African Wildlife Environment Issue 75 FINAL

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& ENVIRONMENT WILDLIFE African ISSUE 75 (2020)

iNATURALIST YOUR PORTAL INTO NATURE

National protected areas EXPANSION

THE STRAW DESERTS OF THE DRAKENSBERG

THE MAGAZINE OF THE WILDLIFE AND ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY OF SOUTH AFRICA

Region, area office, branch & centre CONTACTS

CONTENTS

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Editorial

Letters to the editor Message from our chairman

Good reads

Conservation 8

A war of attrition 10 An honest talk about water 12 National protected areas expansion

Fauna, Flora & Wildlife 19 The Snuff-box tree 22 African aerial escapades 28 The straw deserts of the Drakensberg Environmental Education 35 iNaturalist: your portal into nature Birding 38 A confusion of thrushes WESSA Regions / Branches / Friends

Page 8 Meet Leanne Ray

Page 12 DEFF Ears

42 Blouberg Nature Reserve Subscriptions / General 46 WESSA membership 47 Leaving a legacy 48 Subscription form

Page 28 To burn or not to burn?

Page 19 The Snuff Box tree

Published by:

Copyright ©AfricanWildlife & Environment.All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by and means, electronic or mechanical without the prior written permission of the publisher. African Wildlife & Environment retains the right to make alterations to any material submitted. The publisher, while exercising due care, cannot be held responsible for any loss or damage to material submitted. The views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of WESSA. Copyright on all content belongs to WESSA and the individual contributors.

Consulting Editor John Ledger

john.ledger@wol.co.za Production Manager John Wesson jwesson@wessanorth.co.za Design & Layout Marlene McKay mmckay23@gmail.com Editorial John & Jenny Wesson jennywesson428@gmail.com

Cover photo : Blyde River © John Wesson

Tel +27 31 201 3126 www.wessa.org.za

GENERAL

Dr John Ledger EDITORIAL When I was young, the year 2020 sounded like some mystical number very far into the future, a time so far ahead that it sounded impossible to imagine living at such a time. And yet here we are in 2020, living in a world full of conflicts, contrasts and confusion. For those of us interested in wildlife and conservation of the environment and biodiversity, members and supporters of WESSA, what does all this mean?

from Yale University. Janis published an influential book in 1972, in which he defined Groupthink as a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimise conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation. Groupthink requires individuals to avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and there is loss of individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking. The dysfunctional group dynamics of the ‘ingroup’ produces an ‘illusion of invulnerability’ (an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made). Thus the ‘ingroup’ significantly overrates its own abilities in decision- making and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the ‘outgroup’). Members of a group can often feel peer pressure to ‘go along with the crowd’ in fear of rocking the boat, or of what them speaking up will affect how their teammates perceive them. Group interactions tend to favour clear and harmonious agreements, and it can be a cause for concern when little to no new innovations or arguments for better policies, outcomes and structures are called to question. Groupthink can often be referred to as a group of ‘yes men’ because group activities and group projects in general make it extremely easy to pass on not offering constructive opinions. How pervasive is Groupthink in 2020? It is all around us, and at the heart of every controversial subject under the sun. That is why we refuse to give a voice to people who are not part of our ‘ingroup’. Groupthink also prohibits an organisation from moving forward and innovating if no one ever speaks up and says something could be done differently. May you as our readers give this matter some thought, and be aware of the stifling influence of groupthink on our lives.

One of themost pervasive influences of our time is the ‘connectedness’ of humans throughout the world by means of the Internet and the astonishing evolution of electronic devices. For example, in January 2020 President Donald Trump is giving a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. We can watch and listen to him in real time on our mobile phones. Almost immediately, the media react with condemnation or praise of what he said, and that too bombards our senses and influences what we think of the American President and his most powerful of countries. And so it is with every imaginable topic under the sun, be it the human population, climate change, trophy hunting, water and droughts, farming, energy or politics. Our senses are bombarded with polarised opinions and so-called ‘facts’. The media play the role of self-appointed ‘gatekeepers’, who allow only those whose opinions they agree with to reach the public, while those they disagree with are silenced and ignored. I recently listened to a debate on radio about climate change, where the ‘talk show host’ was so biased towards his sceptical guest that he intimated that he really should not be allowed to voice his views on air! Most people, and I am one of them, consciously or unconsciously practicewhat is known as ‘confirmation bias’, meaning that if we hear or read something with which we agree, this confirms our conviction that we are right. Conversely, when we hear or read opinions that do not agree with our own views, these are discarded or ignored. This results in the situation where we are unable to objectively analyse an issue because we do not listen to both sides of the argument. This is the underlying reason why there is so much polarisation about controversial topics such as climate change, trophy hunting and nuclear power, to name just three. This polarisation of individuals extends to groups of people who often then form organised structures of like-minded people. These can evolve into very powerful associations with enormous influence, whether it be financial or in having preferential access to the media. And here we come across another human phenomenon, known as ‘groupthink’. You can learn more about this in Wikipedia, or elsewhere on the Internet. Most of the initial research on groupthink was conducted by Irving Janis, a research psychologist

Dr John Ledger Consulting Editor john.ledger@wol.co.za 083 650 1768

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Your opinion is highly valued and welcome. Please send your feedback, letters, comments and suggestions to editor@wessa.co.za

Several letters responding to the Editorial in issue 74 of the magazine have been received. In order to do them justice and give them adequate space, they will be published more fully in Issue 76 (2020) ‘It is very sad that wind turbines cause the death of a variety of birds. But that by itself is no reason to advocate the opposition of wind turbines in order to prevent the death of birds. On that basis it could be argued that the use of motor vehicles should be opposed because they cause biodiversity road deaths. One could go even further and oppose the generation of electricity because of a multitude of unintended consequences to our biodiversity and to the environment!’ - Willem Hazewindus, Past chair WESSA NAR, and, Recipient of WESSA Lifetime Conservation Achiever Award ‘Your latest editorial about wind farms assessment I hope will save us from turning our fast vanishing ‘open space’ into fields of expensive whirling biocidal propellers. I visited Humansdorp some years ago where farmers are cashing in by accommodating these structures that would have challenged Don Quixote in hating his government even more. I met an Eskom technician servicing them there who DEAR MEMBERS...

WESSA will rely on the resilience, dedication and commitment of all its longstanding and newmembers for the success of membership in 2020, which will probably be one of the more significant years in building and strengthening membership. WESSA ExCo will continue to work closely with the regions and will provide them with ongoing support. On behalf of The Board and all WESSA staff, I would like to wish all our dedicated members and friends groups a wonderful and rewarding 2020 in our collective quest to be people caring for the earth. I hope you will take my words in the spirit in which they are meant, which is to provoke thought, and perhaps a conversation, about the energy/ conservation conflict in South Africa about which you wrote. I must say that there were a couple of things which I felt the need to respond to from your article. Firstly, I felt that your argument presenting wind energy as not ‘carbon-free’, to be a little misleading to readers. Of course, NOTHING is carbon-free. It is impossible to produce energy without ‘burning’ something, whether it is you or me walking up a flight of stairs, or shovelling coal into a furnace- both produce carbon dioxide amongst other things. The 'burning' of energy produces carbon dioxide in most instances in the natural world.’ Jack Fillery, Owner/Director, Tomjachu Bush Retreat declared them a waste of money and of limited energy production especially when the Cape winds occasionally die down.’ - Paul Dutton ‘I am not usually one who responds to articles or editorials, but I felt compelled to respond to your editorial piece in Issue 74 of African Wildlife & Environment magazine which I have just read.

I trust that you are all well rested and are already well on your way to embrace the start of a new decade in 2020. As I look back on 2019, I recall a year of daunting challenges, yet it was a year of remarkable movement towards greatness. The new Membership Model

and Standard Operating Procedures were finalised. I am glad to report that we are on course and currently in transition phase. The model has supported the WESSA Membership Regions with financial resources and reconfirmed membership governance with regional projects and activities.

Best wishes, Dr JT Burger CEO, WESSA

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GENERAL

GOOD READS

Book reviews by Dr John Ledger

Namibia Petrou, Nikos & Neil MacLeod (2019). W ildlife of Namibia – A Photographic Guide . Struik Nature, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town. Soft cover,

Tales of the sea Piers, Richard (2019). Orca: The day the Great

White sharks disappeared . Struik Nature, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town. Soft cover, 15x21 cm, 144 pp, illustrated in colour throughout with photographs and maps and sketches. ISBN 978-1-77584 -642-0. R140

15x21 cm, 310 pp, illustrated in colour

throughout with photographs and maps. ISBN 978-1- 77584 -682-6. R250 This all-in-one compact guide will prove invaluable to visitors to national parks, nature reserves and other wildlife-rich places in Namibia, a fascinating land of contrasts, where floodplains, swamps and the world’s oldest desert have contributed to a rich biodiversity. This is an easy- to-use guide to the country’s most conspicuous and interesting mammals, birds, reptiles, invertebrates and plants. The introduction includes a map, sections on Geography, Climate and Water, Vegetation, Nature Conservation and Threats to Biodiversity. I was disappointed to find no mention of community conservation programmes, where Namibia is a world leader. The photographic guide deals with mammals, birds (the biggest chapter), reptiles, invertebrates and flora. The individual species photos are good, arranged eight to a double page spread, with a description of each species’ appearance, habits, size and conservation status, as well as information on habitat and best viewing localities and a distribution map. This little book will be useful to the tourist who would like to learn more about the fauna and flora of Namibia without the need for four or five different and bulky field guides.

Great White Sharks, attracted by an offshore seal colony, have brought success in many forms to the adjacent fishing village of Gansbaai along the southern African coast. A flourishing shark cage-diving industry has sprung up, bringing jobs and money, and so benefiting almost the entire community. Tourists come from far and near to experience the thrill of a real-life brush with the legendary ‘Jaws’. Shark Town, as it has become known, is booming. Then one day, the sharks disappear. Slowly at first, but with gathering momentum, the word spreads: cage-diving off Gansbaai can no longer promise the thrill of an encounter. The crowds thin, the boats remain at their moorings, and the once bustling community waits as their livelihoods tail off. Entrepreneurs and scientists alike are baffled. But it’s not long before shark carcasses start washing up on the beaches. These, together with some coincidental sightings of another apex predator in the vicinity, are the first leads to the possible causes and culprits. Against the clamour and thrill of the cage- diving season in full swing, Richard Peirce visits the unfolding drama and explores what’s behind these strange events. It turns out that two ‘Killer Whales’ or Orcas ( Orcinus orca ) are apparently responsible for driving out the sharks. The pair both have collapsed dorsal fins, one to the left and the other to the right. This enables their recognition, and their naming as ‘Port’ and ‘Starboard’. It was even possible to develop a map of sightings of these two animals from Namibia all along the Cape Coast to Port Elizabeth. The author weaves an extremely interesting story about Shark Town and its people, and how they were affected by the disappearance of the Great Whites, which

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GENERAL

Salt pans McLeod, Grahame (2019). Makgadikgadi Pans: A traveller’s guide to the salt flats of Botswana . Struik Travel & Heritage, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town. Soft cover, 19x24 cm, 256 pp, illustrated in colour throughout with photographs, maps and sketches. ISBN 978-1- 77584 -597-3. R230

underpin the economy of the town. Interestingly, when the Great Whites fled from the depredations of the two Orcas, a smaller species of shark called the Bronze Whaler moved in and revitalised the cage- diving industry to a certain extent. I found the book to be an excellent read, bringing together the stories of people and denizens of the ocean, and how their lives are intertwined in this corner of South Africa.

Hiking for flowers

Clarke, Hugh & Corinne Merry (2019). Q uick ID Guide: Wild Flowers of the Cape Peninsula . Struik Nature, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town. Soft cover, 15x21 cm, 527 pp, illustrated in colour throughout with photographs, maps and sketches. ISBN 978-1- 77584 -640-6. R130 Written with the non- specialist in mind, this

Tucked away between the perennial waterways of the Okavango Delta and the arid Kalahari to the south, are the legendary Makgadikgadi Pans. Some 12,000 square kilometres in extent, these salt flats, consisting of two large salt pans, Sowa and Ntwetwe, and a myriad smaller ones, are Botswana’s best-kept secret and one of its fastest-growing tourist attractions. This first guidebook on the pans and their environs explores this fascinating region, bringing to life in ten chapters its geology, wildlife, vegetation, climate, local economy and key destinations: Nata Bird Sanctuary, Lekhubu Island, the Boteti River, Mosu Escarpment, Makgadikgadi and Nxai Pan National Park, and the towns and villages that fringe the pans. Full-colour maps and more than 200 photographs support the text. Additional features include advice on where to stay; sights to see and how to get there; activities on offer throughout the year; contact details; and a travel advisory. Informative, practical and user-friendly, Makgadikgadi Pans is a beautifully presented, largish-format, colourful and inspiring guide for all visitors to Botswana and the alluring salt sea of the Makgadikgadi. The ‘contact’ section is particularly useful, listing as it does a wide variety of accommodation and activities, as well as various facilities such as medical assistance, and vehicle- and puncture-repair services. This book is a must for anyone planning a visit to Botswana, or folks compiling their ‘bucket list’ of special places to visit.

guide is a must-have for flower lovers, hikers, tour guides and tourists – anyone interested in identifying the wild flowers that grace the Cape Peninsula. This handy little book covers the most remarkable and commonly seen wild flowers of Table Mountain, Silvermine and Cape Point. It was originally published as Common Wild Flowers of Table Mountain in 2007, then revised in 2013 to include the flowers of Silvermine. This new edition offers 360 (previously 208) of the region’s most remarkable and commonly seen wild flowers; clear photographs of all featured flowers and concise, informative text; flowers grouped according to colour, to help with quick ID; walking routes in the Peninsula’s famed reserves, plotted on three clear maps; and an illustrated glossary of terms. Hugh Clarke is a retired businessman who has written books on such diverse subjects as botany, marketing and labour law. His love of hiking led to a desire to identity the flowers along the way. Corinne Merry has a PhD in Theoretical Physics (!), but hiking and photography keep her busy in retirement. Most of the excellent images in the book are hers. Here, once again, we see what can be achieved by our ‘citizen scientists’, notwithstanding being ‘senior citizens’. Congratulations on a job well done!

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GENERAL

GOOD READS

Book reviews by Dr John Ledger

Institute for Environmental Management and Assessment (UK), Chartered Environmentalist with the Society for the Environment (UK), and professional scientist registered with the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions. Over the past 30 years Dr Mentis has gained deep experience working on some of the largest infrastructure and resource exploitation projects in southern Africa (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Lesotho and South Africa), offering his expertise in environmental management consulting, mine rehabilitation assessment, risk management, and project management. He is coordinator of the environmental panel of experts on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project. He has also developed an automated system of mine rehabilitation assessment that assesses site data, scores against standards, identifies weaknesses, and develops recommendations. Dr Mentis has published over 100 scientific and popular articles in local and international journals, and is the author of the book Environmental Risk Management in South Africa . Environmental Rehabilitation Guide for South Africa is his second book. He is a member of the editorial board for the Springer open access journal, Forest Ecosystems (Beijing, China).

Fixing the land Mentis, Mike (2019). Environmental Rehabilitation Guide for South Africa . Quickfox Publishing. Johannesburg, South Africa. Soft cover, 15x23 cm, 205 pp, illustrated with colour photographs, tables and sketches. ISBN 978-0-63980-492-7. R460 available as a

print edition in South Africa (www.publisher.co.za), and in e-book format (Kindle and ePub) from major international retailers. More about the book and a short preview can be accessed on www.publisher. co.za This very useful book aims to help environmental managers and practitioners, farmers, consultants, government officials, politicians, environmental activists and decision-makers in industry understand why environmental rehabilitation is necessary, the standard to which it should be done, and how to do it. Though the book focuses on rehabilitation in the humid and semi-arid regions of South Africa, the principles it uses are applicable across environmental management. It is a practical guide that explains, for any given case, derivation of a rehabilitation objective, its boundary conditions, the interventions to be applied, and simple powerful metrics that can be used to measure achievement. The key elements of much rehabilitation – landscaping, runoff control and revegetation – are explained in terms of what the finished rehabilitation product should look like and how to get there. The book includes 67 exhibits featuring full-colour images of rehabilitation and revegetation examples, useful summary tables, problem-solving flow charts, graphs, and more. Dr Mike Mentis has a BSc (Botany & Zoology), BScHons (Zoology), an MSc in Nature Conservation, a PhD in Agriculture, and an MBA. He is a Principal Environmental Auditor and Full Member of the

Lions Somerville, Keith (2019). Humans

and Lions: Conflict, Conservation and Coexistence. Routledge Environmental Humanities, Earthscan, Abingdon, England and New York, USA. Soft cover, 15x23 cm, 233 pp. ISBN 978-0-63980- 492-7 978-1-13855-803- 8. UK Pounds 34.99.

This is a definitive academic publication, meticulously prepared with extensive referencing by Professor Keith Somerville, a member of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, UK, where he teaches at the Centre for Journalism.

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David Macdonald, Director of WildCRU, University of Oxford, UK. As human populations in Africa and India continue to surge into the 21st Century, placing ever increasing demands on land and resources, the future of the world's lions hangs in the balance. To meet the challenge of conserving these magnificent but demanding creatures in the wild, we need to grasp the complex history and nature of this issue, meticulously researched and comprehensively presented in this important book. - Michael 't Sas-Rolfes, Oxford Martin Fellow, Oxford Martin Programme on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, University of Oxford, UK. This not a picture book with pretty pictures of big cats. It is a serious scientific work that will be compulsory reading for anyone really interested in the history of lions and their interactions with humans. As the latter expand inexorably into the territories of wild African animals, the big questions is: how and why might lions survive and even thrive in Africa, when they have been wiped out of their former ranges in Europe and Asia?

He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London, UK. I can do no better than reproduce some media reviews from various top experts: Professor Somerville has written the definitive history of the relationship between lions and humans. This meticulously and exhaustively researched book starts sixty million years ago with the evolutionary origin of Carnivores and ends with developments in lion conservation in late 2018. In between, it examines the long history of conflict between the two apex predators, documenting in agonizing detail the lion's long spiral toward extinction at the hands of man, and the current efforts of a handful of conservationists to reverse the decline. This will be the standard reference on lion conservation for years to come. - Laurence G. Frank, Living With Lions Project Director and research associate in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, USA. Keith Somerville eruditely rips the scales from his readers eyes to unveil the interacting blights that have beset lions for millennia – trade, conflict, hunting – pills all bitterly coated in the proliferation of people. Where does that leave lions? In a precarious mess.

ADVENTURE A WORLD OF in our own backyard

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CONSERVATION

WESSA Northern Areas Region combats poaching AWAR OF ATTRITION

Mark Gray

Poachers are placing snares in the mountains of the Magaliesberg Biosphere to trap antelope, to be sold or eaten for bushmeat, but frequently other animals such as leopard are part of the 'collateral damage'.

Michelle and Ashley Elliott with Jackson the Australian Cow Dog, Saskia Taylor and Leanne Ray, who led a group of WESSA members and volunteers on an Save the Magaliesberg Species (SMS) snare removal day.

T he Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) regularly arranges volunteer working groups, to remove snares in the Magaliesberg in a war of attrition against poachers. The Save the Magaliesberg Species (SMS) is an ongoing project initiated by WESSA Northern Areas region. The most recent SMS snare-clearing day was in October 2019. WESSA members and volunteers scouted areas in the Biosphere for snares after a leopard, who is believed to have given birth, recently died while trapped in a wire-made snare. It is highly probable that this female leopard

had recently given birth, by the evidence of her denning behaviour found at the place where she died. However, there was no photographic evidence to support this theory. She was found in the same area where a leopard, Brandy, whowas initially relocated into the Biosphere, was snared about four years ago. Brandy was rescued and subsequently gave birth a few months later. The following year she had another litter of cubs, according to Leanne Ray, who led the snare clearing day. Leanne is writing a doctoral thesis on practical ways to ensure the survival of the Magaliesberg leopards

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and other species . This includes placing tracking collars on some leopards and 'camera trapping' them to build up valuable data to support their survival. Wildlife vet, Dr Paul Bartels, is also actively involved in the SMS project. Paul, who works for the Nature Conservation Division of the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), darted Brandy. She was treated at the Johannesburg Animal Hospital and released back into the wild. This has been a success story. This year he also rescued five bush pigs from snares. Leanne reports that the poachers were not deliberately hunting leopard. Members of the local rural community

another seems to takes its place. However, there is too much pressure on this umbrella species, and they are struggling to maintain their numbers at five. “A new leopard will come into the area, but they are lucky to survive the 12 months needed to rear cubs,” she said. Leanne, Marie de Vos, Mariska Nel and Mart-Marie Scholtz from the Singhata C o n s e r v a t i o n Research Fund, report that there are plans to get young, knowledgeable and enthusiastic people, probably tertiary students, to regularly patrol the area and report back and monitor all trends. The WESSA- sponsored SMS project will continue to arrange similar

Leanne Ray and Jackson, the Australian Cow Dog, leading the SMS snare removal day. Leanne is writing her PhD on leopard population demography

were targeting antelope, some as large as kudu, but leopard, bush pigs and cattle often get caught in the snares. Leanne said the aimof the SMS project is to remove the snares as fast – if not faster – than the poachers can set them. She noticed there were more new snares, suggesting poachers were forced to buy new equipment more frequently. There were no snares to be found on that day so the costs may be outweighing the benefits of poaching. We cannot afford to become complacent. Wars of attrition are won by keeping the pressure on. It is estimated that the Magaliesberg has about five leopards at any given time, and five have died during the past four years including a young female leopard known as Athena whose cubs do not appear to have survived., According to Leanne, the Magaliesberg has the carrying capacity for 11 leopards. As one dies,

days or even weekends where volunteers can spend a night camping and socialising in the bush, and contribute towards the conservation of the species that populate this ancient and magnificent mountain range. The days can be arranged but are dependent on the number of volunteers who are prepared to provide their time. The last snare-clearing day started at the Nyoka Ridge Vulture Restaurant site, which is on Paul Bartels' farm, just off the Skeerpoort/ Hekpoort road. WESSA held an International Vulture Awareness Day at Nyoka Ridge on September 7.

Mark Gray mobileadventures@gmail.com +27 (83) 969-9083

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CONSERVATION

Let's have an honest talk about water BECAUSE IT'S GETTING SERIOUS

Anthony Turton

The summer of 2019 is likely to go down in the annals of history as the year the water sector failed in South Africa. Not a day goes by without multiple mention in the media about a water problem somewhere. Distilling that coverage gives us a simple narrative, that we are heading into a crisis, with some brave individuals confidently predicting some future date.

T hey are all wrong! We are not heading for a crisis. We are deeply in one crisis already. We now need a serious discussion about water. We need to talk about water and the environment, water and the economy, water and ecosystem integrity, and water as the foundation for social stability. We need to talk honestly. Let’s start by debunking the myth that a water crisis is looming, but still some time into the future. The harsh reality is that the National Water Act (NWA), which was the first piece of significant legislation to be published after our transition to democracy, was considered radical in global terms because it stripped away all rights to water, except those rights which were ‘reserved’. These rights, known as The Reserve in the Act, have two distinct components. The one component is the right of the environment to its own

water, at least in enough quantities, and in a flow regime that mimics natural conditions. This ‘ecological reserve’ is also known as ‘instream flow requirement’ (IFR) or the ‘environmental reserve’. The second component is water for basic human needs where no other piped water exists. This is known as the ‘basic human needs reserve’. Collectively both elements are protected by law in a hierarchy that places ‘the Reserve’ at the top, followed by ‘strategic water users’ and then the rest. This reserve is not only protected by law, it must be calculated before any other application for a water use license can be granted. This is where it gets tricky, because the intent of the law is to protect aquatic ecosystems in order to prevent them from becoming open sewers. However, an environmental flow is not just about a volume of water in a river. It's about how that volume moves over time, so it's about a flow, which has peaks and troughs. This is known as the ‘flood pulse’ and can be thought of as the ‘Heartbeat of Nature’, if we consider rivers as the arteries and wetlands as the kidneys. The problem is how to emulate a flood pulse in a river system impacted by dams? You see, the role of a dam is to attenuate the peak of the pulse in order to store it for the duration of the trough. Dams attenuate flood pulses. More importantly, there is limited data available today that shows what original streamflow looked like before any dams were built. Such data was not considered important in those heady days of dam building. So, in truth, we are unable to really know exactly how a flood pulse looked in any given river under pristine conditions. This means that we do the next best thing and extrapolate currently available data, augmenting it where possible, by historic data, to create a simulated model of streamflow for a given reach of a river. Itisagainstthisbackgroundthatweneedtoevaluate the NWA, because its intention was to rehabilitate rivers. This aspect is enshrined in the classification of rivers intomanagement classes, enshrined in Sections 12-15 of the Act. This classification is based on the present ecological state (PES), with no river allowed to be in a severely degraded condition. Such rivers

The Vaal River has become an open sewer in contravention of the spirit and letter of the law. This river sustains 45% of the total population and 65% of the national economy, so its ecological health is of utmost importance

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3. It is my professional opinion that WESSA is ideally placed to lead this conversation. It is therefore my intention to use this piece to call upon the WESSA membership to consider their position on this matter. They are members of a highly respected NGO, with membership across a range of professional fields, so they have an internal diversity of skills that can easily dive deeply into these complex matters and produce an opinion on this vexing issue. 4. At the heart of this endeavor we must never lose sight of two clear facts. The first is that we have a fundamentally water-constrained economy, and population growth will dictate the need to create jobs if social cohesion is to be maintained. This has profound implications for the environment, as we see playing out in the poaching arena. Poor people will degrade the environment just to survive. Secondly, we are seeing legislation that exists on paper, but is not being applied. The absence of enforcement means that the rule of law no longer exists, so we must make a hard choice, either enforce the law without fear or favour, or change the law if it is unrealistic or unworkable. References Davies, B.R., O’Keefe, J.H. & Snaddon, C.D. 1993 . A Synthesis of the Ecological Functioning, Conservation and Management of South African River Ecosystems. Water Research Commission Report No. TT 62/93. Pretoria: Water Research Commission. Dollar, E.S.J., Nicolson, C.R., Brown, C.A., Turpie, J.K., Joubert, A.R., Turton, A.R., Grobler, D.F., Pienaar, H.H., Ewart-Smith, J. & Manyaka, S.M. 2010. Development of the South African Water Resource Classification System (WRCS): A Tool Towards the Sustainable, Equitable and Efficient Use of Water Resources in a Developing Country . Water Policy. No. 12; Pp 479-499. NWRS . 2004. National Water Resource Strategy. Pretoria: D epartment of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF). http://www.dwaf.gov.za/ Documents/Policies/NWRS/Default.htm Puckridge, J.T., Sheldon, F., Boulton, A.J. & Walker, K.F. 1993. The Flood Pulse Concept applied to Rivers with Variable Flow Regimes. In Davies, et al ., 1993. A Synthesis of the Ecological Functioning, Conservation and Management of South African River Ecosystems. Water Research Commission Report No. TT 62/93. Pretoria: Water Research Commission.

must be rehabilitated to a defined level of ecological functionality. This factor must be considered in the Catchment Management Strategies (CMS) mandated by the Act. Each CMS must reconcile current and future water needs with actual water available, but always protecting ‘The Reserve’. This balances supply and demand, while enabling economic development and social stability, so it’s both a technical and a political process simultaneously. In 2004 the first National Water Resource Strategy (NWRS) was published, consistent with the NWA. This was the first time that a high confidence document was generated, using best available data, that took the Reserve into consideration. The findings of NWRS was that we had allocated 98% of all water available at that time, with some water management areas being over-allocated by as much as 120%. In effect, South Africa ran out of water in 2004, and from that moment on we became a fundamentally water constrained economy. Therefore we need an honest conversation about these inconvenient truths and what they imply, not only for those interested in wildlife and the environment, but also in the interest of social stability and economic health of the country. Here’s the essence of those inconvenient truths: 1. We now have a stark choice to make as a nation. Do we honour the NWA and support its core values about ecological integrity and restoration of aquatic ecosystems, or do we set those aside and watch idly as each river becomes an open sewer? 2. We are going to have to start talking about environmental rehabilitation and what that entails in terms of social stability and economic prosperity. We are going to have to ask ourselves if poverty is a greater threat to ecosystem health than the alternative, which is to embrace technology to generate ‘New Water’ thereby allowing ourselves to relieve the growing pressure on aquatic ecosystems? Floating scum on the Vaal River in the vicinity of the Riveria traps bubbles of gas arising from putrefying biomass. This is an indication of sewage flows into the river

Prof Anthony Turton Centre for Environmental Management University of the Free State

11 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 75 (2020)

CONSERVATION

IS THE NATIONAL PROTECTED AREAS EXPANSION STRATEGY FALLING ON ‘DEFF’ EARS?

Rael Loon

The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) was recently renamed the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF) in June 2019, incorporating the forestry and fisheries functions from the previous department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF). Besides administrative implications, such a reshuffling is thought to align the Protected Areas Act and Biodiversity Act more closely with the Forestry Act and adds the responsibility of coastal resource management to DEFF.

Africa’s biodiversity is indeed our natural heritage and provides an important basis for economic growth

and development and is also vital for ensuring the ongoing provision of ecosystem services such as the production of clean water, prevention of erosion, carbon storage and clean air and is vital and well worth looking after. Recently the South African National Biodiversity Institute which reports to Government brought out the latest National Biodiversity Assessment (NBA) which paints a vibrant picture of the value of such biodiversity. The NBA is a requirement of the Biodiversity Act which has as its purpose the co-ordination and aligning of the efforts of the many organisations and individuals involved in conserving and managing South Africa’s biodiversity in support of sustainable development. The NBA is the primary tool for monitoring and reporting on the state of biodiversity in South Africa and informs policies, strategies, objectives and activities for managing and conserving biodiversity more efficiently. One such strategy is the National Protected Areas Expansion Strategy, an ambitious programme which identifies geographic priority areas for expansion of the Protected Areas network with a focus on under- protected ecosystems. The NPAES began in 2008 and represents a 20-year strategy expand the protected areas network in South Africa. We are currently in the second implementation phase of this programme. The goal of the NPAES is specifically to achieve cost effective protected area expansion “for improved ecosystem representation, ecological sustainability and resilience to climate change”. It draws on

T he agriculture function of DAFF is now incorporated into the new Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD). DEFF is mandated to give effect to the right of citizens to an environment that is not harmful to their health and well-being and have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations and its primary function is still to “provide leadership in environmental management and conservation for the sustainable benefit of South Africans and the global community”. DEFF is in effect South Africa’s primary environmental custodian of the country’s fauna and flora and natural heritage and is responsible for protecting the environment and conserving natural resources while balancing this with sustainable development and the equitable distribution of natural resource benefits. It does this through the implementation of national environmental policies that address factors including biodiversity management and conservation, climate change, land degradation, sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Rated as the third most biodiverse country internationally (after Brazil and Indonesia), South

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CONSERVATION

provincial

protected

rivers and offshore benthic and pelagic ecosystems. However no improvement in protection level is expected for 87 ecosystem types. At present the protected area real estate in South Africa is sitting at over 12 million hectares which can be categorised from highest to lowest in terms of land-use categories (according to the National Environmental Management Protected Areas Act) as Nature Reserves (4,194,251 hectares); National Parks (3,977,540 hectares); World Heritage Sites (2,027,070 hectares); Protected Environments (772,647 hectares); Mountain Catchment Areas (624,568 hectares); Forest Wilderness Areas (274,489 hectares); Forest Nature Reserves (173,303 hectares) and Special Nature Reserves (33,603 hectares).

area expansion strategies and provides a frame of reference for

consolidatingexistingprotectedareasandestablishing new ones including both state owned or contract Protected Areas increasingly through biodiversity stewardship programmes as the preferred approach to the expansion of the Protected Area estate. The NPAES uses the established biodiversity targets from the NBA as the long-term protected area targets. Such targets for protected area expansion have been determined by proportionally allocating the total area committed to under the Convention on Biological Diversity. This should incorporate 17% for terrestrial ecosystems (we are currently sitting at 9,9%) and 10% for coastal/marine (we are currently at 5%, until recently only 0,4%!) and are set for the individual ecosystem types in the country. The general principal for site prioritisation and reserve selection are based on size, area, naturalness and species diversity, richness and endemism as well as representativeness (the number of species represented at sites) and complementarity (theminimal numberof sitesneeded to represent all species). The aim is to conserve as many ecosystems and species as possible and to try to fill in any gaps in the network. Biodiversity includes all vertebrate classes (mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs and fish), invertebrates and plants/ vegetation. The emphasis is on conserving the habitats to support such biodiversity. Besides ecosystem functionality, associated pragmatic criteria which are used in reserve selection decision-making include regional land-use, financial viability, contract agreements, economic potential and management effectiveness and other managerial factors. From a baseline ecological perspective there have been various ways of classifying the vegetation in South Africa, evolving and improving in resolution and quality (from Pole-Evans in 1936 to Acocks in 1953 to Low & Rebelo in 1996 and Mucina and Rutherford in 2006). According to the methodology used for the NPAES (2008-2028), on a fine scale, South Africa has been classified into as many as 969 distinct ecosystem types across 26 biozones. Of these 21% are ‘Well Protected’, 13% are ‘Moderately Protected’, 30% are ‘Poorly Protected’ and 37% are ‘Not Protected’. Ecosystems in the Nama Karoo, Grasslands and Succulent Karoo in particular are not well represented in the current protected area network, while lowland Fynbos and central Savanna ecosystems are also very under-represented. On paper at least, over the next 20 years the number of ‘Well Protected’ ecosystems is anticipated to more than double, while the aim is for ‘Not Protected’ ecosystems to be reduced by 70%. An improvement in coverage is particularly anticipated in the grasslands, Succulent Karoo, Savannah, wetlands,

SANParks represents an important network of protected areas in South Africa, however represents only 33% of protected area real-estate in South Africa. While most of these areas are pivotal for conservation many of the reserves were originally declared in an ad hoc manner without a scientific assessment of biodiversity representation in the country. Working in collaboration with the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, as the primary implementing bodies of the NPAES are SANParks and the provincial authorities and agencies such as Mpumalanga Parks and Tourism, Limpopo Tourism and Parks, Eastern Cape Parks Board, Ezemvelo- KZN Wildlife, North West Parks and Tourism, Northern Cape Department Environment and Nature Conservation and CapeNature. Purely from an idealistic ecological perspective the main priority areas in Mpumalanga are in the Mesic Highveld Grasslands (such as Kaapsehoop and Wakkerstroom) and focus on key corridors and threatened ecosystems with remaining wilderness characteristics (such as Schoemanskloof and the Blyde Canyon). The Blyde River Canyon forms part of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Region and is an important site for the conservation of Mesic Highveld Grasslands in Mpumalanga. In Limpopo Province, priority sites includes Nylsvlei, Blouberg,

Waterberg, Soutpansberg and the Wolkberg . In the Eastern Cape, the main

priorities are the Pondoland Centre of Endemism , the high value montane grasslands and forest mosaics of

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