The flying activist

Fêted aerial and underwater photographer Jean Tresfon trains his focus on the City of Cape Town’s contamination of its coastal waters

- Sue Segar

FLYING OVER CAPE TOWN IN his light aircraft in 2014, marine conservation photographer Jean Tresfon noticed distinct “plumes” of strange coloured water drifting off some of Cape Town’s favourite beaches. Long plumes of sewage stretched across the blue sea water, having entered the ocean off Camps Bay, Hout Bay and Green Point via underwater pipes called outfalls.

“I guess I’ve always known about the outfalls. I know we pump sewage into the sea,” Tresfon told Noseweek. “But, like everyone else, I always assumed it was treated first and that it was safe going into the sea.”

Shocked by the stark contrast between brown sewage and blue ocean, Tresfon posted the photographs on to his popular marine conservation page on Facebook. But to his surprise, none of his nearly 16,000 followers was outraged.

“I realised the two things missing were scale and context. So I went to take photographs on a day when it was really bad. The plume rises to the surface most days, but it varies. On some days it’s really bad and on others it’s not as horrendous.

“I took the standard tourist shot of Robben Island, with a 5km-long plume stretching out to sea. It showed exactly where it was and the scale of it. I posted it to social media and it went viral.

“In the post, I had said it was unbelievable that in this day and age we just dump raw poo into the sea, as it’s out of sight, out of mind. The issue ended up on the front page of most newspapers and in other media.”