Living Land

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] 51

Securing the upper end of the water

value chain in South Africa

Christo Marais, Chief Director, Natural Resource Management Programmes,

Department of Environmental Affairs, South Africa

n 30 November 1993 a group of researchers,

planners and natural resource managers met to

discuss the impacts of invasive alien plants on

water resources and biodiversity in the Fynbos Biome, or

Cape Floristic Region, the smallest of the world’s six plant

kingdoms. Two resolutions were made at the meeting: to

present to local decision-makers the threat that invasive

alien plants pose to the country’s scarce water resources

(the initiative that developed into the ‘Working for …’

programmes); and to approach ‘the rich north’ for support

in the battle against invasive alien plants and their

impacts on biodiversity. The latter is the forerunner to the

landscape planning programme, Cape Action for People

and the Environment and later programmes funded by the

Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank.

Hydrological research going back as far as 1943, when

Professor C. L. Wicth published the first scientific papers

showing that

Pinus

plantations have a negative impact on

streamflow, provided the initial rationale for the clearing of

invasive alien plants. This was confirmed by further research

between the 1960s and 1980s

1,2

. The idea of also creating

jobs while containing the spread of invasive alien plants to

improve water security was presented to the late Professor

Kader Asmal, the then Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry,

in June 1995. In October 1995 the Working for Water (WfW)

programme was launched by Professor Asmal, a multide-

partmental programme with a budget of US$6.9 million

(R25 million based on the exchange rate at the time). The

programme has since seen phenomenal growth, with a budget

increasing to US$1,317.3 million (around R9.88 billion based

on the mean exchange rate for 1995-2015) and peaking with

an expenditure of US$105.3 million (R1.263 billion) during

2014/15, while also giving part-time employment opportuni-

ties to more than 40,000 people over the last few years.

Initially the primary focus of WfW was on the management

of invasive species known to have negative impacts on stream-

flow. It was soon realized, though, that WfW cannot operate

in isolation. When invasive alien plants are cleared from

riparian zones and wetlands there is still the imperative for

restoration of the wetland to improve water purification and

retention, and ultimately to improve dry season flows. In 2004

the Working for Wetlands (WfWet) programme, initially run

as a sub-programme of WfW and implemented by the South

Workers restoring a highly degraded wetland in the Baviaanskloof

Pinus species invading the Southern Cape Mountains where 8 per cent of

streamflow is lost due to invasive alien trees

Image: Christo Marais

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