Memel, Free State
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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 30 km², 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.
The town is slowly undergoing a transformation mainly due to the rehabilitation of the wetlands. House prices have moved from the R50 000 level to around the R400 000 mark in a matter of just 2 years as nature lovers from the big cities move in and renovate the old houses.[citation needed]
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