I cursed the first brightly-lit poster that accosted my view on the way home and vowed to never use the brand it advertised.

And, it was a famous brand of insecticide!