Living Land

[

] 53

Image: Christo Marais

Large-scale degradation in the catchment of the Mount Fletcher dam

Furthermore, over the last 20 years the Working for…

programmes have succeeded in mainstreaming ecologi-

cal restoration into the employment and rural development

debates. South Africa has a number of socioeconomic chal-

lenges, the toughest of which arguably include unemployment,

safety and security, education, health, rural development and

water and energy security. The natural resource management

programmes contribute primarily to addressing unemploy-

ment, rural development and water security, but have the

potential to make more tangible contributions to primary

health (water quality of run-of-river water extractions in rural

areas), education and energy.

Strong political buy-in and active support for programmes

started with Professor Asmal in 1995 and continues today

under Minister Edna Molewa, with the programmes having

the full support of every minister responsible for water and

environmental affairs since its inception. Political support,

though, cannot be sustained without substance. The magni-

tude of the natural resource management programmes today

is not to be underestimated. Its socioeconomic impacts, the

areas cleared of invasive alien plants, degraded land restored

and fires suppressed are very significant contributions not

only to the economy but also to environmental resilience and

the mitigation of, and adaption to climate change

Since the inception of the WfW programme the family of

natural resource programmes has together created more than

227,100 person years of employment across South Africa. The

programmes grew from just over 6,100 employment opportu-

nities to more than 50,000 on average over the last three years.

During that time, consistently around 50 per cent of these

were female and more than 60 per cent were younger than 35

years old. WoF, a programme where one would expect a very

low percentage of women, has more than 30 per cent women

in its employment, arguably the highest for any fire manage-

ment institution in the world. More than 90 per cent of the

fire fighters are younger than 35.

To date some 2.8 million hectares of invasive alien plants

have been treated. To put this in context, one has to compare

it to the extent of such plants in the country. Invasive alien

plants cover some 20 million hectares of South Africa to a

lesser or greater extent. If compressed to 100 per cent density,

they would cover around 1.9 million hectares, an area bigger

than the Gauteng Province or the Kruger National Park.

Although on the surface it looks as if WfW is making progress,

research has shown that invasive alien plants may be spread-

ing by between 7.4 per cent and 15.6 per cent, necessitating

additional investment.

To curb the rate of spread and improve

the sustainability of the labour-intensive clearing programmes

WfW is investing around US$4 million of its annual budget in

biological control.

Biocontrol is known to drastically reduce

seed set and in some cases even kill its host species.

WfWet has invested in the restoration of 970 wetlands since its

inception. Despite this being a substantial number, investments

in wetland restoration will have to be increased significantly if the

impact on countrywide water quality and retention for improv-

ing dry season flows is to show a marked improvement.

To date Working for Ecosystems has nearly 22,000 hectares

under restoration for improving watershed services, seques-

tering carbon, improving the productive potential of the land

and improving biodiversity. WoF has fought more than 13,100

fires since its inception. On average it has contributed to the

suppression of around 15 per cent (expressed as a percentage of

estimated area burned) of all veld and forest fires since its incep-

tion, with a high of 27 per cent during the 2014/15 fire seasons.

It is important, though, to put these achievements into context.

Arguably the biggest investment in the restoration of ecological

infrastructure and the delivery of ecosystemservices has been done

through WfW. It is estimated that invasive alien plants reduce

streamflow by around 3 per cent. This might sound small but it

represents 1,443.56millionm

of water per year. In the high yield

catchments that are important water sources for economic growth

in the country, the reduction in streamflow exceeds 5 per cent of

Image: Dr. Bennie van der Waal

The silted-up dam at Mount Fletcher

iving

and