Press release
There is a global drive to protect 30% of the world’s natural landscapes and oceans in the next 5 years to help stem the planet’s rapid biodiversity and ecosystems loss.
South Africa is responding to this drive by substantially increasing our protected area landscapes through the Biodiversity Stewardship Programme with willing communal and private landowners in all nine provinces. In contrast with land acquisition, it is a cost-effective way of conserving vulnerable landscapes, biodiversity and ecosystems.
‘Many of the areas earmarked for protection are in rural communities situated within priority biodiversity areas. Currently, a WWF Nedbank Green Trust project is focusing on bringing more community areas into protected area management,’ says Thembanani Nsibande, WWF’s Landscape Manager for the Eastern Cape and southern Drakensberg.
He explains that bringing community areas into protected area management is even more complex than with private landowners. ‘With communities, we need to gain the trust of large numbers of people, including the traditional and government authorities. Once we’ve achieved this, we form a community trust and board for each area,’ he explains.
Kirsten Oliver from WILDTRUST, a non-profit organisation collaborating with the WWF Nedbank Green Trust, adds: ‘There is also an obligation to give back to communities when they commit to protected areas on their land – they are understandably looking for some form of compensation or benefit.’
Except for employment opportunities, other benefits for the communities range from improved grazing and livestock health (most of the communal landowners are livestock farmers) to an increased water supply. ‘Well-managed livestock is essential for maintaining the health and vigour of the grasslands and wetlands in protected areas,’ Thembanani Nsibande explains. ‘The grasslands and wetlands in turn, are essential for a healthy water supply. They slow down the flow of water from the mountain catchment, mitigate against erosion, and act as a sponge, releasing water throughout the year.’
There are different categories of protected areas, including national parks, nature reserves and protected environments. Tax-paying owners of nature reserves and national parks may be eligible for income tax incentives and other rebates. Protected areas may also be exempted from paying property rates in specific cases, and they are afforded legal protection through state legislation against practices that would be harmful to the environment.
‘The Upper Tugela River is one of the areas where we are engaging with two communities to achieve protected environment status. It is a region with high mountainous montane grasslands in the Northern Drakensberg situated between Cathedral Peak and the Royal Natal National Park,’ Oliver explains.
‘The communities in this region are the AmaZizi and the AmaNgwane. If they agree to the proposed 40 000 ha protected environment, this whole landscape will become one continuous protected area.’ It is extremely important because the region is a strategic water source area (SWSA) for the country. SA’s 22 SWSAs cover less than 10% of our country’s land surface but provide more than 50% of the water needs of the entire country.
In a declared protected environment, livestock owners can continue to graze their livestock as part of a well-managed, regenerative grazing programme, which is important for grassland health. Management plans and grazing programmes are developed for protected areas by specialists who also help to monitor improvements in the landscape over time through veld condition assessments. The return of grass species like Themeda triandra or ‘rooigras’, which is very palatable to livestock, is a good indicator of sound landscape management.
The grazing programme with the AmaZizi and the AmaNgwane is implemented in partnership with a company called Meat Naturally Africa in rolling out a Peace Parks rangeland management programme, called Herding for Health, It includes on-site mobile auctions, which is of great benefit to rural farmers who would otherwise have to walk their livestock to auctions a great distance away.
‘Another flagship community-protected environment that is already well underway and inspiring to see, is in the Matatiele region of the Eastern Cape Drakensberg. This is a community where WWF-SA collaborates with a range of government and NGO partners under the uMzimvubu Catchment Partnership,’ says Nsibande.
The water catchment includes 2 of SA’s SWSAs: the Eastern Cape and Southern Drakensberg. Here, NGOs that have been in the region for many years – like Environmental and Rural Solutions (ERS), Conservation South Africa and Lima Rural Development Foundation – are engaging with five chieftainships in landscape and water restoration projects. They get support from the WWF Nedbank Green Trust, the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, as well as the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency, led by the Manager for Biodiversity Stewardship in the Eastern Cape, Malaika Koali-Lebona.
‘This is the seat of a flagship biodiversity stewardship programme for the Eastern Cap, with the establishment of the Maloti Thaba Tsa Metsi Protected Environment, a protected area of more than 60 000 ha now includes 6 chieftainships spanning over 55 rural villages along the uMzimvubu watershed,’ Koali-Lebona explains.
The national Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has given the go-ahead for all participating communities who have signed landholder’s rights resolutions consenting for their land to be declared a protected environment. This is set to be finalised this year.
Koali-Lebona explains that ‘with help from various funders (such as the WWF Nedbank Green Trust), the government supports the costly declaration process and the development of a protected areas management plan for communities and private landowners participating in the Biodiversity Stewardship Programme.’
Above: Sissie Matela and Nicky McLeod
‘We have been engaging with the Matatiele communities for many years to reach this point of declaring protected environments,’ says soil scientist Sissie Matela who, together with environmental scientist Nicky McLeod, established ERS in Matatiele 23 years ago. ‘All our conservation work starts with people’s livelihoods, as it is so much easier to engage people in environmental conservation if we improve their livelihoods,’ she explains. ‘When the grasslands flourish and the livestock grow fat and healthy, the living conditions for farmers and their families also improve as they make more money at the livestock sales, and more people can become farmers.’
Through working with the communal farmers and chieftainships, they have formed rangeland associations and reintroduced some of the traditional methods of rotational grazing and rest, in combination with high-density fast rotational grazing, which improve the health of the rangelands and reduce landscape degradation and soil erosion.
Young people in the community are trained and employed as eco champions to oversee the communal grazing and additional projects, such as alien invasive clearing, soil erosion control and natural spring protection systems.
While Matatiele is best suited for protected environment status and livestock farming, some communities in KwaZulu-Natal are participating in declared nature reserves. One is the Gumbi community in the northern bushveld of KwaZulu-Natal. They have been collaborating with WILDTRUST for many years to create – and own – the 12 000-hectare Somkhanda Game Reserve. The WWF Nedbank Green Trust helped to fund its declaration as a nature reserve.
Management of the reserve is outsourced to a tourism operator that employs community members. A percentage of the income goes to the Emvokweni Community Trust where it is earmarked for community projects, including schools, clinics and boreholes.
‘We have also been working for some time to declare Bhekula Nature Reserve, another community-owned nature reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal opposite Tembe Elephant Park,’ says Oliver. ‘Like Somkhanda, this is taking time as the land is held in trust by the Zulu king through the Ingonyama Trust and we need to engage with the trustees, as well as the local community.
‘They are complex environments but it’s exciting work, and we are really pleased that we can make a contribution to community conservation areas around the country,’ Oliver adds. ‘We also use the opportunity to train interns (mainly ecology graduates) from the South African National Biodiversity Institute’s (SANBI) Groen Sebenza Project over two years, which grows the number of professionals working for conservation in South Africa.’
Relevant Agribook pages include “Biodiversity and ecosystem services” and “Tourism and agriculture“