Nedbank The Green Trust by Amorphous New Media

The Green Trust

20 Years of Conservation Excellence

Bringing People and Nature Together

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The

Green Trust

The

Green Trust

20 Years of Conservation Excellence Bringing People and Nature Together

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In October 1990 The Green Trust was launched. It was an incredible

collective effort from what was little more than a twinkle of an idea in

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February of that year. It was extremely gratifying to see how everyone embraced it, from our staff to our clients. The rest is history, other

than to say congratulations to Nedbank, The Green Trust and WWF. May the next twenty years accrue compound interest! Dr Ivan May Pioneer of The Green Trust and former Nedbank Marketing executive

Published by Struik Nature (an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd) Reg. No. 1966/003153/07 80 McKenzie Street, Cape Town, 8001 South Africa PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000 South Africa www.randomstruik.co.za Copyright © in text, 2010: The Green Trust Copyright © in photographs, 2010: see picture credits on page 120 Copyright © in published edition, 2010: Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd/ The Green Trust Publisher: Pippa Parker Designer: Janice Evans Editor: Helen de Villiers Project manager: Esma Marnewick Text: Heather Dugmore, Esma Marnewick, Cindy Mathys Reproduction by Hirt & Carter Cape (Pty) Ltd Printed and bound by CTP All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, permission of the copyright owner(s). ISBN 978 1 77007 917 5 This magazine was printed on Sappi Triple Green Print, which contains sugar cane fibre, is chlorine free and is sourced from certified sustainable forests.

cover photo:

Produced for the Flower Valley Conservation Trust

(www.flowervalley.org.za) by Pick n Pay

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mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written

In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught. Baba Dioum Senegalese conservationist

CONTENTS Introduction 6

Twenty years of The Green Trust: prophetic footsteps 7 Looking back: past Green Trust managers 10

Chapter one

Empowering communities 12

Chapter four

The deep blue sea 56 Healthy oceans – from inshore to offshore by Aaniyah Omardien 57 Sokhulu Mussel Co-management Project 60 Kosi Bay Co-management Project 62 Coffee Bay Co-management Project 64 Seawatch and the MARINES 66 Fast-tracking the OMPAs Project 67

Spearheading the Green Revolution by John Kani 13

Ragged Tooth Shark Project 68

Food & Trees for Africa 16

Aliwal Shoal Dive Guide 69

Abalimi Bezekhaya 17

A guide to the marine life of southern Africa 71

Community Nature Reserve for Hornlee 20

Chapter five

Eco-Brick Manufacturing Project 21 The Solar Cooker Box Project 21 Master Farmers organic triumph 23

Water Watch 72 Water: our natural source of life by Dr Guy Preston 73

Chapter two

Working for Water Programme 76

Environmental leadership 24

Nedbank’s ‘water neutral’ drive 77

Building the next generation of professionals by Dr Glenda Raven 25 Eco-Schools – the future is green 28 Eastern Cape Eco-Schools 30 Eco-Schools Gumbi Rhino Node 32

Enkangala Grassland Project 78 Cape Argus/Santam Ukuvuka Campaign 81 Kouga River Valley Rehabilitation Project 82 Flood simulation for the Pongola floodplain 83

Chapter six

Eco-Schools Turtle Node 33

Conserving outstanding places 84

Mayibuyi Wetland Project 34

People and conservation – a vital relationship

Southern Cape Herbarium Project 35

by Dr Andrew Venter 85 Eco-Partners Programme, St Lucia 90

Chapter three

Southern African Wildlife College 91

All creatures great and small 36

Land Restitution Support Programme 92

Planet first by Dr John Hanks 37

!Khomani Bushmen return to their land 95

Kalahari Lions Monitoring Project 40

Chapter seven

Cheetah Conservation Fund 42

Driving change in industry 96

Southern Right Whale Population Survey 43

Working with climate change

Wild Dog Re-introduction and Tracking projects 44 Invertebrate Conservation Project 46

by Mark Botha 97 Biodiversity & Wine Initiative 100

Threatened South African Frog Project 48

GreenChoice 102

Knysna Seahorse Research Project 48

Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative 104

Penguin SOS: rescue operation 49

Amatikulu Small-scale Sugarcane Growers 105

Fifteen years of TRAFFIC 50

Nedbank’s green journey 106

Karoo Blue Crane Project 52 Mabula Ground Hornbill Project 54

Chapter eight

Blue Swallow Project 55

Final word 114

Brenton Blue Butterfly Project 55

Temporary caretakers: the next 20 years by Reuel J Khoza 115 Picture credits 120

Twenty years of The Green Trust: prophetic footsteps by Thérèse Brinkcate

Twenty years ago, Nedbank recognised the need to put corporate clout and capital behind conservation in our country. It showed enormous foresight by embracing the environmental cause 20 years before it gained prominence as a world view. In 1990 Nedbank established The Green Trust, in partnership with one of the leading conservation organisations in South Africa, WWF, and has since raised over R100 million to fund more than 170 diverse conservation projects throughout South Africa.

n the 1990s, conservation was seen as very separate from community development. The Green Trust’s mission was to bring these two isolated concepts

together in order to promote the ideals of people living and working in harmony with one another and the environment. Twenty years later, The Green Trust has funded numerous community-based projects and has proven that a strong focus on people is imperative to achieve environmental sustainability and the protection of wild places. Looking back to 1990, it’s clear that The Green Trust has been prophetic in the footsteps it has taken towards this era of climate change. From the outset The Green Trust has championed projects that included people and communities in the conservation of large ecosystems and their associated

The author WWF’s Thérèse Brinkcate has managed The Green Trust since 2000. She has a Masters degree in Geography and Environmental Science from the University of the Witwatersrand. ‘We should never not do something because it appears difficult or challenging’ is the motto of this committed conservationist and longstanding champion of grassland conservation. She has an extraordinarily welldeveloped sense of planetary stewardship, and her contribution makes the world a better place.

services, such as water and food production. Ensuring that ecosystems remain as intact as possible is critical to our ability to cope with the very real effects of climate change. As this increasingly comes to the forefront, The Green Trust will continue to play its part in ensuring the long-term integrity of our natural systems and the species and people that inhabit them.

Energy use and climate change The Green Trust has also shown tremendous foresight in its promotion of alternative energy use and energy conservation From the outset The Green Trust has championed projects that include people and communities in conservation efforts.

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introduction 6

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– issues that are becoming increasingly prominent. In its early years The Green Trust funded a project to develop solar cookers for rural people (page 21). It also supported an innovative project in the 1990s that sought to raise awareness of electricity use through the introduction of a ‘user pays’ system.

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Recognising the increasing shortage of energy South Africa would face, together with the need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, The Green Trust and WWF have lobbied and

capacity building, environmental education and addressing people and animal conflict, such

advised government to invest in alternative energy and in environmentally sustainable water

as introducing Anatolian sheepdogs to livestock farmers in Namibia to lessen the impact of

and food production. In parallel with this, The Green Trust aims to develop and promote more

cheetah on their stock (page 42).

robust natural systems to help people and nature adapt to a changing climate.

Providing for people Since its inception, The Green Trust has supported organic food production projects in urban and rural communities across South Africa. This included support to small NGO Abalimi Bezekhaya

Another area where The Green Trust has made a significant impact is its contribution to national

manner that raised awareness of environmental issues.

policy-making. For example, through The Green Trust’s work, subsistence fisheries were included in Marine and Coastal legislation. The lessons from our Kosi Bay and Sokhulu projects helped

local communities and conservation authorities jointly manage natural resources and allow

inform the national subsistence fisheries policies of our country’s Marine Living Resources Act. For

sustainable harvesting of these resources. Two successful community-focused initiatives

the first time, marine law considered the needs of poorer, subsistence communities dependent on

are the Kosi Bay and Sokhulu Marine Resources Co-management projects (pages 60–63) in

the sea for survival.

northern KwaZulu-Natal. Led by women conservationists, in collaboration with rural women

The Green Trust has supported both the Ministries of Education and Water Affairs by

from the resident communities, they established mechanisms for monitoring the sustainable

sponsoring the salaries of highly respected, full-time advisers to ministers, notably Dr Razeena

marine harvesting of mussels, crabs, fish and other shellfish. These projects were not

Wagiet who assisted the Minister of Education in the inclusion of environmental education

without their challenges, but I am tremendously proud of the way in which we succeeded in

in the outcomes-based curriculum, and Dr Guy Preston who pioneered the Working for Water

empowering women, in particular.

Programme through the Ministry of Water Affairs (pages 73–75). many to mention individually, but it has been an immense privilege to be part of the trust.

recognition across the globe that the way we produce and harvest our food has long-term

During my 10 years as manager, I have been daily overwhelmed by the dedication of people

implications for the natural environment, sustainable agricultural production is a key focus

from all walks of life who give so much of themselves to ensure the success of this important

for the future.

cause. It is a constant reminder that funding, no matter how large or small, makes all the

The future

fertilisers. Food security is threatened by all these factors and this is an increasingly

It is alarmingly clear that we are taking far more from the environment’s natural resources than it

important arena of engagement.

is able to regenerate. What this ultimately means is that we have compromised our ability to access the basics of life: fresh water, clean air and healthy food. Given the current climate change focus and global struggle to manage and mitigate

In 1990 ‘community-based conservation’ was not the buzz phrase it is today. The Green Trust was

global warming, the world has to find innovative solutions to these problems. It is critical to

a pioneer in this field. Building the trust of communities requires considerable input, patience and

look at the bigger picture, which is what we have always tried to do with The Green Trust.

dedication on the part of the funders, together with the project leaders and implementers.

When, for example, we funded a project to study the endangered Knysna seahorse (page 48),

The Green Trust has always tried to be a funding source for innovative, pioneering and yet sustainable projects. We’ve taken some risks: it is not always easy to achieve successful, community-based conservation projects. Several have provided a steep learning curve, but we

the focus was not only the seahorse, but also the health of the entire Knysna estuary. In this way we use iconic species to highlight the bigger picture. As climate change increasingly comes into focus, we must be careful not to limit our

have persevered, learnt some tough lessons, walked some stony roads – and then applied the

attention to mitigation, i.e. cutting down on carbon emissions. Reducing greenhouse gas

insight we gained in later projects.

emissions is important, but we will not survive climate change if we do not also have healthy

Our investment in early ‘People and Parks’ projects helped to bridge the divide between

oceans, healthy rivers and healthy lands. The Green Trust must consistently play a role in

communities and conservation authorities in protected areas like the Kruger National Park and

reducing the impact of climate change by ensuring the integrity of our natural systems and the

St Lucia (pages 85–90). They provided essential building blocks for one of our current funded

species and people that inhabit them. I am confident that 20 years from now we will proudly be

projects that works with land restitution communities such as the Gumbis (page 93), who

able to look back at projects that have achieved this, just as we are proudly looking back now.

own Somkhanda Game Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Somkhanda is South Africa’s first

The poorest of the poor depend directly on nature for survival and are most impacted by environmental degradation.

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difference to communities and the conservation of our natural environment.

abstraction of water, and increased greenhouse gas emissions through the overuse of

Building community trust

The Green Trust reintroduced hippos to the Rondevlei Nature Reserve – an important environmental education centre in the heart of the Cape Flats.

below:

The exceptional projects The Green Trust has sponsored over the past 20 years are too

promoting better environmental practices for commercial farmers. With increasing

degradation as a result of natural habitats being transformed, pollution and over-

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conserve vast tracts of the Cape Floral Kingdom.

National policy making

Poor agricultural practice is one of the biggest contributions to environmental

working with wine farmers through the Biodiversity & Wine Initiative (page 100), helping

Coast. These projects sought to address the basic needs of financially impoverished people in a

More recently, The Green Trust has engaged in the arena of sustainable food production,

The Green Trust focuses on all aspects of conservation, from protecting whole landscapes to the smallest of insects.

The Green Trust’s focus on communities and people does not only mean working with impoverished communities, but also across all spectrums of society. For example, we are

(page 17) on the Cape Flats, and the Master Farmers Project (page 23) in Port St Johns on the Wild

The Green Trust also supported pioneering co-operative management projects, whereby

this page:

Our species projects have always included a strong community-development focus,

The fact that The Green Trust has been going strong for 20 years is a remarkable and

community-owned commercial game reserve developed round a successful land claim. The

noteworthy achievement. It is a credit to Nedbank and WWF, who have sustained one of

Green Trust recognised that people needed to be included in wildlife conservation if we are

the longest-running partnerships between a corporate and a non-profit organisation in

successfully to conserve southern Africa’s extraordinary biodiversity, and if we hope to ensure

the history of South Africa. We deeply appreciate the time, commitment and dedication of

the long-term protection of our threatened and endangered terrestrial and marine species such

everyone who has contributed to this partnership – most importantly, the clients who have

as the black rhino, cheetah, sea turtles, riverine rabbit, blue swallow, southern right whale, lion

loyally supported Nedbank Green Affinity products and without whose support none of this

and wild dog, among others.

would be possible.

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Looking back: past Green Trust managers

The first five years At the outset of The Green Trust we had to decide what we meant by ‘community-based conservation’ and what the focus of our core funding would be. Little work had been done in this area, despite a burgeoning awareness of the need to move out of purist conservation – merely the protection of species. Species conservation remains extremely important, but the priority has shifted to environmental and habitat conservation, embracing the whole network of conservation, including animals, plants, insects, land and people. The traditional fortress-style conservation approach – where large communities on the boundaries of game reserves had no stake in them, nor derived any benefit – was not sustainable. This was conceptually new, and we needed to establish projects to help communities find sustainable ways of benefiting from reserves, to stop them from poaching and to give them a sense of responsibility. We launched projects to train members of the community as game rangers, and to develop businesses that could benefit from the tourists visiting the reserves – such as carving animals out of nonindigenous wood like jacaranda wood. We also faced the challenge of greening the townships and educating all South Africans to understand that the environment is not something ‘out there’; it is where they live, it is the habitat that sustains them. There was a huge learning curve. Our project leaders and co-ordinators often worked in largely inaccessible, rural areas, grappling with issues on their own; The Green Trust started facilitating visits between projects, so that managers could share ideas and feel part of a greater network of conservation. I am confident The Green Trust will play an increasingly visible role in this, and I am very proud that we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of a trust that is more vibrant than ever.

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Cynthia Smith

Greg Garden

Greg Laws managed The Green Trust from 1996–1999. A social ecologist with a Masters degree in Environment and Development from the then University of Natal, he specialised in the interface of ecotourism enterprises with rural communities in global biodiversity hotspots. He also holds an undergraduate diploma in Nature Conservation.

WWF’s Cynthia Smith is the longest standing staff member of The Green Trust. For the last 16 years, since 1994 (the year of South Africa’s first democratic elections), she has served The Green Trust with enthusiasm and commitment. She is now personal assistant to Mark Botha, head of WWF’s Living Lands Unit.

Head of Nedbank Group Marketing and a member of The Green Trust’s Management Committee for the past eight years.

A global model of excellence

The years have flown

A key strength of The Green Trust is its effective partnership with WWF over the past 20 years. Politics too easily bedevils such relationships, but not with WWF and The Green Trust, which has evolved as a mutually beneficial union. The conservation authority, WWF, was free to get on with conservation interventions while the business partner, Nedbank, contributed excellent business guidance. An astutely conceived decision-making structure saw a small, highly functional Board of Directors from WWF and Nedbank making day-to-day decisions. A Board of Trustees, comprising leaders from conservation, society and business, was created to provide annual strategic direction. One of the highlights during my time as manager was the Kalahari lion-tracking project (pages 40–41) in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, which relied for its success on collaboration between an ecologist, a San hunter and communities on the boundaries of the park. Publicity is crucial to the success of such programmes, and The Green Trust has achieved this, in style, through its highly visible media profile and The Green Trust Environmental Awards, which ran for several years. These prestigious awards (a partnership with the Mail & Guardian newspaper) celebrated the work of conservationists from every background: from established conservation to emerging new talent. In particular, I remember the sterling work of a university student, on no budget, exposing the environmental and social horrors of asbestos mining in the Limpopo province. It comes as little surprise that The Green Trust is celebrating 20 years. This mutually beneficial partnership stands as a glowing example of how effectively conservation, business and community can work together for the environmental cause. Where other such complex partnerships have struggled with conflict of interest, The Green Trust stands out as nothing short of a global model of excellence.

Sixteen years have flown and I stand here today knowing that the more you know about conservation, the more you want to learn. It has been so rewarding to witness the results of the projects over the years, and to see how The Green Trust has evolved. I have had the good fortune to visit many of the projects, and the passion and commitment of the people involved in them never ceases to amaze me. When I see where The Green Trust was in 1994 and where it is today, there is no doubt in my mind that it has pioneered community-based conservation in South Africa. Started with nothing but a vision and a hoped-for outcome, it has come such a long way. Communitybased conservation is complex and difficult, and I take my hat off to all the team members who have worked so tirelessly, often in the most remote and basic of circumstances. Working with people from every part of our society – from the poorest of the poor to the man in the street to opinion leaders and government ministers – The Green Trust and WWF have shown how important environmental conservation is for us all today. Conservation has become a passion in my life and I try to take home and share whatever I learn, in order to widen the circle. It’s a big step to get your family and friends involved, and to spread the word in this way. Even getting them to recycle and separate their waste was difficult at the beginning; today it’s second nature. As for the next 20 years of The Green Trust … so many of the seeds we have sown are being harvested, and so many of the teething problems have been overcome. The Green Trust will build on this and grow from strength to strength, extending the success of its projects throughout South Africa and into Africa.

The Green Trust has been a key driver in Nedbank’s sustainability journey. In partnership with WWF it

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Kim van Wijk was The Green Trust’s first manager, from 1990–1995. She has a Masters degree in Marine Biology from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Brunel University in the United Kingdom.

Greg Laws

has achieved far beyond our expectations, and we are confident it will achieve even more over the next

decade because green is the future. We all need to buy into this way of life, because there is no Planet B.

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selby baqwa Head of Governance and Compliance at the Nedbank Group

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Walking the green walk Nedbank’s Green Affinity Programme, which funds The Green Trust, has proved to be the most sustainable of any client ‘loyalty’ or ‘benefit’ programme in South Africa. Green is no longer a first-world or affluent-consumer issue. It affects everyone and will become the central issue of our time; interest in the environment will grow exponentially in the next couple of years. The health of our environment affects us all. Business, government and every person on this planet will have to learn to use our natural resources and ecosystems in a significantly more sustainable manner; to conserve our environment in order to ensure that our planet survives. Twenty years ago The Green Trust partnered with WWF. The relationship could not have been more stimulating or inspiring – or more relevant: the two organisations have engaged in healthy debate and faced many challenges, which have all contributed to the partnership’s strength. Both organisations are clear about their vision, mission and role, and have contributed their expertise and employed people who are passionate about the environment. They have engaged with communities across our country to nurture a culture of environmental sustainability among all South Africans. It has been a privilege to experience the authenticity, credibility and commitment of The Green Trust’s project leaders, who not only walk the green walk, but also show a farreaching dedication to their allocated tasks. Looking to the future, The Green Trust will continue its journey towards environmental sustainability: the key to our planet’s survival. Nedbank has embraced green as its central brand aspiration and brand culture. Green is rapidly becoming table stakes for all companies and brands, and environmental credentials will soon become a key aspect of consumer decision-making. Because of this, the past 20 years of The Green Trust have effectively been a dress rehearsal for the next 20. Watch this space: The Green Trust and Nedbank are set to take off like never before. What more could anyone want than to put two words that make all the difference to our lives together: Green and Trust.

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Kim van Wijk (now Jenkins)

At Nedbank we understand that by greening your money we help to conserve the

natural environment and reduce your carbon footprint. Money drives business, and the manner in which business is conducted determines the future of our world. Maseda Ratshikuni Head of Cause Marketing & Affinities

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Spearheading the green revolution by John Kani

The Green Trust opened a broader sense of responsibility for me, where I developed a driving need to have a relationship with the natural environment. Over the years I have served this trust with great pride and passion, and felt enormous satisfaction when I visited

The Author

projects to see where the money was being invested.

John Kani, head of the Market Theatre for many years, is one of South Africa’s most celebrated actors. From the day he joined The Green Trust as a trustee in 1990, his life was transformed.

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The Green Trust

is unique in many ways.

Through the partnership with Nedbank, it affords ordinary people the opportunity to give to conservation by doing something as simple as swiping their credit card. To my knowledge, no other partnership exists between a non-

governmental organisation

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and a business where so

much funding continually

comes to conservation. It is phenomenal.

Valli Moosa WWF board member

Chapter one

Empowering communities 12

empowering communities

The Green Trust recognised that people needed to be included in conservation if we are to succeed in conserving southern Africa’s extraordinary biodiversity.

opposite:

wenty years ago Dr Ivan May, who was then with Nedbank Marketing as well as on the Board of the Market Theatre, asked me whether I would become a trustee of The Green Trust. At that time I had no business with the conservation of any species other than myself, my fellow South Africans and our freedom. Culturally I was very active, but nature conservation played no part in my life – or so I thought. After Ivan painstakingly explained its importance to me, I said I would think about it. This got me thinking back to my childhood, when, as a small boy I would visit my grandfather, Jacob Kani, on his farm in the Eastern Cape at Christmas. My grandfather was a grand old man who farmed with Afrikaner cattle. He was born in 1871 and died at the age of 101. On the day I arrived he would send my cousins and me into the veld with two sticks and a dog to hunt dassies. These were our hunting tools and we were only allowed to kill one adult dassie – it was my uncle’s rule. We would then skin the dassie and cook it – it’s fantastic meat. The following day I would say ‘Let’s go hunting dassies again,’ but my grandfather would say ‘No, one is enough’. When I asked him why, when there were so many dassies, he would reply ‘How would you feel if someone came and killed as many of your brothers and sisters as they pleased?’ That was my first lesson in nature conservation. The next day we were sent to collect wood. I wanted to cut the branches of the trees with my axe, but my cousins said ‘No, grandfather said we are only allowed to pick up the old, dead branches’. When we returned with our branches, my grandfather would check our bundles to make sure that we had not harmed a living tree. That was my second lesson in nature conservation. These lessons came back to me so clearly, and I picked up the phone and told Ivan that I would be honoured to join The Green Trust. At our first meeting we discussed The Green Trust’s mission, which projects should be supported and what we hoped to achieve. We spoke about

empowering communities

The trend has continued, and in 2010 another movie with a strong environmental message was released called The White Lion. I play an elderly gentleman who tells the story about how the Shangaan people saved the white lion. It is an important movie because it combines pride in the environment with pride in traditional conservation values, which is what The Green Trust has always promoted. Bringing together people, natural places and wildlife is the backbone of The Green Trust. Looking to the future, we need to encourage the government to step up all aspects of environmental conservation as a matter of urgency. We need to see environmental education included in all aspects of the school curriculum, from the most junior grades to the most senior. We need to impress upon the youth the urgency of protecting the environment. As for the redistribution of the land, it must be done hand in hand with environmental and agricultural education to develop eco-conscious farmers. As South Africans we are fortunate to have so many magnificent landscapes, animals, birds and plants in the wild. Wild animals need to be seen in their element, in the wild, whereas most people in countries like the United Kingdom can only ever see them on television or in zoos. To experience a lion, a giraffe, an elephant or a huge mama whale in the wild is to know how small we are as human beings, and to know that if we do not conserve our wild places, we will bankrupt ourselves. For this reason I will serve The Green Trust until I am a very old man. I feel incredibly honoured to have walked the path paved by a group of people who took it upon themselves to do something about looking after our planet. We owe so much to Nedbank for supporting The Green Trust and for encouraging its clients to contribute to so many projects of which they can be proud. The Manyanani Peace Park, the first community park in the informal settlements of Cape Town, was established in 1995 with the support of The Green Trust.

Organic food gardening realises basic needs and raises environmental awareness.

Abalimi Bezekhaya enables many local men and women from the Cape Flats to feed their families, and to sell surplus organic vegetables to markets in Cape Town.

cleaning up the townships, collecting plastic, developing community food gardens, planting trees, and encouraging rural communities to participate in nature conservation. At that time the news was full of stories about the clubbing of seals in Namibia. Their genitals were being sent to the East for some aphrodisiac. It really bothered me because it was so obviously superstition, and I thought superstition was confined to Africa! I became concerned with the threat of the extinction of species and with the damage to our natural heritage, which is a gift from God. All this and more meant that I was now involved in a two-pronged struggle: one against apartheid and the other for conservation; one for developing a democratic society and the other for developing an environmentally conscious society. I have so many wonderful memories from my 20 years of association with the trust. I remember visiting a community vegetable gardening project near Ladysmith that The Green Trust was sponsoring. The project was going well, but they needed to fence it off. When I offered to buy the fence, the women involved in the project said ‘No, rather teach us to make plays and we will raise the money this way’. Another memory is of The Green Trust Awards evenings, which were every bit the Oscar awards of the environment, and which were shown on SABC TV. You would have all these people, young and old, being recognised for their dedication to the environment, and you knew they would return home and inspire others to do the same. What was so interesting is that, as my involvement with the environment deepened, so the roles being presented to me began to reflect this. After 1994 I acted in a movie called Soweto Green about green consciousness. My character was a botanist called Dr Tshabalala who had been in exile in America and who had returned to help transform the dust bowls of Soweto into a beautiful green environment like Houghton or Hyde Park. It was a wonderful movie and it made such an impact that many people still say ‘Hello Dr Tshabalala’ when they see me.

empowering communities

s project storie

3.5 Million trees project

Food & Trees for Africa

Funded by The Green Trust 1992–2003

Greening urban deserts project

Abalimi Bezekhaya

project storie s

Funded by ust The Green Tr 1992–2002

Food & Trees for Africa was one of The Green Trust’s first projects to be sponsored, and

The sprawling collection of houses and shacks on the Cape Flats lies within the unique

is today one of South Africa’s leading green NGOs.

Cape Floral Kingdom, a world heritage site that contains some of the richest plant diversity in the world. For 10 years The Green Trust supported Abalimi Bezekhaya,

‘‘

My parents were

farmers in Zimbabwe.

It was there that my love of the environment and interest in sustainable

Food & Trees for Africa was launched in 1990 out of the Johannesburg garage of its Chief Executive Officer, Jeunesse Park. She had returned to South Africa from Australia after Mandela was released, and she wanted to put down roots and contribute to the growth and development of the new South Africa. She saw tree planting and permaculture food gardens as something in which everyone could get involved, and which significantly contributes to environmental conservation. She was delighted when The Green Trust agreed to fund the salary for a staff member for Food & Trees for Africa because no other such organisations were funding salaries at the time. Twenty years later, Food & Trees for Africa has 26 full-time staff members and 12 consultants. It has planted over 3.5 million trees countrywide and has indirectly motivated the planting of millions more. It has also established 2 500 permaculture gardens in communities, schools, clinics and hospitals around the country, and motivated thousands of people to grow their own food at home. In 2009 Food & Trees for Africa’s website won best NGO website of the year award. See www.trees.co.za.

a civil society organisation that helps communities to create and restore lush green pockets on the sandy plains of the Cape Flats.

Abalimi has played a critical role in empowering mostly women to feed their families, and to develop skills.

cultivation began. As a youngster I couldn’t wait to be up and in the lands before the sun rose and I guess I took to heart my father’s words when he said: ‘If a man grows food he will always have food,

‘‘

but if he has to buy

food, he will have to buy it for the rest of his life’.

Joe Matimba Founding Permaculture Officer for Food & Trees for Africa

To date, Food & Trees for Africa has planted more than 3.5 million trees countrywide.

empowering communities

Abalimi Bezekhaya was started in 1982 on the Cape Flats, its primary goal being to supply local people with low-cost resources, such as manure and seeds, and the necessary training to start their own gardens. Abalimi established the first and only non-profit nurseries in Nyanga and Khayelitsha, and today operates two ‘people’s garden centres’. The centres supply mostly indigenous plants approved by the Botanical Society of South Africa, plus basic agricultural inputs. Many locals are thus able to feed their families, and some sell surplus organic vegetables to markets in Cape Town. In 1992 The Green Trust stepped in and made it possible for Abalimi to develop an extensive greening and environmental education programme. ‘During the 10 years The Green Trust supported Abalimi, over 100 000 trees were planted in over 20 000 home gardens, 140 schools and scores of community gardens,’ says co-director Rob Small. ‘We also set about greening the farming projects by planting indigenous trees as wind breaks and hedges. These trees attract indigenous birds and it’s almost like creating a miniature Kirstenbosch in Khayelitsha.’

empowering communities

Community food gardens are a positive step towards overcoming food security.

empowering communities

Christina Xaba Field Operations Manager for Abalimi Bezekhaya since 1989, and still going strong. ‘The soil motivates me,’ says Christina Xaba, Field Operations Manager at Abalimi. ‘I think it’s because I come from a farm. I love to plant seedlings and watch them grow.’ The formidable Christina joined Abalimi in 1989 as garden centre Operator. She is responsible for hundreds of home and community gardens all over the Cape Flats. She was instrumental in establishing the first ever sustainable community park in Khayelitsha – the Manyanani Peace Park – in 1995. She also initiated lobbying for the first public swimming pool in Khayelitsha, and so the list continues. ‘Before The Green Trust became involved, Abalimi was a baby project,’ says Christina. ‘The Trust sponsored me to go on a course at the Ecolink College where I acquired many skills. ‘Abalimi really changes people’s lives. At first, people establish a vegetable garden to feed their families. The project has grown to such an extent that today, those people have full-time jobs as gardeners. Every Thursday they harvest vegetables for markets in Cape Town. They now have salaries to pay for food, for schools, electricity and water.’ Xaba won The Green Trust Award (1995); Woman of the Year Award (2001); Nestle: Community Nutrition Award (2002), and Khayelitsha Achiever Award for Community Development (2004) for her hard work and commitment to the people of the Cape Flats.

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Looking to the future, we need to encourage the government to step up all aspects of environmental conservation as a matter of urgency. We need to see environmental education included in all aspects of the school curriculum, from the most junior grades to the most senior. We need to impress upon the youth the urgency of protecting the environment. john kani Celebrated actor and trustee of The Green Trust

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Today, between 1 500 and 3 000 families per annum on the Cape Flats benefit directly from the innovative organic vegetable farming projects established predominantly by women on the Cape Flats. The Green Trust was also instrumental in launching the School Environmental and Educational Development (SEED) Project for schools. ‘Through the greening programme, many of the schools now had indigenous floral and food gardens, but did not always have the knowledge to use their gardens properly as outdoor classrooms. This very special and successful national project aims to teach schools to develop and utilise their grounds, and supply comprehensive teaching aids for all learning areas,’ says Small. ‘Today Abalimi is a leading urban micro-farming and greening model,’ says Small. ‘All the above is built upon the foundation laid by 10 years’ generous co-funding from The Green Trust.’

empowering communities

s project storie Funded by The Green Trust 1996–1999

Nature park for hope and renewal

Green building

project Community Nature Reserve for Hornlee

project

Funded by The Green Tr ust 1992

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Eco-Brick Manufacturing Project

In 1996, two years after South Africa’s first democratic elections, the Hornlee

The goal of this project was to uplift and empower poor urban and rural communities

community outside Knysna set about creating a 4-ha nature park that would help

by helping them to build their own low-cost houses using the cost-effective Eco-

them embrace this region as their own. They had always resented being forcibly

Brick machine.

The Eco-Brick machine was a pioneer in carbon footprint reduction.

removed from their original homes in Knysna and relocated here in the early 1970s.

The Hornlee project is an example of how The Green Trust aims to empower communities to take ownership of their natural environment.

The Green Trust came together with leaders in the Hornlee community to establish a management committee for this project. The committee included the charismatic Principal of Sunridge Primary School, Michael Spies, who had created an Enviro Club at his school and who was a committee member of the Knysna Environmental Forum. Under his guidance, an indigenous plant nursery was established at Sunridge Primary as a school project to provide suitable plant material, mostly coastal fynbos, for reintroduction in the nature park. Plenty of groundwork had to be carried out as the park was invaded by alien vegetation, which had also choked the river running through it. A clean-up campaign was undertaken to clear the area of refuse that had been dumped there, and to focus community attention on the project. Indigenous trees and bushes were planted, and pathways, picnic spots and play areas established to encourage recreational use of the park.

The first step was to test the feasibility of the Eco-Brick machine as a tool for local black entrepreneurial development. The thinking behind this was that the machine should be locally owned so that money and skills would be reinvested in the community. From here, the project was mandated to set up pilot construction sites in townships and squatter camps, such as the Piesangs River squatter camp about 30 km from Durban, comprising about 3 000 shacks. Each site was tasked with making enough bricks to build 154 houses (36 m2, four-roomed) and to employ one supervisor and five unskilled labourers who would be trained in the skills required to use the brick-making machine and to build the houses. Apart from contributing to South Africa’s housing shortage, the Eco-Brick initiative was a pioneer in carbon footprint reduction. The project produced significantly less carbon emission than that generated from the conventional transport of bricks and the general construction process.

Solar cooked in the Karoo project The Solar Cooker Box Project

Funded by The Green Tr ust 1992–1993

Solar energy today is centre stage in the battle against climate change. In 1992 The Green Trust was already sponsoring projects that would help individuals and communities incorporate cost-effective, renewable energy in their lives. The objective of this project was to pilot test the solar cooker box under a variety of climatic and geographic conditions. Twenty-five solar cooker boxes were distributed to six different regions, where they were tested by local communities. They proved to be widely effective, and solar cookers have since been distributed far and wide, and have become an integral component of many Eco-Schools programmes. Should you find yourself travelling the infinite plains of the Karoo, visit the farm schools participating in the Eco-Schools programmes in areas like Loxton, Carnarvon and Beaufort West. Many EcoSchools farm schools have introduced solar cookers as an energy-saving measure. In this way, learners are provided with their midday meal, which includes vegetables grown in their organic food gardens.

Alternative technologies like solar cookers provide huge benefits to poorer communities, such as reducing dependence on electricity.

empowering communities

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The Green Trust played a leading role in tackling conservation issues with people, instead of excluding them, showing that only by working together can we effectively protect our natural heritage for generations to come.

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CHERYL CAROLUS Board member: WWF International, WWF South Africa

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Master Farmers’ organic triumph project

Master Farmers

In this era of climate change, the focus on wholesome, natural farming that keeps humans healthy, and at the same time conserves the environment, is being recognised

by Funded t en Trus The Gre 2007 2001–

as critical to the survival of our planet. From its outset, The Green Trust foresaw this and started supporting organic, wildlife-friendly farming projects. One of these was Master Farmers, an organic farming project established in the Port St Johns region.

Today, over 100 farmers from the Port St Johns area are successfully intercropping a variety of organically grown subtropical fruit and vegetables.

empowering communities

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The organic

Master Farmers have

set an example to other

farmers. They have proved how much high-quality, organically-grown food can be produced on a modest piece of land and that it is not necessary to

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Under the leadership of Richard Bolus and Senior Field Worker, Mbulelo Maqhanqa, Master Farmers set out to convert local farmers from farming only maize to practising multicropping. Multi-cropping of a variety of fruit and vegetables requires far less land than maize, and is the key to saving the remaining 20 000 ha of rare, indigenous coastal forests around Port St Johns. It also offers local farmers an opportunity to make a living and to feed their families healthy, natural food. Today there are over 100 farmers successfully inter-cropping a variety of organically grown subtropical fruit and vegetables in the Port St Johns region. This is making important inroads towards conserving the forests, which feature 120 species of trees and hundreds of plants, many endemic to Pondoland, including the Pondoland palm and several orchid species. The region is unique because it combines the eastern limits of the fynbos kingdom with the subtropics. A thriving nursery has also been established in Port St Johns where farmers can buy and sell plants, seedlings, windbreaks and trees. Confident that the project was firmly on its feet, The Green Trust completed its sponsorship of Master Farmers in July 2007. From January this year, Master Farmers started operating as a Section 21 company and is now called the Wild Coast Farm and Forest Organisation. It will be intensifying forest restoration, monitoring and education projects. The number of forest rangers is half what it should be, and the organisation is currently sourcing funding to employ more. As a tribute to WWF and The Green Trust, the company has introduced the Master Farmers awards for the most promising and successful organic farmers each year.

destroy the forests. With food prices going up all

the time, this is attracting more farmers.

Mbulelo MaqhanDa Senior Field Worker, Master Farmers

empowering communities

Chapter two

Environmental leadership

Building the next generation of professionals by Dr Glenda Raven

The South African Constitution enshrines the right of every citizen to a healthy environment. This right has formed the cornerstone of a range of environmental legislation in South Africa. This, in turn, has led to government policy opening new avenues for ensuring that

The author

the environment is a key component in education. The Green Trust

Dr Glenda Raven started her career as an economic and management sciences teacher at Fairmont Senior Secondary School in Cape Town. With an interest in the environment, she got involved with the school’s environmental club, which sparked her enthusiasm for environmental education. Glenda completed her doctorate at Rhodes University, focusing on professional development in environmental education. She joined WWF in 2009 and heads up the Environmental Leadership Development Programme, which is receiving catalytic funding from The Green Trust.

followed suit and has played a significant role in bringing conservation into the classroom.

ollowing the enshrinement of our environmental rights in Section 24 of our Constitution, the White Paper on Education and Training (legislated in 1995) calls for environmental education as ‘… a vital element of all levels and programmes of the education and training system … to create environmentally literate and active citizens [to] ensure that all South Africans … enjoy a decent quality of life through sustainable use of natural resources’. The last 20 years has indeed been an exciting and challenging time for environmental education in South Africa. The above policy development framework provided the foundations for changing the face of environmental education in South Africa. Such education was recognised as critical in responding to the broad scale of environmental issues, both global and local, and has made its way to centre stage in South Africa’s national curriculum.

From policy to practice

The WESSA/WWF Eco-Schools Programme is regarded as a flagship and one of the most effective environmental education programmes in South Africa to date.

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In the early 1990s environmental education activities were normally run by environmental organisations and predominantly viewed as out-of-school activities. The Green Trust funded some of these initiatives; for example, providing support for the Delta Environmental Education Centre to develop environmental education materials centred around the Mellville Hills Koppies, an important natural area in the centre of Johannesburg. However, behind the scenes, a network of educators was actively working towards integrating environmental education into the formal education policy. The outcome of these lobbying initiatives was the integration of environment and conservation into all learning areas across the General Education and Training Band (Grades 1 to 9), as well as Further Education and Training (Grades 10 to 12) in the National Curriculum Statement for Schools.

environmental leadership

Growth in the environmental education sector is similarly evident outside of the formal school education context, and is reflected in the number of state organisations (SANBI, SANParks, CapeNature, Eastern Cape Parks Board), municipalities (City of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, Johannesburg City Parks) and NGOs that now have dedicated environmental education programmes. Further growth is evident in the number of participants in environmental education professional development courses and the number of post-graduate students at Masters and PhD level in the environmental field.

The capacity-building challenge

To date, more than 1 000 schools country-wide have registered for the WESSA/ WWF Eco-Schools Programme.

The Green Trust again played a critical role in helping this transition by supporting the appointment of Dr Razeena Wagiet as advisor to Professor Kader Asmal, former Minister of Education. Dr Wagiet was the driver of the National Environmental Education Programme (NEEP) that supported the integration of environmental education into the curriculum.

Eco-Schools – a visionary programme Another environmental organisation that has championed pioneering environmental education in South Africa is The Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) – first through the School’s Environmental Policy Programme and then, more recently, the WESSA/WWF Eco-Schools Programme. The Green Trust has been a key funder of many of the regional Eco-Schools activities. These programmes assist teachers and learners to integrate environmental education into their curriculum. For example, schools are encouraged to develop environmental policies and undertake actions to address the issues highlighted, such as improved water usage, energy efficiency, and setting up recycling projects and food gardens. In this active learning framework, one school in the Northern Cape built a shade tunnel for their school vegetable garden, which eventually provided vegetables for the school’s feeding scheme. The programmes are making a significant contribution to the lives of learners. One example is of a learner who showed very little interest in school work and was identified as having special learning needs. His teacher drew him into environmental action at the school that was part of the Eco-Schools Programme and, through his involvement in the programme, he was able to overcome some of his key numeracy and literacy challenges. This reflects the significance of the programme in addressing not only environmental issues, but also key education priorities. In my view, Eco-Schools is a brilliant programme. It is recognised as significant in developing future environmental leaders, through providing learners with the space to explore environmental issues and risks, and actions on how to address these. WWF-SA is currently exploring ways of encouraging learners to continue to draw on this experience, for example, by developing a career-guidance programme that offers support for older students considering careers in the environmental and conservation sector.

environmental leadership

Institutions are made up of their policies, practices and programmes and, most importantly, the people who give effect to these. To build strong institutions we need to build people’s capacity. The same goes for the environmental sector. Currently various agencies are involved in capacity-development strategies to give effect to the environmental legislative framework in South Africa. This involves the Department of Environmental Affairs’ environmental sector skills plan and associated human capital development strategy. In parallel, the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) is also developing a Human Capital Development Strategy for the Biodiversity Sector. The Green Trust is further providing support to this through WWF-SA’s development of a Capacity Development Strategy for Sustainable Natural Resource Management in the agriculture, fisheries, forestry, mining and water sectors. This strategy forms part of WWF’s Environmental Leadership Development Programme, which is directly actioning WWF’s goal of increasing environmental skills and capacity among current and future leaders. We would also want to establish a bursary programme for undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as a professional internship programme that offers mentorship and support to young professionals entering the workplace. WWF-SA’s Environmental Leadership Development Programme has a vision: to enable learning pathways for learners through primary school into high school, on to higher learning and then further learning as they enter into and grow in careers in environment and conservation. As reflected above, environmental leadership development is an enormous task, but it can be done if strategically approached to address the many challenges. The Green Trust, through supporting capacity development at these multiple levels, can assist South Africa in realising the vision inscribed in our environmental legislation. If we start now, in the next 15 years we will have assisted, monitored and guided the next generation of conservation professionals.

The Green Trust has been instrumental in bringing conservation into the classroom.

environmental leadership

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Funded The Gree by nT Environmental leadership 2003–cur rust rent project Eco-Schools: the future is green Educating South Africa’s future generations about environmental conservation and how it improves the quality of everyone’s life is a primary Green Trust goal. In pursuit of this, The Green Trust is supporting the Eco-Schools Programme, an innovative environmental education initiative launched in South Africa in 2003.

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What is particularly

noteworthy about the

Eco-Schools Programme is the range of schools

that have earned their International EcoSchools flag, from under-resourced, rural schools such as Hawkstone Primary in the Karkloof valley to betterresourced, town-based

An internationally recognised programme operating in 40 countries and active in over 20 000 schools, the South African Eco-Schools Programme is co-ordinated by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) but operates in strong partnership with WWF. One thousand South African schools are currently registered for the Eco-Schools Programme, which is designed to encourage curriculum-based action towards a healthy environment. ‘Our aim is to get all South African schools, large and small, to join. We are fortunate to have the support of the National Education Department,’ says Hettie Gets, Manager of the Conservation Education Programme for WWF. ‘We have selected flagship plant and animal species appropriate to different regions countrywide – including the riverine rabbit in the Karoo, and the rhino and the sea turtle in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Through these species we teach learners about broader conservation issues and how a healthy environment improves the quality of their lives.’ Several schools in a region are managed by a node co-ordinator, who develops environment-related lessons and activities with learners and teachers. An Eco-Schools environmental education pack is presented to all registered schools.

schools such as Ashley

David Letsoalo: from gardener to Eagle Award winner Eco-Schools Haenertsburg/Magoebaskloof co-ordinator, 2007–2009 If you would like to see the narina trogon, the black-fronted bush-shrike or the Cape parrot, head straight for David Letsoalo. For this gardener-turned-bird guide is one of the finest in the land. His accolades include Birdlife South Africa’s Eagle Award for Best Local Bird Guide in South Africa. He was also chosen as one of four young professionals for Rotary International’s Group Study Exchange to Canada and the United States. Recognising his talent and entrepreneurial drive, The Green Trust appointed Letsoalo as co-ordinator for six Eco-Schools in the Haenertsburg region near Tzaneen. ‘After studying to be a motor mechanic I worked in metal construction in Johannesburg, but the city is not for me so I came home,’ he explains. He found employment as a gardener with local potter Karin Boyum. ‘Through Karin I became very interested in birds and she gave me a bird book as a present,’ continues Letsoalo, who ultimately qualified as a professional bird guide, and today he is the Assistant Manager at Kurisa Moya Nature Lodge. ‘As part of our Eco-Schools Programme we took learners on field trips and birding outings. We taught the learners about the birds and the grasslands – how they act as a sponge for storing water to make sure there is water all year round because without water we cannot survive. We used all these points to help teachers draw up learning plans for their school curriculum. We also established an environmental education centre in Haenertsburg called “The Termite House”.’ His goal is to inspire as many learners as possible to embrace the natural environment and to pursue careers in this field. ‘I always tell them that no matter how hard the way forward might feel, they must keep going because good will come of it and they will find the light at the end of the tunnel.’

Primary in Pinetown. This demonstrates one of the virtues of the programme – its flexibility to encourage

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environmental action and responsibility at all levels, in all cultures and in all places.

Bridget Ringdahl National co-ordinator for the WESSA/WWF Eco-Schools Programme

To earn the coveted green Eco-Schools flag, learners design environmental improvement projects for their school and record their progress in a portfolio. Portfolios are assessed at the end of each year. Schools have initiated many valuable projects, including planting water-wise food gardens, introducing energy-saving measures such as solar cookers, removing alien vegetation, cleaning up pollution, establishing water-purifying plants and designing posters around social issues like HIV/AIDS. Flag-raising ceremonies are vibrant occasions where learners celebrate this recognition of their significant environmental efforts and achievements.

EcoSchools aim to teach learners that a healthy environment improves the quality of their lives.

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environmental leadership

s project storie Funded The Gree by nT 1996–cur rust rent

More than 100 schools in the Eastern Cape are registered with the Eco-Schools Programme.

Making a difference in the Eastern Cape project Eastern Cape Eco-Schools The Eastern Cape has been something of a Cinderella province for many years. Despite being the home province of the great Nelson Mandela, it has not been well managed. Because of this, many of the schools in the Eastern Cape – once a proud centre of learning – are in dire need of support. Fortunately, the Eco-Schools Programme has a strong presence here, with over 100 participating schools. Port Elizabeth, Paterson, Addo, St Francis Bay, Grahamstown, Bedford, King William’s Town, Mdantsane, East London, Butterworth, Queenstown, Port St Johns … what all these cities and towns have in common is a strong commitment to the Eco-Schools Programme. ‘Some are already in their seventh year with the programme,’ explains Laura Conde, Eco-Schools Co-ordinator for the Eastern Cape. ‘It is wonderful to see how the schools have responded to the programme, and how enthusiastically the learners participate in projects ranging from water conservation to food gardens to recycling and waste management.’ Lupapasi Junior Secondary School is a rural school in Kohlo Village outside Port St Johns. The school has 475 learners and 16 teachers. Like many rural communities in the Pondoland area, the community is faced with a multitude of social problems ranging from poverty to HIV/AIDS, which is one of the biggest problems in this community. As a result, the school has an ever-increasing number of orphans and child-headed families. As part of its Eco-Schools Programme, the school has established a vegetable garden and banana orchard to help feed all learners at school and to provide extra food for the orphans to take home. ‘The Eco-Schools Programme plays such an important role in terms of empowering teachers, learners and the community to implement environmental management practices (such as saving water and electricity) and in terms of creating a healthy, vibrant learning and living environment in the Eastern Cape.’

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The Green Trust aims can only be achieved if linked to effective environmental education at all levels of society, ranging from school children to the drivers of commerce and industry, and decisiontakers at all governmental levels. Of perhaps even greater importance is the empowering of human communities themselves, to enable them to look after the resources upon which they are dependent for quality of life and survival.

environmental leadership

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Dr Allan Heydorn Former CEO of WWF South Africa

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Funded b y T h e Green T Rhinos in the classroom rust 2008–2010 project Eco-Schools Gumbi Rhino Node The Green Trust recognises the role this threatened, flagship animal plays in educating learners about the need to protect species and their environments, and is sponsoring

above: Simon Nxumalo teaches the pupils of Ezimbidleni Primary about wetlands during a field trip to the Mkhuze Game Reserve.

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Learning about leatherbacks and loggerheads project

Eco-Schools Turtle Node

by Funded rust T een The Gr –2010 2008

the Gumbi Rhino Node within the Eco-Schools Programme in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

To raise awareness of the need to conserve the leatherback and loggerhead in

The six Eco-Schools in the Gumbi Rhino Node are situated in the rural heart of black rhino country, between Hluhluwe and Pongola. Several of the communities in these areas have land claims pending in this prime wildlife region – or, as is the case with the Gumbi community, already approved. The future of the environment is in their hands, which makes the rhino a fitting flagship for conservation and its impact on these communities. This is especially relevant in an era of rhino-horn poaching, which has seen an alarming rise in the past few years, with increased threat to the rhino’s survival. By teaching learners about the rhino, they develop a broader understanding of conservation issues and how a conserved wildlife environment that is attractive to visitors, ensures their livelihood and their future. Nombolelo Mananna, a teacher at Ncotshane Primary, one of the Eco-Schools in the Gumbi Rhino Node says: ‘After creating the school’s vegetable garden and learning about plants, how they grow and how important they are, many of our learners have started their own vegetable gardens at home with their parents. They also teach their parents and their younger brothers and sisters about the black rhino, and why they should look after it.’ In 2009 the WWF/Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife Black Rhino Range Expansion Project sponsored trips to Mkhuze Game Reserve for the Gumbi Rhino Node schools, where the children experienced rhinos in the wild. ‘It was really enlightening for the learners and their teachers because, although they live in an area where there are several game reserves, only a handful of them have actually ever been in one,’ says Liezl van Lingen, Eco-Schools Co-ordinator for the Gumbi Rhino Node.

turtle conservation project, which it coupled with a regional Eco-Schools Programme.

northern KwaZulu-Natal and Maputaland, The Green Trust sponsored a key marine

To support turtle conservation in northern KwaZulu-Natal, The Green Trust funded the Turtle Monitoring and Community Development Project as well as the Eco-Schools Programme in the area.

Two of the largest sea turtle species, the leatherback and the loggerhead, breed within the tropical waters spanning two marine reserves – the Isimangaliso Wetland Park (from St Lucia to Kosi Bay in northern KwaZulu-Natal) and the Maputo Special Reserve (southern Mozambique). South Africa is fortunate to have one of the few stable sea turtle populations in the world. One of the main contributing factors is that the population breeds almost entirely within the Isimangaliso Wetland Park. Elsewhere, populations of marine turtles are rapidly declining, mainly due to the consumption of their meat and eggs in poverty-stricken coastal areas, but also because of their high mortality in industrial trawling and longline fishing activities. With a view to conserving these turtles, The Green Trust sponsored the Turtle Monitoring and Community Development Project, and the Eco-Schools Programme in this region. The aim of the conservation project is to manage marine turtle populations sustainably through community involvement in turtle monitoring, conservation and tourism initiatives, and to extend these conservation efforts into southern Mozambique. ‘Without the sea, we are nothing. That is why we must protect the sea and the turtles. They are amazing, quiet animals that are so important to the future of all the people living here,’ says Assistant Co-ordinator Simanga Mageba, who has helped manage the marine turtle conservation project. The Eco-Schools Programme has significantly contributed to raising awareness about the marine turtle, how it fits into the greater ecological chain, and how it is a key indicator of the health of the ocean on which the coastal communities depend for food. ‘The learners respond to sea turtles with a combination of intrigue and trepidation. At first they are scared to touch the giant preserved specimens (leatherbacks are the largest sea turtles in the world, growing up to 3 m in length), and ask if they are dangerous. They find it hard to believe the sea turtle lives in the ocean but needs to come to the surface to breathe,’ says Marine Environmental Education and Awareness Officer, Mary Pieters.

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A story of triumph project

With the support of The Green Trust, Security Officer Martin Ramothibe from Soweto became an Environmental Education Officer with BirdLife SA.

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Plant records in crisis project

Southern Cape Herbarium Project

This is a story of triumph: a story about a young man named Martin Ramothibe, who

Herbaria worldwide are in crisis. Many have been closed down and others do not have

rose from the shacks of Kliptown in Soweto to become an Environmental Education

the staff to function properly. No longer valued by the state as priceless repositories

Officer with BirdLife SA.

of indigenous plants and plant knowledge, many herbaria now rely on sponsors to

Ramothibe joined forces with The Green Trust several years ago when it sponsored the Mayibuye Wetland Project, of which he was a founder volunteer. The aim of this project was to rehabilitate 5 km of the Klip River, which runs through Soweto. One of Johannesburg’s key water sources, it is a symbol of the chronic environmental degradation in the region. ‘At the time, I was 23 years of age and working as a security officer, but I started seeing that kids were getting diseases from the water in the Klip River. The communities in Soweto did not know about environmental conservation; they did not know that if they throw rubbish into the river it directly affects their health. As a member of the Mayibuye team we started to teach them about this,’ continues Ramothibe who grew from strength to strength as an environmental volunteer between his working hours. Two years later, with the assistance of The Green Trust, he was able to resign from his job as a security officer. He joined the Mayibuye Klip River Project full time as an Environmental Education Officer, focusing on several Soweto schools. During this time he got his diploma in Environmental Education and completed a birding course through the Witwatersrand Bird Club. ‘I started teaching young people that birds are very important indicators of environmental degradation because they are highly sensitive to pollution. I also started teaching them how to identify different species.’ Ramothibe shone as an environmentalist in Soweto and was subsequently appointed as an Environmental Education Officer with BirdLife SA. ‘I am very proud. I have opened doors that I never believed I could get inside. I hope that other young people will see what can be achieved. If they are willing to put in the effort, there are wonderful career opportunities in environmental management.’

Learners clean up the Klip River in Soweto.

Mayibuye Wetland Project

Funded The Gree by n Tru 2007–2009 st

environmental leadership

Funded The Gree by n Tru 1996–2003 st

keep them alive.

Recognising the value of South Africa’s herbaria, The Green Trust had the foresight in 1996 to help sponsor the Southern Cape Herbarium in George. The reason why the southern Cape is important is because it is a remarkable fynbos, succulent and forest area, but it is not nearly as well researched as other species-rich areas, which mostly have universities close by. ‘It’s tremendously exciting because there is so much to be discovered here, with new plants regularly being described and named,’ explains Yvette van Wijk, Project Executant of the Southern Cape Herbarium Project. All plants are pressed, dried, mounted and filed according to international standards as part of the herbarium or library of indigenous southern Cape plants. ‘We don’t believe the herbarium should just be a research unit for scientists and blue-stocking types, which is why we’ve developed it as a people’s herbarium that everyone can enjoy,’ she adds. In keeping with this ethos, Van Wyk and her colleagues initiated several outreach programmes to encourage local communities to develop an interest in indigenous flora. BEEP (Botanical Environmental Education Project) and GREEN (Garden Route Environmental Education Programme) are two key school outreach programmes, developed in collaboration with The Green Trust and WESSA. ‘As part of these programmes we held special schools environmental expos in George’s Conville township, attended by about 3 000 learners, mostly from previously disadvantaged schools,’ explains Van Wijk. During the expo, the learners participated in discussions about environmental conservation and alien plant control, while exploring on-site exhibits of the regional biomes – coastal, forest, little Karoo and fynbos. ‘This way learners start to understand the importance of indigenous plants to the environment, and start to recognise that the environment is where they live, it is their home, not some place “out there”.’

The Southern Cape Herbarium serves as an outdoor classroom for students to learn about indigenous southern Cape plants.

environmental leadership

Chapter three

all creatures great and small

Planet first Dr John Hanks

Species conservation will always be with us. In fact, it is what led to the creation of WWF in the first place. From the outset, The Green Trust advocated greater community involvement in conservation, and today we know that to conserve species effectively – be it rhinos or riverine rabbits – we have to look much further than the boundaries of parks or reserves.

The plight of iconic species, such as the blue crane, represents that of broader biodiversity, which encompasses the systems and services on which humans depend.

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all creatures great and small

hroughout the world, WWF has a reputation for its outstanding work on single species conservation, from conserving flagship species in Africa, such as black rhinos and gorillas, to other, equally charismatic individuals elsewhere, such as tigers, polar bears and, of course, the panda. When I first started working as a biologist in Africa in 1965, the main emphasis was on protecting animals inside the national parks and game reserves, and very little attention was given to the people living outside these areas – unless there was poaching or human encroachment. Today, we know that species conservation has to form part of a much larger plan to conserve biodiversity. We now place much more emphasis on the neighbouring communities’ needs and the role of biodiversity in sustainable agricultural and economic development and maintaining our quality of life. This change has come about with the growing realisation in the last 40 years that all countries need to protect the biodiversity and ecosystems that support life: clean water and air, soil nutrients, forests, fisheries and other key ecosystems. The African continent, where the majority of its people are directly dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods, is no exception. Key resources include grazing for animals, wood for fuel, water, access to productive land, and healthy ecosystems, all of which are under pressure. The associated life-support systems and access to them are threatened by increasing population levels, poverty, inappropriate economic frameworks, HIV/AIDS and inadequate education and training facilities. The Green Trust has played a key role in identifying and supporting projects that have been catalytic in stopping the degradation of the natural environment. These still include innovative programmes that contribute significantly to protecting rare and endangered species of fauna and flora, but are today intimately entwined with issues of development, livelihoods, improved quality of education, and more sustainable living practices.

The author Dr John Hanks’s association with WWF spans approximately 50 years. During his gap year in 1961 – the founding year of the organisation – WWF-UK referred him to a conservation project in East Africa where he worked as a volunteer. He completed his doctorate at Magdalene College, Cambridge, sponsored by WWF. In 1985 he joined the staff of WWF International in Switzerland and, five years later, he was appointed Chief Executive of WWF South Africa. The Green Trust was founded during his tenure. He also served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Green Trust for the first six years. Today he is still a Trustee and wears his Green Trust shirt with pride.

all creatures great and small

The changing climate

To conserve endangered species in the long run, we have to conserve the habitats in which they live.

Biodiversity buzz

Climate change has greatly exacerbated the considerable pressure on biodiversity. To plan for species conservation, we now have to take a step back and look at which areas, worldwide, will be most severely impacted by the changing climate. The challenge is that we cannot accurately predict which parts of the world are going to become increasingly wet or dry: even our most advanced climate-change models are unable to give indisputable answers – not surprising, given the complex nature of climate patterns. In spite of the unprecedented focus of world leaders on a host of related environmental issues linked to climate change, there was no legally binding treaty at the end of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 to reduce carbon emissions. Respected British scientist Nicholas Stern summed up the conference when he said: ‘The Copenhagen meeting was a disappointment, primarily because it failed to set basic targets for reducing global annual emissions of greenhouse gases from now up to 2050, and did not secure commitments from countries to meet these targets collectively’. IUCN highlighted these concerns when it recently reported on the possible demise of Australia’s iconic koala; these creatures face malnutrition and ultimate starvation as rising CO2 levels cause a decline in the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves. Climate change is likewise impacting on the iconic leatherback turtle, as rising sea levels and increased storm activity destroy its nesting habitats. Species conservation will always remain a core component of WWF’s mission – another reason why we have to address climate change. To sum up, the focus of conservation has shifted from saving the rhino to saving the planet on which the rhino lives. Since its inception in 1990, The Green Trust, in addition to funding traditional projects, has taken the lead in funding important and pioneering community conservation work. In spite of the challenges, it is some consolation to know that we can count on The Green Trust to continue developing innovative solutions to our planet’s problems.

above: It is estimated that there are no more than 250 dugongs left along the East Coast of Africa.

Climate change is impacting on marine turtles as rising sea levels and increased storm activity destroy their nesting habitats.

below:

The term ‘biodiversity’ became a buzz word soon after it was first used in 1986 by the entomologist Professor Edward Wilson. The use of the word and everything associated with it heralded a dramatic shift in our approach to species conservation. We started thinking more in terms of the diversity of species, their genetic variability, and the state of health of the ecosystems in which they live.

Holistic thinking There has also been a growing realisation that rare and endangered species have no real future if they are reduced to survival in zoological gardens. The challenge today is to conserve the habitats where the endangered species live. With the rapid growth of towns and cities, industry and agriculture, massive land transformation is taking place throughout the world. The global loss of habitat is epitomised by the threat to the panda in China, with agriculture encroaching into the bamboo forests at an alarming rate, restricting the panda to increasingly isolated habitat patches. With growing human encroachment into key natural areas, many South Africans ignore the degradation of our ecosystems, showing a lack of awareness of their importance. This degradation is already having an economic impact, which will inevitably escalate as human populations continue to expand, along with increasing demands for goods and services. For example, biodiversity and the ecosystem services it supports are crucial for successful agriculture, which is largely dependent on a wide range of species for essential functions such as pollination, the creation of genetically diverse plant and crop varieties, development of robust insect- or disease-resistant strains, and watershed control.

The global village With the growth of globalisation, the world has also become much smaller and this has had a huge impact on species conservation. For example, the demand for shark fins in the Far East creates a huge conservation challenge on the East Coast of Africa. Sharks are caught with gill nets, their fins are cut off and they are then thrown back into the sea. These same gill nets are the single biggest threat to the survival of dugongs, which get caught in the nets and drown. It is estimated that there are no more than 250 of these charismatic animals left along the coast. So that, in harvesting shark fins, not only are shark populations impacted upon, but dugongs are also, unwittingly, being threatened.

all creatures great and small

s project storie Funded The Gree by n Tru 1998–2001 st

The case of the Kalahari lions project

Kalahari Lions Monitoring Project

The borders of a protected area draw a complex line between wildlife and people. The neighbouring communities have an effect on the conservation of wildlife, but so does the wildlife on the people, as was the case with the lions of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

Understanding lion populations and their behaviour is crucial to solving humanwildlife conflict.

In the late 1990s the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park’s lion population was feared to be down to only about 120 as a result of farmers shooting them when they crossed into their land, particularly on the unfenced Botswana side. The Green Trust sponsored African carnivore scientist, Dr Paul Funston, to study the Kalahari lions and their impact on the surrounding communities. Funston worked closely with Bushman trackers like Andrew Kruiper during the project. The Bushmen, having won their land claim in the Kgalagadi, are now helping to co-manage the park. Initiatives to revive Bushmen traditions, such as their phenomenal tracking skills, have also been reintroduced. Funston also worked closely with the farmers who live on the perimeters of the park. Several workshops were held between park officials, Funston and the farmers to establish mutually acceptable steps forward in the conservation and management of the lions. ‘Fortunately, our fears proved inaccurate. After surveying the population, we now know that about 450 lions, comprising 18 prides, occur in the Kgalagadi. The population is larger and more genetically diverse than we initially estimated,’ said Funston. ‘Considering the low prevalence of serious diseases, we believe it can maintain its genetically healthy status and sustain its numbers despite the current rate at which lions that venture outside the park are being shot. ‘However, this is no cause for complacency. The population density of the Kalahari lions is about 10 times lower than that of lions in other well-studied populations such as the Serengeti plains, Tanzania and the Kruger National Park.’ The latter are less arid than the Kgalagadi and can therefore support larger numbers of lions, but the ratio emphasises the need to conserve the Kalahari lions.

all creatures great and small

Rather than shoot them, Funston urged local farmers to contact the park the moment lions wander onto their farms. This way they can be captured by parks officials and returned to the park, instead of being killed. The farmers explained their need for the park to act faster when they report marauding lions. ‘We don’t get enough compensation to cover the loss when lions kill 10 or 20 of our sheep. We agree that the lions should not be shot but sometimes we have no alternative if they are not removed fast enough or if they habitually return,’ explained Jan Esterhuizen, a farmer on the unfenced Botswana side where the lions are most active. ‘If the lions remain on our farms for five days, they kill a lot of sheep and cattle. We have similar problems with the leopard and the rooikat (caracal) but they don’t take out as many animals as the lions,’ continued Eric Martin, another farmer on the Botswana side who is reputed to have shot 100 lions. The compensation issue is something of a ‘catch-22’ because the farmers want more compensation, while the Botswana government feels many farmers are over-claiming. In Botswana there is also currently a ban on shooting lions; the farmers complain that this law disregards their plight and forces them to shoot lions illegally. The solution is to stop the lions from entering the farms, but this is easier said than done. Various options have been mooted, including intensified patrolling of the park’s perimeters, the fencing of farms and communal grazing areas, or fencing off areas of the park adjoining dense farming lands. However, it is not practical to fence off farms because this would result in over-grazing. In the arid Kalahari, livestock need expansive grazing areas, especially during the winter when vegetation is scarce. Fencing off sections of the park is an option to be considered. ‘The fence under discussion will not cut off any migration routes,’ explained Funston. ‘But fences are costly and right now there isn’t much money available. Fences are also useless unless they are properly maintained. Again this requires manpower and money.’ There is no overnight solution, but the farmers and parks officials have agreed to make every effort to co-operate over the conservation of lions. Project completed, it was with great reluctance that Funston left the Kalahari. ‘There’s an old saying that you always cry twice in the Kalahari – when you arrive and when you leave,’ said Funston. ‘When I first arrived here on a cold, bleak August day, I stared out at this arid expanse and wondered what the hell I’d taken on. By the end of the project I did not want to leave. There is such solitude here. I’d head out on field trips for eight days and not see another vehicle. The Kalahari is truly the last massive wilderness in southern Africa.’

this page: After surveying the lion population in the Kalahari, the project found there were 450 lions, instead of only 120, as was previously thought.

all creatures great and small

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Extinction is forever project

Cheetah Conservation Fund

Funded The Gree by n Tru 1993–2004 st

project storie s

Southern rights on the rise project

Southern Right Whale Population Survey

For decades the fate of Namibia’s cheetah rested in the hands of the region’s

We are only scratching the surface regarding our knowledge about whales. Scientists

approximately 1 000 farmers, who perceived them as a threat to their livestock. The

now know something of their behaviour, including how they mate and where they go

farmers claimed that cheetah kills accounted for 10–15 percent of their sheep and

when they leave our coastal waters. However, it is extremely difficult to study them and

goat stock every year. Considering this far too costly a loss, they shot, hunted and

many of the secrets of the world’s largest mammal may never be revealed.

trapped the big cat. Now the Anatolian Sheepdog Programme is bringing relief for

y ed b ust d n u F Tr reen 005 G e Th 001–2 2

farmers and cheetahs alike in this conflict.

Namibia has the largest remaining free-ranging cheetah population in Africa, with about 2 500 animals spread over 275 000 km2 of livestock farmland.

In response to the threatened extinction of the cheetah population, conservationist Laurie Marker launched the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) in Otjiwarongo, northern Namibia, in 1990. Adopting a policy of working with – rather than against – the farmers, she and her team embarked on an education and rehabilitation programme. ‘The reason I got involved with cheetah conservation is because I knew that if someone didn’t, the fastest and most delicate of the big cats would become extinct,’ states Marker. At the time, cheetah numbers in Africa had plummeted from 100 000 to 12 000, the majority of these living in East and southern Africa. Namibia has the largest remaining freeranging population – about 2 500 – spread over 275 000 km2 of livestock farmland. Marker and her team worked tirelessly to educate farmers about the conservation and tourist value of the cheetah. At the same time they introduced a workable solution to the cheetah-livestock problem in the form of the Anatolian sheepdog from Turkey. This remarkable dog has been used in Turkey to protect livestock for 6 000 years, and now it has proved to be successful in Namibia too, significantly reducing the loss of livestock, not only to cheetahs, but also to leopards, jackals and caracals. CCF’s dedication paid off, with anti-cheetah attitudes gradually being turned around. Many farmers are now helping with cheetah research and the conservation of the animal. Through The Green Trust’s support of CCF, the Anatolian Sheepdog Programme has since been expanded to several parts of South Africa where it is helping to relieve human-predator conflict by reducing livestock loss. CCF has grown into an international outreach organisation with a superb education centre near the town of Otjiwarongo. Much research into the habits and home ranges of cheetahs has been conducted from here, including radio tagging, which helps to identify the movements of specific cats. ‘We now estimate the cheetah population in Namibia to be around 3 000. The cheetah’s survival is up to each and every one us because extinction is forever,’ states Marker. ‘Thank you to The Green Trust for its foresight in helping to fund CCF from the outset and for its support all these years.’

Laurie Marker epitomises the passion and commitment of Green Trust project leaders.

all creatures great and small

The aim of the Southern Right Whale Population Survey was to determine coastal distribution of the species, population numbers and life history. Cow-calf pairs were photographed for identification (the callosity formations on their heads offer the same identification opportunities as do thumbprints for humans) and monitored annually to determine everything from calf survival rate to mating dynamics. Project Leader, Dr Peter Best of the Mammal Research Institute at the South African Museum in Cape Town, has been studying whales for almost half a century, much of it pioneering research. ‘Southern rights arrive on the southern Cape coast in May/June every year to breed and calve, and stay until November, with numbers peaking in September and October. The last to leave are the cow-calf pairs,’ he explains. The good news is that the southern right population has been increasing at 7 percent per year for the past 30 years. It is estimated that the pre-whaling population of southern rights numbered around 70 000. By 1955 their numbers had plummeted to a few hundred. Today the population is estimated at between 7 000 and 10 000. ‘From the tagging research we have done over many years, we now know that they move around a lot more than we expected,’ says Best. ‘They range between Witsand in the southern Cape, all the way up the west coast and down to the Antarctic, sometimes covering incredible distances of up to 3 000 km.’ Southern right whales are an iconic marine species, providing proof that species can come back from the brink of extinction if pressures are reduced. The Green Trust’s support of this survey helped to raise awareness about our fragile marine environment and the many other marine species that are in decline.

The southern right population has been increasing at 7 percent per year for the past 30 years. Today, the population is estimated at between 7 000 and 10 000, a promising sign that species can come back from the brink.

all creatures great and small

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Return of the wild dogs project

Wild Dog Reintroduction and Tracking projects

Fund The Gr ed by een T 1997–20 rust 09

With only 4 500 African wild dogs left in Africa, and approximately 450 in South Africa, they rank amongst the continent’s most endangered carnivores. Their numbers plummeted from an estimated 300 000 at the start of the 20th century to a few thousand today.

Tracking wild dogs is extremely difficult, as these perfect running machines have home ranges of anything between 250 and 1 000 km2.

The reintroduction of wild dogs in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi in 1981 was the first such relocation in the country. Before then, wild dogs had been absent from HluhluweiMfolozi for over 50 years. ‘Hluhluwe-iMfolozi’s reintroduction programme is arguably the most successful to date,’ explained Jan Graf, then Project Leader. ‘As part of the project we studied the movements and behaviour of the four packs inside the park. All the dogs were monitored via radio telemetry, as well as through sightings and photographs submitted by resident staff and visitors to the park.’ Wild dogs are difficult to study because they are extremely wide-ranging. Perfect running machines, they have home ranges of anything between 250 and 1 000 sq km. Equally important to the success of the Wild Dog Project has been the project’s educational outreach in the communities surrounding Hluhluwe-iMfolozi. This has led to a change in perception of the wild dog from vermin to tourist attraction. ‘It’s all about learning to live with the wild dogs,’ said Graf, whose report, spanning several years, contained the first long-term data on wild dogs ever documented. Expanding on the wild dog project, The Green Trust, in partnership with the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, subsequently launched a project to track the movement of wild dogs outside of the game parks in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Project Leader Brendan Whittington-Jones explains: ‘We collared 11 wild dogs in the populations at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi and Mkhuze Game Parks and Thanda Private Game Reserve because wild dogs will roam. No fence can contain them and this is one way of tracking their movements. We are trying to understand how they use the landscape, the routes they take and why they stop at certain points. Very few wild dogs survive outside the parks unless the farmers and communities tolerate or protect them, and in this way we hope to create protected corridors for the dogs.

all creatures great and small

‘We are now receiving sighting reports from commercial farmers and communities in the region, which is encouraging as it means they are starting to support wild dog conservation. ‘Huge credit for this and other educational initiatives goes to Zama Zwane, our Community Liaison Officer for the project. He really goes the extra mile, organising mini-marathons for learners with the wild dog as the theme, actively liaising with communities and working with environmental clubs and programmes at schools. ‘One group of high school learners in the Mkhuze region recently created their own drama group called “Amanketshane”, which is Zulu for wild dog. They are using the wild dog as their symbol and taking the message about the wild dog’s endangered status and value to other learners and communities in the region.’

all creatures great and small

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Funded The Gree by n Tru The importance of insects 2003–200 st 4 project Invertebrate Conservation Project Focusing on every aspect of the environment, this Green Trust project promotes awareness and conservation of invertebrates to reduce the immediate threat of

Thanks to sustained pressure, more than 100 invertebrate species in South African are now on the IUCN’s Red List.

extinction for at least 100 species.

Insects are essential to all other forms of life on the planet. Of the approximately 160 000 invertebrate species in South Africa, about 10 000 are threatened with extinction. Featured here are: giant African millipede Archispirostreptus sp. (top), Addo flightless dung beetle Circellium bacchus (centre), milkweed grasshopper Phymateus saxosus (above), common garden orb spider Argiope australis (top right), xxxxxxxxxx (right), Brenton blue butterfly Orachrysops niobe (opposite).

‘Of the approximately 160 000 invertebrate species in South Africa, about 10 000 are threatened with extinction – ranging from giant snails to minute shrimps,’ says Dr Michelle Hamer of SANBI, who did her doctorate on fairy shrimps as well as extensive research on millipedes. ‘Some of you will remember at the back of the Archie comics there was always an advert for “sea monkeys”. Sea monkeys are really fairy shrimps,’ she explains, ‘and, while they don’t look anything like the smiling little creatures wearing crowns in the comics, they are nevertheless amazing animals that eat algae and provide an important food source for birds, frogs and water insects.’ Fairy shrimps have been around for about 500 million years and have changed very little in that time. Millipedes, at 300 million years, are slightly more modern. Remarkably, there are some 500 known species of millipede in southern Africa alone. ‘They are probably the oldest land animal, yet we know so little about the fascinating diversity of these and other invertebrates in our country, many of which are threatened,’ says Hamer. Invertebrates are not included in most Environmental Impact Assessments and there is very little legislation in place to control the illegal trade of rare or threatened species – unless they are on an official list. Thanks to sustained pressure, more than 100 South African invertebrate species are now on the IUCN’s Red List – the global list of threatened species. Just three of these are the Pondo agate snail, the pink-footed black millipede and the Cape blue damselfly. ‘The good thing,’ adds Hamer ‘is that organisations like The Green Trust exist to help promote awareness of the importance of invertebrates for human survival.’

all creatures great and small

s project storie by Funded rust T een The Gr URRENT 2008–C

Frogs are important indicators of the health of the environment. Their decline is cause for concern.

by Funded t T en rus e r G e h T 3 2001–200

Call of the ghost frog

Peter, Percy, Pamela and the Penguin SOS

project

Threatened South African Frog Project

Penguin SOS: rescue operation

When frogs start dying in large numbers globally, we need to realise that we are

In 2000, Peter, Percy and Pamela survived the ore carrier Treasure’s oil-spill disaster

teetering on the brink of self-inflicted extinction – and do something about it. It’s this

off Cape Town, along with 40 000 fellow African penguins – and went on the

real. It’s this urgent.

journey of their lives.

Dr Louis du Preez is an excited man. ‘You should have seen us when we found this ghost frog!’ he exclaims. ‘The last sighting was several years ago and it was so fantastic to find this animal again, and to know that it is hanging in there!’ The ghost frog of which he speaks is the critically endangered Heleophryne hewitti, which Du Preez and two doctoral students found in the Elandsberg Mountains close to Port Elizabeth. Du Preez, one of South Africa’s foremost frog authorities, is heading up the Threatened South African Frog Project, which is funded by The Green Trust. ‘The rapid decline in frog numbers throughout the world is cause for alarm, because they are the thermometers of environmental health. Their sensitive, blotting-paper-like skin makes them very susceptible to environmental changes and pollutants,’ explains Du Preez. The greatest current threat to South African frogs is habitat loss. Several of our frog species are restricted to small geographical areas and the loss of their habitat has a devastating effect on population numbers.

Peter, Percy and Pamela can count themselves lucky. They were part of a group of 20 000 African penguins rescued from Dassen Island before they became contaminated when the bulk ore carrier, the Treasure, sank between Robben and Dassen islands, and oil threatened to swamp their home. Not so lucky were 20 000 of their compatriots who were covered in oil and had to be rescued and cleaned at locations throughout Cape Town, and returned to the sea several weeks later. Peter, Percy and Pamela’s group were all popped into specially designed penguin boxes, fitted with individually numbered stainless-steel flipper bands and transported by road (2 000 at a time) to Port Elizabeth. On their arrival, Peter, Percy and Pamela were fitted with batterypowered satellite transmitters, attached like small backpacks, and they were released into the sea at Cape Recife along with all the other penguins. Travelling at a rate of 2–3 km per hour, Percy made it home in the record time of 16 days, followed by Peter in 18 days and little Pamela in 23 – all remarkable achievements. Equally astonishing is that most, if not all, of the 20 000 swimmers from Port Elizabeth made it home safely in under three weeks. It is not known how they navigate. During the Treasure disaster, Nedbank ran a campaign to raise additional support for The Green Trust, which contributed resources for 500 penguin chicks to be rescued from Robben and Dassen islands and flown to Sea World in Durban. Here they were hand-reared and flown back home several weeks later, by which time they were able to fend for themselves. Of the 500 chicks, 480 survived. And of the 40 000 adult penguins rescued, 38 000 survived out of a total African penguin population of 150 000.

And then God made seahorses project

Knysna Seahorse Research Project

With support from The Green Trust, ichthyologist Jackie Lockyear conducted pioneering research on the Knysna seahorse, Hippocampus capensis, the most threatened seahorse

project storie s Funded The Gree by n Tru 2000–200 st 1

More than 40 000 penguins were rescued with the support of The Green Trust, after the Treasure oil-spill disaster off Cape Town in 2000.

in the world, listed as endangered on the IUCN’s red list.

The Knysna seahorse is a flagship species for the health of the estuaries in which it occurs.

retouch out

The Knysna seahorse’s red-list status is based on its exceptionally limited distribution in the Knysna, Swartvlei and Keurbooms estuaries of the southern Cape, and the extreme vulnerability of that habitat. Large-scale developments in and around the estuaries are of particular concern because, without basic information on the distribution, abundance, breeding areas and habitat requirements of these seahorses, it is impossible to assess the impact of development. This information became available for the first time when Lockyear and co-researcher Mark Noffke, completed an intensive underwater survey of the Knysna, Swartvlei and Keurbooms estuaries. It led to a captivebreeding programme and an educational outreach programme for communities and schools in the region that has made a significant difference to the survival of ‘God’s last-made creature’ – 40 million years ago. ‘The story goes that the Lord made the Earth in six days, rested on the seventh and then, on the eighth day, put together a seahorse out of all the left-over parts of other creatures,’ Lockyear explains. ‘Which is why they have a chameleon’s independently mobile eyes and curly tail, the internal bone structure of a fish, the armour plating of a locust, plus a kangaroo brood pouch and elfin ears!’

all creatures great and small

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Fifteen years of TRAFFIC project

TRAFFIC

by Funded rust een T The Gr –2010 1999

Fifteen years and R2.5 million later, The Green Trust looks back with pride at the part it has played in sponsoring TRAFFIC East and southern Africa: an international organisation dedicated to monitoring wildlife trade and providing essential information on matters such as trade dynamics, malpractice and policy development to wildlife authorities.

this page: The demand for wildlife products is high in the Asian market, driving illegal trade worldwide.

The trade in elephant ivory remains one of the most controversial issues in wildlife trade today.

opposite:

Heading up TRAFFIC in South Africa for the regional East/southern Africa programme is David Newton, a scientific investigator based in Johannesburg. ‘In years gone by, South Africa was seen as a bit of a lawless country in all aspects of wildlife trade, including birds, plants, elephant ivory and rhino horn,’ Newton explains. In 1991, TRAFFIC, which has 25 offices worldwide, decided to set up an office in South Africa with Newton at the helm. ‘To Nedbank and The Green Trust’s credit, they saw fit to start sponsoring TRAFFIC from the early years,’ says Newton. ‘We began by investigating what was going on in our wildlife trade, including examining our wildlife legislation, whether law enforcement was being correctly executed and permits correctly issued.’ In 1996, TRAFFIC published a report titled: ‘South Africa’s Wildlife Trade at the Crossroads,’ which summarised in detail how South African wildlife legislation, administration and law enforcement was not working. ‘For example, there was no consistency in the export regulations applying to cycads,’ Newton explains. ‘One province would completely prohibit the export of all cycad species, whereas another would apply limitations to certain species only. Traders would therefore ‘province hop’ to bypass the laws. ‘Based on the momentum created by this report, and assisted by funds from The Green Trust, TRAFFIC implemented a three-year project called “The South African CITES Implementation Programme”. It developed critical wildlife regulating systems, including a permit-issuing system and national CITES legislation for South Africa.’ This programme led to improved wildlife management legislation in the form of the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act. TRAFFIC’s achievements are too many to list, but they include an ongoing collaboration with Marine and Coastal Management (MCM). In 1998 MCM asked TRAFFIC to look into the fisheries trade. Following on from this, TRAFFIC appointed Cape Town-based Markus Burgener as its Senior Programme Officer for marine issues in East/southern Africa. Work conducted by Burgener unearthed serious illegal practices within the South African Patagonian Toothfish fishery. As a result of illegal fishing of the Patagonian toothfish in South African territorial waters around Prince Edward and Marion Islands, in the late 1990s, the fishery collapsed and has still not recovered. TRAFFIC’s intervention was too late to save the commercial Patagonian toothfish fishery but it led to the tightening of fishery controls. Says Newton: ‘TRAFFIC would like to thank The Green Trust and all who contribute to it for the deeply important support you have given TRAFFIC and South Africa these past 15 years.’

all creatures great and small

s project storie by Funded rust een T The Gr –2010 2005

National bird flying high project

Karoo Crane Conservation Project

Farmers throughout the Karoo are actively participating in the conservation of our national bird, diligently reporting sightings, powerline collisions, fence injuries and poisonings.

Samson Phakathi Education and Awareness Officer for the South African Crane Working Group, 2001–current It is people like Phakathi who are leading South Africa into the future, and whom The Green Trust recognises and supports. Samson Phakathi from Wakkerstroom in Mpumalanga volunteered his services to help save South Africa’s three indigenous crane species: the blue, wattled and grey-crowned cranes. He recognised the role the cranes play in the conservation of the biodiversity of all wildlife species in our country. The Green Trust – in partnership with the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s South African Crane Working Group – sponsored the salaries and travelling expenses for Phakathi and four fellow enthusiasts. They are helping to educate learners about the cranes and their role in the environmental conservation chain. Phakathi explains ‘Through the cranes we get to show the learners what biodiversity is all about. They begin to understand that when they see the cranes in the wetlands and grasslands, it is a sign of a healthy environment. From here we teach them why it is important to conserve the wetlands and grasslands and to keep our rivers clean. We explain how this directly affects not only the birds, but also the quality of their lives.’

Bradley Gibbons, Leader of the Karoo Crane Conservation Project, is doing a superb job of raising awareness about the blue crane amongst the farmers and communities in the project area, which extends across a 250-km radius from the central Karoo town of Middelburg (where Gibbons is based). Satellite trackers have been fitted to adult blue cranes in the Karoo. ‘The reason we fitted trackers to blue cranes in the Karoo is because it is home to a significant proportion of the world’s population of blue cranes, and it is the last area of natural, untransformed habitat with a large natural population,’ explains Gibbons. The data is vital for the successful management and conservation of the blue crane, endemic to southern Africa. ‘It’s encouraging to have international organisations of this stature teaming up with us,’ says Gibbons who, after several years of working with cranes, is even more enthusiastic than the day he began. ‘To witness 1 000 blue cranes flying across the Karoo or to see their mating dance is nothing short of incredible.’ The trackers were donated by the Darwin Initiative.

Farm workers and farmers are assisting the Karoo Crane Conservation Project by reporting on nesting blue cranes and chicks in the Karoo.

In the late 1980s the blue crane’s numbers plummeted from 100 000 to 20 000, which led to their being listed as Critically Endangered. Fortunately, conservation organisations have helped to stabilise their numbers, now at about 25 000.

Because of their size, Blue Cranes are highly visible and make easy targets for unscrupulous hunters. Apart from being shot, they have suffered habitat loss in the grasslands (due to farming and forestry), poisoning (due to irresponsible use of poisons on crops) and powerline deaths. By the late 1980s their numbers had plummeted from 100 000 to 20 000, which led to their being listed as Critically Endangered. Fortunately, conservation organisations like WWF, The Green Trust, Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) and Eskom (with its bird-friendly powerline flappers) have helped save this elegant, enigmatic bird. Today their numbers have stabilised at 25 000 and they are classified as Vulnerable in the Red Data Book of Birds of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland – reflecting a serious, but nevertheless improved situation.

all creatures great and small

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Flying to freedom

Funded The Gree by n Tru 2000–200 st 9

project storie s

South Africa’s most endangered bird

project Mabula Ground Hornbill Project

project

In 2008 the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project celebrated its official status as a successful

The Green Trust teamed up with the Endangered Wildlife Trust to save the blue

reintroduction project with the birth of ‘Jac’, the first ground hornbill ever to have been

swallow, South Africa’s most endangered bird.

Funded The Gree by n Tru 1996–2004 st

Blue Swallow Project

born of a free-roaming, self-sustaining, reintroduced group.

Ground hornbills rear only one chick every nine years, which makes the 1 500 ground hornbills left in South Africa extremely vulnerable.

One of The Green Trust’s longest collaborations is with Ann Turner, Project Leader of the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project at the Mabula Game Reserve near Bela Bela/Warmbaths. The Green Trust has sponsored this 14-year-old breeding project for almost 10 years. ‘Without The Green Trust this project could not have survived,’ says Turner. ‘Not only because of the funds they contribute, but also because of The Green Trust’s partnership with WWF, which supports, guides and helps to manage our team.’ Ground hornbills rear one chick every nine years. With this kind of breeding statistic, the 1 500 ground hornbills left in South Africa are extremely vulnerable and the risk of extinction is ever present. Turner recognised this threat and started the Mabula Ground Hornbill Project. ‘I would not change the path I have taken for all the world,’ says Turner. ‘Little can beat the reward of watching the birds we have reared fly to freedom.’

Only 80 pairs of Blue Swallows have been counted in South Africa and Swaziland in recent years, when a healthy population should comprise between 600 and 800 pairs. Commercial forestry, mining and farming have reduced their natural habitat in the mist-belt grassland regions along South Africa’s eastern escarpment with devastating effect. ‘The good news is that the situation is slowly changing as combined conservation efforts start making an impact,’ says Steven Evans, Executant of the Blue Swallow Project, who did his doctorate on the bird. One of the critical areas for the blue swallow is Haenertsburg in the Limpopo province. ‘In this same area Harmony Gold applied for prospecting rights. They presented a questionable environmental management report that failed to mention the presence of the blue swallow and other resident endangered species,’ continues Evans. ‘We lodged an objection to the prospecting application with the Department of the Environment as well as with the Department of Minerals and Energy. Harmony Gold subsequently withdrew their application. ‘We are prepared to work with the mining companies and industry in general, but we do expect them to submit proper environmental management reports and follow the proper process,’ says Evans.

Battle for the Brenton blue

Blue swallow numbers have declined due to loss of grassland habitat.

Funded by The Green Tr ust 2003–2004

project Brenton Blue Butterfly Project The battle to save the Brenton blue butterfly is a special story about far more than a small butterfly – it is a story about people and partnerships and how we can work together to protect our country’s natural heritage and biodiversity for all South Africans. The Brenton Blue butterfly, Orachrysops niobe, is threatened with extinction. The last known colony of this species is located on Phase 2 of Extension 1 of the Brentonon-Sea township. The Green Trust and the Endangered Wildlife Trust provided extensive support to the Brenton Blue Butterfly Project by facilitating the establishment of the Brenton Blue Trust, which empowered a group of dedicated conservationists to look after the interests of the butterfly. Combined effort and dedication contributed to the proclamation of the only ‘special nature reserve’ in South Africa at Brenton-on-Sea, where the butterfly population is now thriving. The reserve is not open to the public because of the sensitivity of the environment, but those who wish to see the butterfly flying during November and February can join a guided tour led by a butterfly specialist. Visit www. brentonblue.org.za.

all creatures great and small

The Brenton blue butterfly case was a key test for conservation versus development.

all creatures great and small

Healthy oceans – from inshore to offshore by Aaniyah Omardien

The health of our oceans is essential not only to sustain us with food, but also as a regulator of our climate. The Green Trust has played a crucial role in understanding how to manage and conserve marine resources along with the communities who depend on the sea, showing that, from inshore to offshore, together, we can ensure healthy oceans.

he Earth is covered in 70 percent of water – our oceans – yet we know much less about the health of our oceans than we know about our landscapes. It is a challenge to determine how healthy our oceans are because of the vast expanse of water and the fact that it’s difficult and more expensive to explore and collect data under water. There is also the assumption that, because they are so vast, our oceans must support limitless life; and yet this is not the case at all. At present, roughly 70 percent of fish stocks for which data is available are fully exploited or overfished. Landscapes are categorised into different biomes, for example, fynbos, grasslands and succulent Karoo. Our oceans have also been categorised similarly, and different species are adapted to different biomes – sandy beaches and rocky reefs, for example. This means that different fisheries management techniques and approaches are required for different biomes, depending on the particular habitat and resource users.

Ocean dependents

Chapter four

the deep blue sea The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and provides us with countless, often unseen economic, social and cultural benefits.

opposite:

the deep blue sea

For centuries many of the indigenous people living along the coast of South Africa have been dependent on the sea for survival. For many communities, mussels, red bait, shellfish or lobsters are the main source of food. But the establishment of parks and conservation areas along the coast have forced these communities to resort to stealing a resource that many believe historically belonged to them. In other cases, population growth and poverty has led to a greater dependency on these marine resources, which is not sustainable and is threatening the health of marine ecosystems. Often the very measures taken to protect and conserve a resource have left the resource in an even worse position – because the measures have failed to take into consideration the subsistence communities’ absolute dependence on the resource. For example, traditional mussel harvesters were forced to gather mussels at night

The author Aaniyah Omardien joined WWF in 2001 and is currently the acting head of the Living Waters Unit which focuses on marine and freshwater issues. She obtained her Masters degree in 2009 from the Environmental Evaluation Unit at the University of Cape Town. Her dissertation focused strongly on The Green Trust-funded Coffee Bay Project with subsistence communities in sustainable mussel harvesting. Aaniyah is passionate about developing a new tier of leaders in the aquatic sector. To this end she is an outspoken ambassador for capacity-building and mentorship programmes.

the deep blue sea

Our oceans are a huge food resource that we need to protect in order to secure food for the future.

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to avoid arrest, stripping large quantities from the rocks and often permanently damaging the mussel beds. Prior to 1998, these traditional fishers were not recognised as constituting a legitimate fishery sector in South Africa. However, the promulgation of the Marine Living Resource Act in 1998 rectified this by acknowledging subsistence fishers. In KwaZulu-Natal this has been reasonably successful because the power has been devolved from the national department to provincial level. Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife has acquired the authority to issue permits, determine and enforce permit conditions, and facilitate the establishment of local co-management systems that have involved local community members and fishers in decisionmaking processes. The Green Trust was a critical partner in catalysing this success, as it embarked upon working with subsistence fishing communities in KwaZulu-Natal to better understand how marine resources were harvested (page 60). A participatory approach known as co-management was successfully adopted by various communities in Kosi Bay (page 62). Decisions pertaining to harvesting marine resources were now resolved between the local resource users and the park officials. The intervention was so successful that communities between Coffee Bay and Hole-inthe-Wall in the Eastern Cape (page 64) adopted a similar approach, again with support from The Green Trust. An exchange visit that saw resource users from the Eastern Cape visiting their KwaZulu-Natal counterparts resulted in further sharing of knowledge amongst the communities from different provinces. However, the commitment from government in the Eastern Cape to support comanagement has been strained, and ultimately co-management fails if there is no relationship between the resource users and government. Furthermore, there have been ongoing reiterations of the Subsistence Fisheries Policy since 2007 without arriving at a final policy. Without this policy in place, it is difficult for subsistence fisheries management to be practised according to set standards, and to control the issue of exemption permits. This poses a threat to the health and sustainability of our inshore marine resources, because there is no regular monitoring to determine and assess whether the stocks are, in fact, coping with the number of harvesters. It also makes compliance and policing the resource much more difficult. Perhaps one of the most difficult marine resources to police in South Africa is abalone. Monitoring such a massive coastline has proved extremely difficult – in most instances government just does not have the resources. Based on Seawatch, a type of marine neighbourhood watch organisation, the Overberg municipality, with support from The Green Trust, launched an anti-poaching unit, the MARINES (page 66). The MARINES, consisting of officers and monitors from the local community, were given the authority to deal with the poaching problem. The programme has been hugely successful, and proves that community involvement strengthens and consolidates conservation efforts.

Going deeper … As we move away from the coastline and into the deep sea, the conservation challenges become vastly different. The ocean provides the breeding and feeding grounds of fish and other marine mammals, as well as fish nurseries and migration routes, the health of which underpins South Africa’s fishing industry. Oil, gas and diamond mining companies also look to the deep sea’s resources for financial prosperity and survival. Currently, South Africa has no offshore marine protected areas (OMPAs) that serve to protect the resources and diverse underwater habitats of the deep sea, in which the above industries operate. In the past, a key constraint in the implementation of OMPAs has been a general lack of stakeholder consultation. Since 2007 The Green Trust has funded the fast-tracking Offshore Marine Protected Areas Project (page 67) that aims to establish a network of OMPAs in cooperation with a range of stakeholders. To date, guidelines and objectives for the establishment of OMPAs in South Africa have been developed, as well as the collation of scientific data to support the establishment of OMPAs. Once the project is implemented, South Africa will be the first country with an OMPA network that represents the ocean’s biodiversity and also takes into account the multiple sectors dependent on it. Through the support of The Green Trust, a farsighted initiative to conserve our oceans is now in place. There is ever-increasing pressure on our marine resources as a source of food, oil and gas, and the effects of climate change will only exacerbate these pressures. We are therefore obliged to implement wise and responsible management of such resources on behalf of future generations. The Green Trust has played a key role – and will continue to do so – in influencing fishers and fisheries, industry and consumers. We are all stakeholders and we all have a responsibility to ensure the ongoing health of our marine ecosystems.

Supported by The Green Trust, the WWF’s Responsible Fisheries Programme works with various stakeholders, from recreational users to the fishing industry, to lessen their impact on our oceans.

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Living off the ocean project

Funded The Gree by n Tru 1995–2001 st

Sokhulu Mussel Co-management Project

For centuries, the Sokhulu people have been harvesting mussels along a 30-km stretch of coastline near Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. But the arrival of loggers and recreational users in the 1930s and the establishment of the Mapelane Nature Reserve in 1984 increasingly alienated them from their main source of food.

Mussels are the main source of protein for many poor communities along the South African coastline. this page:

After the proclamation of the nature reserve it suddenly became illegal for the Sokhulu people to harvest brown mussels, a staple source of protein. Locals could not afford permits and, even if they could, the daily limit was not enough to feed their families. To avoid arrest, community members starting poaching at night. Various clashes, often violent, erupted between the Sokhulu community members and park officials. The local community had to eat, and the government had to protect a valuable resource. In stepped Dr Jean Harris, then a researcher for the University of Cape Town (UCT), with a solution. In 1995, Harris and Terry Ferguson, Mapelane’s Officer-in-charge, convinced the park authorities to implement a five-year co-management programme with the Sokhulu community to return ownership of the mussels to them, provided that they harvest the mussels in a sustainable manner. ‘The Green Trust was set up to fund projects with a strong community element,’ says Thérèse Brinkcate, The Green Trust Manager. ‘Harris’s project proposal was innovative and exciting, and worked for the benefit of communities that had previously been excluded from conservation efforts. It was a perfect fit.’ ‘At the start of the project the concept was relatively novel. The Green Trust’s flexible and proactive support of the co-management systems has been invaluable,’ says Harris. Although the Sokhulu community was hesitant at first, they agreed to form a joint committee with park authorities to co-manage the mussels. The community was allocated a 2-km stretch of coastline as a test zone where they, with Harris’s support, took part in research to assess a sustainable level of harvesting. The Sokhulu Joint Mussel committee identified collectors from the community, issued permits, chose monitors and determined the harvesting schedules. The 2-km collection zone was eventually extended to 10.5 km. In 1998 South Africa passed the Marine Living Resources Act that made provision for legal sustainable subsistence fishing. The Sokhulu Joint Committee was the first in South Africa to be granted a permit for legal subsistence fishing under the law.

Community members also obtained various other skills through the project, such as literacy in English, conflict resolution and computer training. Youths were trained as monitors and some members eventually became treasurers or secretaries on the committee. The project instilled a sense of empowerment in the community and gave them ownership of the resource. ‘Fifteen years down the line, the Sokhulu Co-management Project is still being implemented by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife,’ says Gillian Rhodes, manager of the Subsistence Fisheries. The model developed at Sokhulu contributed significantly to the National Subsistence Fisheries Policy, and provided a case study for setting up the model for 22 other coastal communities in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, amongst others the Kosi Bay Comanagement Project and the Coffee Bay Co-management Project, also funded by The Green Trust.

The Green Trust played a crucial role in empowering communities along the northern KwaZulu-Natal coastline to take ownership of – and protect – the marine resources and the natural environment.

Sources: Mind over Mussels, World Resources 2002–2004: Decisions for the Earth. The full report is available online at www.wri.org

Sandile Sibiya Community liaison officer, Sokhulu Mussel Co-management Project, 1997–2004 After graduating from university, Sandile Sibiya had his heart set on working for a big company in industrial psychology or human resources. When he couldn’t find a job in that line he applied for the post of community liaison officer with The Green Trust’s Sokhulu Mussel Co-management Project – and embarked on the career of his life. ‘I discovered I really loved the outdoors. Working for The Green Trust taught me to really understand and interact with communities from rural areas. The experience shifted my career path completely,’ says Sibiya, who moved on to become the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s Officer in charge of the Umzimzulu region, responsible for conservation management. He also studied towards a Masters degree in Marine and Coastal Management. Sibiya moved on to become the Deputy Director for subsistence and small-scale fisheries management at the Department of Environmental Affairs and still enjoys the endless challenges of working in conservation.

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Getting cosy with mussels project

Funded The Gree by n Tru 1999–2007 st

Kosi Bay Co-management Project

In the north-east corner of South Africa, near the border with Mozambique, lies a vast landscape of intricate lake systems, dune forests and rocky shores. The Maputaland Marine Reserve serves to protect this pristine and biologically diverse environment for future generations. But, as with most of KwaZulu-Natal’s coastline, many local communities have for centuries depended on these – now protected – resources for their livelihood.

From the outset community members, mostly unemployed women, were involved in monitoring, gathering data and reseeding mussels, instilling in the community a sense of ownership of the resource management. The project gained momentum and the other five communities eventually started showing interest. They attended workshops with the Songimvelo Mussel Committee to see first-hand how they were progressing. It wasn’t long before the other Kosi Bay communities had started co-operating with Roni and Mabongi. ‘It was an amazing experience to see the communities slowly gaining trust and starting to embrace sustainable use,’ says Roni. ‘It wasn’t easy but there is no doubt that co-management committees are conservation’s most important step forward. Because of this equal partnership structure, communities felt a sense of ownership and responsibility towards their natural resources. In short, the Kosi Bay communities had a strong desire to protect their mussels and watch them grow.’ ‘The Kosi Bay situation is more challenging than Sokhulu, because you are working with various communities, government bodies and resources,’ explains Gillian Rhodes, Manager of Subsistence Fisheries Unit at KZN Ezemvelo. ‘Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife continues to work with the fishing communities to set up co-management structures. There has been progress in phasing out the non-sustainable experimental gill-net fishery. All fisheries are still closely monitored with with regard to catch, effort and stock data. The formal recognition of the Kosi Bay fisheries is a top priority.’

Into the wild: Ronwyn Brereton-Stiles (now Jackson) Manager of the Kosi Bay Co-management Project (1999–2003) Ronwyn Jackson received the highest international recognition – the WWF-US’s Women and Conservation Recognition Award for her tireless efforts to establish community-driven sustainable harvesting in the fragile ecosystem of Kosi Bay in far northern KwaZulu-Natal.

Many communities in Kosi Bay rely heavily on the natural environment for food.

the deep blue sea

Although the Maputaland Reserve works to protect marine resources, mussels, red bait, limpets, oysters and crabs were still being harvested extensively and research indicated that stocks were declining at an alarming rate. Following the success of the Sokhulu project, Dr Jean Harris approached The Green Trust to fund a similar co-management project in Kosi Bay. Roni Brereton-Stiles (now Jackson) was appointed to manage the project along with Mabongi Mhlongo as Community Liaison Officer. The aim of the project was to replenish mussel stocks, implement sustainable subsistence mussel harvesting and conserve marine resources together with the community. However, years of conflict between the park authorities and community members had led to widespread mistrust. ‘After a year we were pretty despondent. None of the communities wanted to co-operate,’ said Roni. ‘Finally we made a breakthrough with the northernmost of the six communities – the eNkovukeni community – and we established the Songimvelo Mussel Committee meaning “Let us conserve” with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.’ A landmark achievement in the project was the agreement by all parties to set aside sections of rock ledge under eNkovukeni jurisdiction as areas closed to harvesting and fishing, which could then be used for research. In addition, areas were identified as mussel-planting zones where mussels would be brought in from more populated ledges further south in order to re-establish depleted stocks. Other sections were left open for harvesting to continue as usual. The various zones were chosen jointly by the eNkovukeni co-management committee and the eNkovukeni community, and became the first official sanctuary areas on the rocky shores in the Maputaland Marine Reserve.

Ronwyn – or Roni as she is called – speaks fluent Zulu and completed her MSc (through the University of Cape Town’s botany department) on forest dynamics in the Tembe Elephant Park and the impact of harvesting on its trees. ‘I was just starting out in my career, and in those days conservation was starting to move strongly away from the traditional preservationist approach towards one of engaging local people as key players in natural resource management,’ said Roni. ‘I was keen to find out whether community conservation could bring sustainable and effective protection of ecosystems or whether it was just “pie in the sky”. ‘The highlight was the change in attitude of the five communities we had struggled so hard with, and the establishment of committees to represent the fishing interests in each community. After all the tough years of forging relationships, negotiating with the communities, much sweat and marathon prayers, it finally happened,’ said Roni. She was particularly praised for her role in promoting women’s participation in sustainable harvesting and natural-resource management in the region. Roni is currently based in Watamu just south of Malindi in Kenya as the Programme Coordinator for the conservation organisation, A Rocha Kenya. They focus on community conservation, environmental education and research, and work towards conserving endangered species and habitats on the north coast of Kenya.

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Mussel power in Coffee Bay project Coffee Bay Co-management Project

Funded The Gree by n Tru 2005–200 st 8

Many communities on the coastline between Coffee Bay and Hole-in-the-Wall have relied on mussels as a source of protein for thousands of years. Population growth, poverty and unemployment have only served to increase their dependency on this resource, which has led to severe depletion of mussel stocks and, in some places, their disappearance altogether.

Another aspect of the programme was to create awareness of the importance of protecting marine life. Parallel to this project, The Green Trust also funded an Eco-School node. ‘Environmental education from an early age is the key to sustainability and we have established eight Eco-Schools in the area,’ explained the then local Eco-Schools Co-ordinator, Ntombekhaya Tsheyi. She joined the project as a volunteer and was so committed that she walked endless kilometres from school to school every week to educate learners. To supplement the target communities’ food sources and take pressure off the mussel stocks, a vegetable seedling nursery has been created and community gardens have been planted with funding from the Department of the Environment. However, establishing a solid co-management plan proved difficult. ‘The lack of participation from Marine and Coastal Management eventually led to The Green Trust’s withdrawal from the project in 2008. Community members would regularly attend meetings, but often there were no representatives from government,’ says Aaniyah Omardien, Acting Head of WWF’s Living Waters Unit. ‘The aim of the project was to facilitate the development of a local co-management arrangement for the sustainable utilisation of intertidal resources at Coffee Bay and Hole-in-the-Wall, but without government, co-management can not take place.’

‘‘

The Coffee Bay

project achieved a number of important objectives, including enhancing mussel stocks and contributing to alternative sources of income for local resource users. It is seen as less sustainable from a co-management perspective due to the inactive involvement of the government authority. Thus, this project largely relied on an external facilitator, such as The Green Trust, to drive the process. The absence of a government partner, therefore, has meant that ‘co-management’ has not

‘‘

been possible, and has also jeopardised the long-term sustainability of the project. Harvesting mussels in a sustainable manner is crucial in order to ensure ongoing food security for poor coastal communities.

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Studies had indicated that unregulated stripping of mussels posed one of the main threats to marine ecosystems in the Eastern Cape. Although legislation allowed a bag limit of only 30 mussels a day, the rugged coastline and high cliffs made law enforcement almost impossible. Another solution had to be found to ensure the survival of mussel resources and to provide a necessary food source to the local community. In 2005, continuing its pioneering work in co-management, The Green Trust funded a community mussel-rehabilitation project in the Eastern Cape. The project was implemented by a team from the Walter Sisulu University, under the leadership of Dr Gugu Calvo-Ugarteburu. Fifteen communities along the 20-km stretch of coastline from the Mthatha Mouth to Hole-in-the-Wall took part in the project. Local community members were taught a simple mussel re-seeding technique. After collection, harvesters would separate the large mussels from the smaller ones. The baby mussels would then be placed in pipes to reattach to the rocks and grow into adulthood. The technique, developed by South African zoologist, Professor Arthur Dye, proved very successful, with a 50 percent recovery rate of the mussel beds within a year. ‘Monitors from different communities were appointed to collect data ranging from how much seafood is being removed by subsistence harvesters to weather conditions,’ explained Bonile Madolo, who took over from Gugu as Project Manager. ‘The data was to be used to establish a co-management plan for the sustainable harvesting of mussels, both for the present and for future generations.’

Dr Maria Hauck Specialist in co-management from the University of Cape Town

Community members were taught a simple mussel re-seeding technique: baby mussels were placed in pipes, allowed to reattach to the rocks and grow into adulthood.

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Protecting resources project

above: The Kogelberg coastline is the scene of ongoing battles between authorities and abalone poachers.

below:

Stocks of abalone are rapidly being depleted to supply an ever-increasing illegal trade in these vulnerable sea creatures.

the deep blue sea

Seawatch and the MARINES

Funded The Gree by n Tru 1996–2006 st

Mapping our oceans project

Fast-tracking the OMPAs Project

The rocky outcrops of the southern Cape coast are home to one of South Africa’s most

Kilometres from our coastline, in the deepest ocean, tall cold-water coral trees sway on

valuable and threatened marine resources – abalone. Protecting abalone has proven

the edge of a reef above a deep, gaping canyon. Even further away, a mountain rises

extremely difficult. With a coastline of over 500 km to patrol, from Gordon’s Bay to Cape

1 000 m from the bottom of the ocean floor towards the water’s surface. The habitats

Agulhas, local authorities often find themselves understaffed and under-resourced to

of South Africa’s deep seas are as diverse and varied as our terrestrial habits, yet none

combat poaching effectively.

of them are protected.

In 1996 a handful of residents from Rooi-Els and Kleinmond founded a neighbourhood watch-type organisation known as ‘Seawatch’ to assist the local authorities in the fight against poaching. Maintaining its motto of ‘conservation with the community’, The Green Trust funded this initiative for the first five years. The Seawatch team conducted regular coastal patrols, monitored poaching activities and promoted marine awareness in schools. The organisation has 300 ‘passive’ members who are the eyes and ears along the coast. To date Seawatch has assisted the local authorities in the arrest and conviction of over 7 000 poachers. After the creation of Seawatch, Craig Spencer, then head of the Overstrand Municipality’s Nature Conservation Department, realised that community involvement proved invaluable to conserving marine resources. He then conceptualised the MARINES (Management Action of Resources of Inshore and Nearshore Environments) Project – an anti-poaching unit consisting of individuals from the local community. ‘The highly centralised nature of the management of marine resources has been a major criticism of Marine and Coastal Management,’ said Thérèse Brinkcate, The Green Trust Manager. ‘In order to be more effective, management needed to be closer to the ground.’ The MARINES Project represented a major milestone in marine conservation in South Africa. It was to be the first partnership between central government (MCM) and a regional municipality (the Overstrand Municipality) for the management of marine resources. In 2005 the MARINES were officially launched by the Department of Environmental Affairs to replace Operation Neptune, the anti-poaching police unit. The Green Trust, MCM and the Overstrand Municipality co-funded the initiative. The MARINES proved highly successful. The team consisted of some 20 officers from the local community, all of whom had previously been involved in anti-poaching and law enforcement. The highly visible force, supported by Seawatch, regularly patrolled the coast, collected data and carried out dedicated investigations into poaching-related crimes. A 24-hours operations room was established in Hermanus harbour where locals could phone in with tip-offs on illegal activities. Only a few months into the project, the MARINES had already seized 77 136 poached perlemoen and made 340 arrests, as reported by the Cape Times on 16 May 2005. A report by Seawatch in 2005 indicated a 30 percent increase in the anti-poaching success rate in the Hangklip and Kleinmond area. Unfortunately, at the beginning of 2006 the Department of Environmental Affairs revoked the authority of the MARINES and once more took responsibility for policing the area. By mid-year 2006 the MARINES were disbanded due to funding problems and lack of political will. ‘The concept of the MARINES worked really well. We were extremely disappointed when it came to an end. There has not been a similar initiative with the same degree of success,’ said Aaniyah Omardien, Operational Head of WWF’s Living Waters Unit. ‘That specific piece of coastline is in urgent need of policing. We can only hope that the government will address the situation while there are still some abalone left.’

‘that South Africa has almost no offshore marine protected areas (OMPAs) is hard to believe,’ says Dr Kerry Sink, the Marine Programme Manager at the South African National Biodiversity Institute. ‘In fact, there are no representative areas in the deep sea that can be used as benchmarks to measure the health of underwater ecosystems or the effects of fishing and mining industries on resources.’ Sink hopes to change this with the Fast-tracking Offshore Marine Protected Areas Project – funded by The Green Trust since 2007 – that aims to establish a network of OMPAs in cooperation with the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs’ Marine and Coastal Management, the Department of Minerals and Energy, the Petroleum Agency South Africa, and stakeholders from commercial fishing, mining, petroleum and other maritime industries. A key constraint in the implementation of MPAs has been a general lack of stakeholder consultation. Once the project was conceptualised, Sink held a workshop for stakeholders from commercial fisheries; oil, gas and diamond mining; shipping, the navy and all relevant government bodies to provide feedback on the proposed project. The Fast-tracking OMPAs Project aims to reconcile the protection of underwater biodiversity and resources with economic considerations. The aim is not just to close areas, but also to work with industry to find optimum solutions. After months of consulting and collecting data from museum archives, fishing vessels and mining operations, the information was loaded into mapping software and incorporated into a conservation plan. Specific conservation targets can be fed into the conservation plan, for example, 10 percent of sponge communities and 20 percent of cold-water coral reefs should be protected. A mathematical algorithm then identifies a range of options of potential OMPA networks that meet the conservation objections and have minimum impact on the various industries involved. The scientific community and industry can then collaborate to find mutually beneficial solutions. At this stage the results are preliminary, but areas proposed for protection, include the seabed at Child’s bank, offshore of the Namaqua National Park, and areas on the Agulhas bank, as well as extending the iSimangaliso World Heritage Site offshore. Once the project is implemented, South Africa will be the first country with an OMPA network that represents the ocean’s biodiversity and also takes into account the multiple sectors dependent on it. This cutting-edge project serves as an example for all protected areas – marine and terrestrial. There will be compromises on both sides, but conservationists and industry need to work together to conserve biodiversity for future generations.

project storie s by Funded rust T een The Gr urrent 2007–c

You will find as many – and diverse – fauna and flora underwater as those that live on land. The REEF Atlas project enables divers to give back to conservation by helping map the underwater treasures of our coastline.

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Where the raggies roam project

‘‘

The fact that

Aliwal Shoal is now a

Marine Protected Area

(MPA) is cause to celebrate as the raggies will have a safe haven here. I am proud that this project

played a role in achieveing this, and I hope it will help to educate many more people about the need to

Ragged Tooth Shark Project

Funded The Gree by n Tru 2002–200 st 5

Aliwal Shoal for all project

Aliwal Shoal Dive Guide

d by Funde Trust reen The G 6–2007 200

An offshore reef south of Durban, Aliwal Shoal is renowned for its ragged tooth sharks,

To highlight the importance of conserving Aliwal Shoal’s rich marine biodiversity,

affectionately called ‘raggies’. Divers come from all over to swim with these sharks,

The Green Trust funded the acclaimed Aliwal Shoal Dive Guide. Aliwal Shoal supports

about which little was known until The Green Trust funded the project to compile

spectacular coral species, endemic East African reef fishes, tiger sharks, bottlenose

South Africa’s first comprehensive database on these sharks.

dolphins, humpback whales, manta rays, sea turtles and ragged tooth sharks – the

Hundreds of ragged tooth sharks were photo-identified during the project, and 15 were tagged to monitor their movements via receivers attached to the reef wall where they congregate every winter, from July to November. The data collected is vital, because this reef appears to be a key mating area for the raggies. The project’s goals were to understand more about the habits and movements of raggies in order to produce a sustainable management plan for diving on Aliwal Shoal, which is one of the most popular diving destinations in South Africa. It has rich biological diversity because it is the meeting point between the cold waters from the Cape and the warm waters from Mozambique. Species from both environments are abundant here, from reef fishes and corals to manta rays, turtles and ragged tooth sharks. An important aspect of The Green Trust-funded research was to explore the sustainability of scuba diving in Aliwal as a tourist activity and to assess how many divers the reef can comfortably accommodate. The research from this project contributed to the regulation of diving here and, most significantly, to Aliwal Shoal being declared a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in 2004.

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flagship species of the reef.

The Aliwal Shoal Dive Guide is the most comprehensive, well-researched book on the reef to date.

conserve our sharks. Every single individual needs to

‘‘

be aware of the part we

One of the best

all play in making sure we

things about the book

don’t waste or destroy our

is that it was designed

planet’s resources. So much

to answer most of the

work still needs to be done

‘‘

questions that people

when you consider that the majority of people in South

tend to ask about Aliwal

Africa are still terrified

Shoal; and it contains rich

of the sea.

information from a variety of experts who know the reef. It is absolutely

Dr Mieke van Tienhoven Project Leader of the Ragged Tooth Shark Project

wonderful that The Green Trust and WWF saw fit to sponsor this guide. All proceeds from the guide

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Ragged tooth sharks are a key attraction at the Aliwal Shoal. The Green Trust funded the compilation of the first comprehensive database of these sharks in South Africa.

Aliwal Shoal Dive Guide is the most comprehensive, well-researched book on the reef to date, written by Dr Jenifer Goldberg who has worked extensively as a dive master at Aliwal Shoal. Offering valuable input from leading marine experts, it includes the long-awaited new map of the reef, put together by a team of seasoned divers. Only one other map of Aliwal has ever been produced. Information-wise, it offers a large section on marine conservation, including SASSI’s consumer seafood list of green-, orange- and red-listed fish, guidelines on eco-friendly diving and fascinating information about Aliwal Shoal’s many species. Mammal, coral, turtle and fish species are listed, and divers can tick them off in the same way that birders tick off birds on their life lists. The Green Trust sponsored the guide as an extension of its longstanding involvement in the conservation of Aliwal Shoal.

go towards WWF’s marine

conservation projects and I hope it inspires all who read it to help protect Aliwal Shoal.

dr jenifer goldberg Author of Aliwal Shoal Dive Guide

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Two Oceans: one Earth project

A guide to the marine life of southern Africa

We have only one Earth; our place on it at the tip of Africa spans two oceans with extraordinary biodiversity that needs to be protected. If you take these concerns to

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Funded The Gree by n Tru 2009–2010 st

heart, then the new edition of the popular field guide, Two Oceans, is for you. Filled with superb photographs and research gathered over 15 years, Two Oceans: A guide to the marine life of southern Africa, is a magnificent work. This new edition of the guide that first came out in 1994 is sponsored by The Green Trust and published by Random House Struik. Co-authors Professor George Branch, Margo Branch, Professor Charles Griffiths and Dr Lynnath Beckley have comprehensively updated and enhanced their book, added some 500 species and replaced many photographs, making it every bit a new work. Apart from the new finds and additions to the book, with vastly increased coverage of the Zululand/Maputaland, Mozambique and Namibian coasts, the book is an important resource for other projects that are monitoring and researching marine ecosystems and biodiversity. Among these projects are the identification of alien species (such as the Mediterranean mussel, which first appeared in the late 1970s, and has since taken over much of the West Coast), and the distribution of indigenous species. The book also discusses changes in the distribution of species, and the far-reaching effects of this, which information is vital in terms of the management of South Africa’s coastal and offshore marine environment. Two Oceans – A guide to the marine life of southern Africa (above) is a treasure chest of beautiful and fascinating creatures, among them: Striped bubble-shell Hydatina physis (top far left), Giant anemone Heteractis magnifica (top left), Spiny starfish Marthasterias glacialis (bottom far left), Honeycomb moray eel Gymnothorax favagineus (bottom left).

‘‘

Conservation is a dynamic field with new challenges arising almost daily. The Green Trust has proved to be a leader in finding solutions to some of the toughest challenges, from conservation-based land restitution to co-management of marine resources between local communities and the government. WWF is proud to have been associated with the trust for a fantastic and eventful 20 years at the forefront of conservation.

the deep blue sea

‘‘

DR MORNE DU PLESSIS CEO of WWF South Africa

the deep blue sea

Chapter five

water watch

Water: our natural source of life by Dr Guy Preston

Since its inception, The Green Trust has played a critical role in bringing important new policies to bear regarding water conservation in South Africa. The Green Trust was, to a large extent, the stream that created a river, enabling many water-conservation initiatives to get off the

The author

ground and achieve significant results.

National Programme Leader of the Working for Water Programme, Dr Guy Preston, has been the front-runner of many conservation projects. He played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Southern African Wildlife College and, through the User Pays Research Project, elevated interest in payments for environmental services to national and even international proportions. In 1995, with the support of The Green Trust, Preston was appointed as Special Advisor to the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Professor Kader Asmal. In 2007, he was awarded WWF South Africa’s Lonmin Conservation Award, which recognises outstanding contributions to the protection and conservation of South Africa’s environment.

‘‘

Twenty years of

innovative thinking

and solutions-driven

conservation: that is how I will remember The Green

Trust. I look forward to the next 20 years. In fact, I am quite curious, as I believe that The Green Trust

‘‘

will continue to surprise us with cutting-edge conservation initiatives.

KADAR ASMAL former Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry

For many people, especially those living in rural areas, rivers are their main water source.

opposite:

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y relationship with The Green Trust was initiated in 1992 when a proposal was submitted for what we called the User Pays Research Project. This looked at giving users the opportunity to use water and energy more efficiently, by installing the necessary fittings such as low-fitted showerheads and dual-flush toilets. Initial studies were done at the Kruger National Park and later at the Tendele Rest Camp in the Royal Natal National Park. A random sample of visitors at Mopani Camp in the Kruger National Park formed an ‘experimental group’. This group of visitors was given a reduced accommodation fee, but paid for their own use of water and electricity. Water- and energy-conservation fittings helped the group to use the resources more efficiently. The results were spectacular: water usage by the experimental group reduced by 73 percent and electricity by 60 percent, on average. Ninety-five percent of the visitors in the experimental group strongly preferred the user-pays approach. The intention of the research was also to see how parks could be a catalyst for change in behaviour in the visitors’ own homes. Unfortunately, it proved to be more difficult than expected to measure usage in urban areas, with some municipalities not wanting to divulge residents’ water and energy usage. As a result, it was not possible to prove a statistically significant difference in the use of water and electricity by user-pays experimental-group participants in their homes. Research that does not lead to sustained change can rightly be questioned. It is noticeable, however, that many of the measures that were piloted early on, when the project was first proposed 20 years ago, have now become mainstream – pointing to the typically visionary role of The Green Trust. This research also formed the basis of an invitation to me in 1995 by the remarkable Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Professor Kader Asmal, to be his Special Advisor, and to lead his National Water Conservation Campaign.

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Professor Asmal deserves great credit for what was initiated, and his successors (Ministers Kasrils, Sonjica and Hendricks) have built on this, along with so many Ministers from other portfolios. But the catalytic support of The Green Trust must also be fully acknowledged in what has been achieved.

The future of water conservation

The De Hoop vlei is a coastal lake with no outlet to the sea. This wetland supports a variety of rare, vulnerable or endangered species. It is also listed as a Ramsar site.

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A government committed to water conservation The National Water Conservation Campaign spawned some 52 projects, some of which were very successful. Growing directly out of the User Pays Research Project was the Greater Hermanus Water Conservation Programme (GHWCP). The rapidly growing coastal town was facing water shortages, and the authorities sought to increase its supply. They accepted an alternative 12-point plan for water-demand management and the conservation of supply, core to which were an escalating block-rate tariff and informative billing. The initial results were spectacular: water demand fell by 32 percent; water revenue increased by 20 percent. More socially equitable water tariffs were in place, water was more affordable to the poor, and 96 percent of residents supported the programme. Perversely, notwithstanding the massive success of the programme, it was neither fully implemented in Hermanus nor mainstreamed in the country. It was an era of supply-side thinking, and only now are its lessons being more seriously considered for implementation. One success resulting from this campaign (and the user-pays research) was the acceptance of a pilot project in Durban for free basic water (within an escalating block-rate tariff). This later led to a formal government policy on free basic water and electricity, championed by Professor Asmal’s successor, Ronnie Kasrils. Support from Professor Asmal was pivotal; he breathed life into the proposal for controlling invasive alien plants. The resultant Working for Water Programme has grown to be the biggest conservation programme in Africa, and in its early years was described by the National Treasury as ‘the most effective and efficient poverty-relief instrument of government’. Allied to the Working for Water Programme was the Ukuvuka Campaign, which highlighted the risks of fire and invasives, and worked to combat these by managing the urban interface and simultaneously creating jobs. It played a significant part in the development of the very successful national Working on Fire Programme (itself a winner of the Impumelelo and other awards). Change is often difficult, and many of the interventions championed with Professor Asmal were not well received by those who had been beneficiaries of policies and practices that were not equitable, efficient or sustainable. It is greatly to their credit that, despite often vocal criticism, neither The Green Trust nor Nedbank ever interfered in my work and never once mentioned reputational risk.

As The Green Trust celebrates its 20th anniversary, there is still so much more that needs to be done. Catalytic funding by The Green Trust can yield far-reaching impacts. In my view, the potential of payment for ecosystem services – and notably in terms of water and carbon – holds enormous promise, as one example. Wetlands represent another specific area where The Green Trust can further help to catalyse appropriate interventions. The Working for Wetlands Programme has been rolled out on just 95 of over 114 000 wetlands across the country (half of which are degraded or destroyed). Climate change is going to emphasise the importance of wetlands. A broader suite of interventions, including preventing degradation of wetlands – using incentives, disincentives, advocacy and regulation – needs to be researched to pave the way for far more substantial interventions. Minister Sonjica is prioritising the conservation of water through demand-side management, and there are many areas where the costs and benefits need to be understood, including ‘yard tanks’ for water, pre-payment metering, waterless sanitation, escalating blockrate tariffs across all sectors, management of water quality, groundwater management, and regulation. These and other interventions all offer significant scope for The Green Trust to demonstrate best management practices. Corporates also need to get more involved in reducing their water usage, and one way is through the ‘water neutral scheme’. WWF and The Green Trust have a strong alignment with corporates and could provide guidance on how to implement fair and proper interventions. A code of conduct could entice many to support conservation of our natural resources. When government and NGOs like The Green Trust work together on critical issues, mutually beneficial outcomes are made possible. The Green Trust certainly demonstrated this in the early years of democracy. There is a growing recognition that partnerships between government and outside organisations are pivotal if we are to make the differences that are critical to our country’s future. The Green Trust’s commitment to this is an investment of significant proportions. Water is essential for life and, in order to safeguard its perennial supply, we need to use this resource sparingly and effectively.

top and above:

A Working on Fire team member does safety training on a steep slope.

left:

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contribution

Funded The Gree by n Tru 1995–2009 st

Combatting threats to our fresh water

Setting a good example

contribution

Supporting Working for Water

contibution

Nedbank’s ‘water neutral’ drive

In 1995, it was estimated that 10 million ha of South African land was infested with

As the Green Bank, Nedbank not only preaches its message – it sets a cracking good

invading alien plants that were using 3.3 billion m3 of water in excess of that used by

example too, by putting its theories into practice.

indigenous vegetation annually. If left unchecked, invasive alien plants would spread rapidly and continue to threaten our limited water resources, ecosystem services and rich biodiversity.

Nedbank is tracking each and every kilolitre of water used in order to achieve a 5 percent reduction in consumption by the end of 2010. It is also offsetting its usage by supporting key water-conservation projects throughout South Africa. Nedbank is on a national drive to reduce its water use on all its campuses and many of its offices through several initiatives. These include installing dual-flush systems in the toilets (which halve the amount of water used for each flush), turning off the hot water in its bathrooms (to save water and electricity), trying out rainwater-harvesting systems, using recycled water and favouring indigenous plants in their gardens. All new Nedbank buildings will be constructed along the greenest possible lines. A major new green facility is the state-of-theart Black Water Treatment System at Nedbank’s head office, notably Phase II at 135 Rivonia. All water used in the building is recycled in a plant in the basement, and re-used for all non-potable water uses, such as for the toilets, cooling towers and to irrigate the indigenous campus garden. This will save up to 120 kl of water per day.

above: Water is key to the survival of all living things.

On warmer days of the year, children can be heard and seen splashing in rivers and lakes, which are also often the source of their food.

left:

Howard Rauff Working for Water is a key organisation that focuses on eradicating alien trees in water-stressed areas. Staff can often be seen clearing large areas of alien-infested land.

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Head of Nedbank’s Portfolio & Facilities Management

Identifying the need for immediate action, The Green Trust funded the appointment of Dr Guy Preston as Advisor to the Minister of Water Affairs. This led directly to the establishment of the Working for Water Programme. By means of a labour-intensive povertyrelief programme that has created work opportunities for the poor and marginalised, over a million hectares of invasive alien plants have been cleared. The programme structure ensures that 60 percent of wages go to women, 20 percent to young participants and 2 percent to the disabled, with particular emphasis on rural households, single-headed households, and those living with HIV and AIDS. The significance of Working for Water lies in its mainstreaming of biodiversity management into the country’s social and economic development programmes and in achieving the elusive ‘win-win’ result. It is unquestionably the biggest job-creation and gender-equity conservation programme in South Africa to date. More than R7 billion has already been invested in and earmarked for this programme, which has been associated with over 60 national and international awards, including the Best Conservation Project of 1996 in The Green Trust Awards. Working for Water national Programme Leader, Dr Guy Preston, says: ‘In its early years Working for Water was described as the most successful and biggest conservation programme in Africa. Today it still continues to live by that statement.’

‘In a water-stressed country like South Africa, we all need to pull together to conserve and manage our water supplies,’ says Howard Rauff. Nedbank’s Group Property Services is one of the leading forces in Nedbank’s carbon-neutral drive. ‘We believe in complete transparency regarding water usage and our group’s water audit, known as the “company’s water deficit”, is openly available and published in our annual sustainability report. We are on a strong drive to create a culture of water and environmental conservation at Nedbank, and we are constantly raising awareness amongst all our staff members (starting with our CEO) of the need to “tread lightly”. ‘Apart from our campuses, we also rent quite a few buildings and we will be putting pressure on our landlords to introduce water- and energy-efficient systems in them. As the Green Bank we can proudly say that we are playing our part towards a water-secure future for South Africa. Over the next couple of years we intend to more than balance our water account and help lead the way for water neutrality in the corporate sector.’

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s project storie

Pre-empting the ‘water wars’ project

Enkangala Grasslands Project

Funded The Gree by n Tru 2002–2010 st

‘Wars in the future will be fought over water. We cannot survive without it, and we do not have enough of it. It calls for urgent planning and decision-making to protect this asset of extreme national importance,’ says Angus Burns, Project Co-ordinator of the Enkangala Grasslands Project.

above: Of the 80 vegetation types in the grasslands biome, two are listed as Critically Endangered, 18 are Endangered and 27 are classed as Vulnerable.

Covering nearly a third of South Africa, the grasslands region is the largest of South Africa’s biomes. Its levels of biodiversity are second only to those of the Cape Floristic Region.

below:

Water, water security and water production have always been priorities for The Green Trust. Eight years ago The Green Trust took a step towards addressing the critical future of water in South Africa when it agreed to fund the Enkangala Grasslands Project. One of the main aims of this project is to conserve a priority water-catchment region for South Africa, spanning 1.6 million ha of threatened, high-altitude grasslands between KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and the Free State. Grasslands are irreplaceable water catchment, purification and storage areas, ensuring that good, clean water is slowly released throughout the year. Enkangala includes the headwaters of the Tugela, Pongola, Usutu and Vaal rivers, providing water for the whole of Gauteng, as well as to the major power stations in the region (which provide most of South Africa’s power). Nationally, we are experiencing serious pollution of our rivers, making the water undrinkable and unfit for agricultural use, or even for use in power stations. The need for careful management of our water and water-production areas is self-evident, yet coal-prospecting rights were granted on farms in the most water-sensitive areas between Wakkerstroom and Luneburg, which include the headwaters of several river catchments. The farmers there are extremely environmentally conscious and have been farming sustainably with livestock for five or six generations. This kind of farming is compatible with the biodiversity conservation of the area and is healthy for the grasslands, which need to be grazed to maintain their vigour. The farmers, together with WWF, BirdLife South Africa and the

Botanical Society, lodged two high court applications to have the prospecting rights set aside. The mining company recently abandoned its rights and entered into settlement negotiations. Towards formally protecting the area, Project Co-ordinator Angus Burns has been working closely with the farmers, communities and the Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency in the Enkangala region. They are in the final stages of having just under 24 000 ha of priority water-production areas, from Wakkerstroom to Luneburg in southern Mpumalanga, gazetted as a Protected Environment. Another exceptional achievement is the signing in October 2009 of a Biodiversity Agreement with the Mabaso community, just across the border in KwaZulu-Natal. The Mabaso community won a land claim of several thousand hectares, and has committed a portion of this land to conservation. This is the first Biodiversity Agreement ever signed between KZN Wildlife and land-reform beneficiaries.

Angus Burns Project Co-ordinator for the Enkangala Grasslands Project (2005–current) ‘Given the overwhelming evidence of climate change and the looming water crisis, we need to ensure that in a water-strapped country like ours, we formally protect our water catchment areas, river systems and wetlands,’ says Angus Burns, who has served as Project Co-ordinator of Enkangala for the past five years. ‘Climate change has shown we will have weather extremes: on the one hand there will be droughts, on the other there will be massive amounts of rain in short periods, all flowing into the rivers and river catchments. Because of the destruction and degradation of the catchments and wetlands (which act as sponges, storing water, improving infiltration and reducing overland water flow), flash flooding will increase. We are already experiencing this. ‘I am gratified to be able to say that after years of planning, development, negotiating and lobbying, we are finally seeing the roll-out of several conservation initiatives in the Enkangala region. Fantastic stewardship relationships are unfolding throughout the region, protected areas are being declared, formally conserving these water-production and biodiversity hotspots, and a comprehensive hydrological and carbon study is being undertaken to determine the ability of grasslands to sequestrate or store carbon. ‘We are indebted to The Green Trust, because all this would not have been possible without the millions they have invested in the Enkangala Grasslands Project over several years.’

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above left and above: Only one in six plant species in the grasslands biome is a grass. The remainder are bulbous plants such as arum lilies, orchids, red-hot pokers, aloes, watsonias, gladioli and ground orchids.

top: Nkosi Mabaso of the Mgundeni community signs a biodiversity stewardship agreement with WWF and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife after they committed a portion of their land to conservation.

above: Five Ramsar wetlands reside in the grasslands biome.

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Fire prevention campaign project

Cape Argus/Santam Ukuvuka Campaign

In January 2000, hectares upon hectares of the Cape Peninsula mountain chain’s vegetation were ravaged by runaway fires, leaving our once scenic green mountain

project storie s Funded The Gree by n Tru 2000–200 st 5

black and lifeless. While there has been significant regrowth, the memory of those fires still remains with many. The Cape Floristic Region is the smallest, but most diverse plant kingdom in the world. Over 10 000 plant species can be found in the area, of which 70 percent are found nowhere else in the world. Table Mountain alone has more plant species than the entire British Isles, proving how significant and important this area is for conservation. Fires are a natural and important process in the indigenous fynbos, but the extensive stands of invading alien vegetation mean that fires become much more intense than would normally be the case as a result of the higher fuel biomass. In light of the fires in 2000, Dr Guy Preston initiated the Cape Argus/Santam Ukuvuka Campaign. Partially funded by Nedbank through The Green Trust and a host of other corporates, this campaign sought to control invading alien plants and to rehabilitate firedamaged areas, while creating employment, protecting vulnerable communities from fire and implementing integrated fire-management plans. Former Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Ronnie Kastrils, once said: ‘The Ukuvuka campaign is a long-overdue attempt by the various spheres of government, the South African National Parks, the private sector and communities to work together to control fires in the area. The risk to life and property are reasons enough to do so; conserving a priceless heritage is an obligatory reason for the work. We must succeed.’ One of the main objectives of Ukuvuka, meaning ‘wake up’ in Xhosa, was clearing alien plants that pose a heightened fire risk, and rehabilitating fire-damaged areas. Thousands of jobless people were employed and trained to clear alien invasives, or abseil down mountains doing search and rescue. One such person is Phatiswa Banisi. ‘It’s the first time we learnt how to run a business; how to give people jobs; about gardens and trees and why they are important; and how to use money for the business,’ said Banisi. During implementation, Campaign Co-ordinator Sandra Fowkes said ‘We want to contribute to wider transformation by uplifting the people, particularly those impoverished communities of the area, through our work of reinstating the ecological integrity of the mountain chain.’ Looking back on what has been achieved, Preston said: ‘Over five years, this project proved to be a very successful intervention and was the recipient of a number of awards. Ukuvuka highlighted the risks of fire and invasives, and combated these through jobs and the management of the urban interface. It also played a significant part in the development of the very successful national Working on Fire Programme, itself a winner of the Impumelelo and other awards.’ The Ukuvuka campaign came to an end in 2005, making way for the Working on Fire Programme, which is still active today.

Thousands of jobless people from across the city were employed and trained to clear alien invasives, or abseil down mountains doing search and rescue. 80

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Every summer fires rage across the Cape Peninsula, destroying hectares of natural vegetation.

opposite:

Working on Fire teams are quick to react to fires and prevent further damage.

below:

left and above: Volunteers and staff of Working on Fire are taught first aid and to scale mountain slopes, amongst other skills.

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s project storie Funded The Gree by n Tru 2007–2010 st

Rehabilitating the Kouga River Valley

The ravages of dam construction

project Kouga River Valley Rehabilitation Project

project Flood simulation for the Pongola floodplain

An alarming 84 percent of our freshwater ecosystems, associated with main rivers in

The Pongola floodplain was once subjected to regular cycles of flooding in the

our country, are threatened, 54 percent of which are listed as critically endangered.

summer-rainfall season. Through the wet and dry cycles, aquatic and terrestrial biomes

project storie s y ed b t Fund en Trus e Gr The 1995

alternated, while many of the fishes on the floodplain became dependent on this cycle The Kouga River Valley Rehabilitation Project, in collaboration with programmes like Working for Water, is tackling the enormous problem of alien infestation of South Africa’s river systems. For the past two years the project team has been working on a riparian rehabilitation project along several kilometres of a tributary of the Kouga River Valley in the Eastern Cape. ‘Riparian ecosystems (i.e. ecosystems on the banks of rivers and streams) are particularly prone to invasion by woody alien species. Natural recovery after the clearing of these alien invasive species is often limited, and indigenous vegetation does not become re-established without intervention. These areas are therefore prone to reinvasion and/or further degradation. Black wattle had choked the Kouga River system and the project involves pioneering systems to reintroduce indigenous vegetation after alien clearing. This will inform the national policy for public works projects throughout our country’s river systems.

above: A portion of the Kouga River that has been cleared of aliens by the rehabilitation project.

Working on Wetlands staff are assisting the Kouga Rehabilitation project with clearing vegetation on project sites.

right:

for their survival. The construction of the Pongolapoort Dam in 1969 interrupted and changed this natural process and had a dramatic effect on the fisheries downstream. Floodplains are low-lying areas that are submerged seasonally by overspill from rivers, but which are otherwise dry or disconnected from the rivers by levees for the rest of the year. After the Pongolapoort Dam was built, a system needed to be created to simulate natural floods by artificial water releases from the dam. Due to demands on the water supply, it has not always been possible to adhere to the natural flood regime. In 1996, The Green Trust funded a study aimed at developing an ecological model to determine flood release options for the Pongola floodplain. Based on this research, an integrated management programme for sustainable use of natural resources was developed. The relative abundances, distribution and species richness of the fishes were determined at various lakes and rivers on the floodplain. The community classification of fish was determined and the potential yield of the fish at each site was calculated. Flood releases of varying magnitudes were simulated using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This information was combined into a model for resource managers to estimate the percentage species compositions of fishes at each of the lakes and to compare the actual harvest to the potential calculated sustainable yields of fish for various flood-release regimes. Subsistence agriculture and other beneficial ecological information can also be incorporated into the model to determine the effect of different flood-release options for the Pongola floodplain. By using all aspects of the model, the most beneficial water-release scenario for the fishery can be determined.

above: Fishers with ‘sonya’ baskets on their way to fish on the Pongola floodplain.

The floodplain is a key source of food for local communities. Here, women and children use baskets in which to collect fish.

below:

Saskia Fourie Project Co-ordinator of the Kouga River Valley Rehabilitation Project (2007–2010) ‘The degradation in areas overtaken by black wattle is terrible. When we first started working on the section of the river that we are rehabilitating, there was nothing other than black wattle. The whole riparian ecosystem had gone. There were no insects, birds or plants. ‘We’ve replanted about 11 ha to date with a variety of indigenous species that we’ve propagated, including grasses, flowers and trees, all of which will bind the soil. It’s taken a considerable amount of bundu bashing in extremely rugged terrain. But it’s very gratifying work because we are working towards fixing an enormous problem.’

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Chapter six

Conserving outstanding places

People and conservation – a vital relationship by Dr Andrew Venter

During the early days of conservation, communities and conservation authorities often clashed over land on which the communities were dependent and which conservation authorities wanted to conserve. The Green Trust has played a significant role in the shift from fortressstyle to community-style conservation.

‘‘

During a site

visit to The Green Trustsupported Somkhanda Game Reserve, the

Gumbi community spoke about their change of attitude towards the rhino. They told us how they used to regard the rhino as dangerous and a threat that needed to be exterminated. It was only when they were shown rhino in the wild that they started to change. Empowered with knowledge and information about the rhino and its conservation and tourist value, they have become champions

‘‘

of the rhino, conserving

the species and benefiting from the tourism it attracts.

Selby Baqwa Head of Governance and Compliance at the Nedbank Group

A lone Bushman in the Kgalagadi makes his way across the land searching for food.

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conserving outstanding places

he road to conserving ‘outstanding places’ in South Africa and the inclusion of people and communities in this journey is paved with politics, complexity, conflicting interests and, more latterly, good outcomes. South Africa’s world-renowned national parks come to mind as such places, starting with the Kruger National Park, which was established in 1898 to protect the wildlife of the South African lowveld. To understand where we are today, we journey back in time to the mid-1800s when the lowveld was a popular hunting ground for ivory, horns, skins and trophies. Like elsewhere on the African continent, hunters from around the world had descended on this wildlife paradise and were obsessed with killing. By the late 1800s, hunters had shot so much game that President Paul Kruger took action. A wildlife enthusiast and conservationist, he proclaimed the establishment of an official sanctuary where hunting was banned. This led to the creation of the Sabi Game Reserve, which became the Kruger National Park – the first government-declared game reserve in Africa. One hundred years later, wildlife and wild places are widely regarded as South Africa’s real gold, but the battle to protect and conserve them is ongoing.

The Author Dr Andrew Venter’s relationship with WWF started when he won the WWF-managed BP Scholarship to do his PhD on ‘Communities and Conservation’ in the Kruger National Park region. At the time, there was no dialogue whatsoever between Kruger and its surrounding communities. Today, Venter is Chief Executive Officer of the Wildlands Conservation Trust, an NGO specialising in the development of community-based conservation and tourism.

Fortress-style to community-style Central to the battle, in which The Green Trust has played a significant role, is the shift from ‘fortress-style’ conservation, which excluded the majority of people from the protected wildlife areas and game parks, to ‘community-style’ conservation, which included them. Prior to 1994 the communities did not have a vested interest in conserving the parks because they were largely excluded from them. Post-1994, the future of the parks became increasingly threatened in South Africa, along with those in other independent, wildlife-rich African countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe. The reality was that the newly elected governments were looking at the national environment as a resource base, and not as a biodiversityrich ecosystem that needed to be conserved and cherished.

conserving outstanding places

Investing in the future of South Africa For my PhD in ‘Communities and Conservation’, I put forward the idea of developing a model that protected areas could apply to nurture partnerships with local communities. Kruger Park expressed interest, but funding was needed to finance the venture. In response, I submitted the proposal to The Green Trust in 1993. Both The Green Trust and WWF recognised the merit of the project and saw it as a way of investing in the future of South Africa. The timing could not have been better because, a month after it was approved, the incoming Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Derick Hanekom, was quoted as saying that when he came to power, Kruger’s fences would be dropped because the area offered good grazing land. In 1994 we relocated to Kruger to develop a ‘Partnership Forum Framework’ between the park’s leadership and local communities. We were very idealistic about what we could achieve until we ran into the realities of this enormous park with an entrenched institutional structure that was absolutely committed to research, species conservation and habitat conservation, but that was out of touch with the changes that were happening in the country. We focused on the western boundary of Kruger where 61 distinct communities were all living within 5–10 km of the boundary. They numbered well over 500 000 people, most of whom had been relocated by the apartheid government to this area within the previous 20 years.

A serious mind-shift

A ranger in the Somkhanda Game Reserve tracking rhinos.

below:

Students at the South African Wildlife College are taught how to fix fences in game reserves. below right:

The park had had no dialogue with these communities by this stage, and it required a serious mind-shift on the part of the community leaders when we approached them and said: ‘We have come to talk’. They looked at us as though we were nuts. We often came up against seemingly insoluble problems, but we were gradually making breakthroughs and developing joint-venture projects between the Park and the communities. One such project was developing the community conservation area with the Makuleke people, and another at Numbi Gate where local communities partnered with Kruger to develop ecotourism initiatives. Then post-1994 transformation hit Kruger. The transformation was sudden, with black leaders trying to find their feet. The focus became internal, with Kruger’s conservative white leadership being replaced by conservative black leadership. Fifteen years later, this is slowly settling down.

Slow and painstaking Community development is, by its nature, painstaking, but significant groundwork had started being laid, and partnerships between communities and parks grew. The Green Trust facilitated this creation of a bridge and a network between two worlds, including the establishment of a Social Ecology Unit to interact with communities and start charting the way forward. What I really appreciate about The Green Trust’s investment in community conservation is that it continues to fund the process even though results are slow to manifest. It is a long, gradual process, and it does not have the appeal of, for example, black rhino conservation; but it is critical to the future of environmental sustainability in our country.

Legendary Green Trust project My next move was to St Lucia where a legendary Green Trust project was achieving pioneering sustainable goals. Led by Dr Jean Harris, the Sustainable Mussel Harvesting Project (page 60) had managed to forge a partnership between the resident communities and St Lucia, a protected area that was subsequently proclaimed a World Heritage Site. I also helped to stop titanium mining here. Once again, we sent a proposal to The Green Trust to fund ‘relationship development’ in this region as we needed to put formal structures in place to facilitate dialogue between conservation managers and the community. The fundamental difference between the Kruger National Park and what was then the Natal Parks Board was that the head of Natal Parks, Dr George Hughes, and his predecessors, had long been interacting with their neighbouring communities. As a result their response to initiatives was very different from that in Kruger: it was immediately positive.

Birth of the Eco-Partners Programme

The Somkhanda Game Reserve belongs to the Gumbi community. They have formed a joint venture with a respected hotel group to ensure the hospitality side of the reserve is professionally managed.

This meant we could immediately discuss opportunities between Natal Parks and the communities. The Green Trust approved funding for the project – which we called the EcoPartners Programme – and I worked in St Lucia from 1996–2000, creating local ecotourism, harvesting and conservation partnerships.

conserving outstanding places

The Eco-Partners Programme played an important leverage role towards consolidating numerous small reserves, with the support of the communities, into the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Eco-Partners also encouraged communities involved in land claims to remain within the conservation area, in return for which they would receive support to develop ecotourism initiatives. In 2000, when I joined the Wildlands Conservation Trust as its Chief Executive Officer, I took the Eco-Partners Programme with me, in order to continue working with iSimangaliso and other reserves. South Africa’s land restitution process was well under way by this time, and when we approached The Green Trust to support its new Conservation-based Land Restitution Support Programme (pages 92–93), the Trust once again rose to the occasion.

Threatened by land claims

The Kruger National Park was the first government-declared game reserve in Africa.

Prime wildlife land in northern Zululand, much of it in private conservation hands, was threatened by land claims. We encouraged the landowners of reserves like Phinda, Thanda and the Zululand Rhino Reserve to engage with the claimant communities and work towards a mutually beneficial conservation solution. As a result of the Conservation-based Land Restitution Support Project, communities started investing their restituted land into wildlife reserves, which was a giant first for South Africa. The best example to date is the Somkhanda Game Reserve (page 93), which belongs to the Gumbi community. Other communities came to an agreement with existing private ‘big five’ reserves like Phinda and Thanda, to lease their land to the reserves, which would then manage them on their behalf. The consolidation of the community-owned Bartlow Combine land with Thanda Game Reserve set an important precedent in this regard. Thanda’s Ngonyama Trust agreed to pay R1.9-million over four years for the use of 6 500 ha of community-owned land. The agreement stipulates that 10 percent is retained by the trust, 20 percent is used to manage the area and 70 percent is invested in well-managed, well-audited community development. Participating communities further benefited by receiving black rhinos through WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Programme.

An extraordinary journey These partnerships are gaining momentum, and we would like to extend them countrywide. The success of Somkhanda is poised to catalyse as many as 30 other land restitution projects of a similar nature around the country. The stumbling block for now is the Land Claims Commission, which is often slow to process approved claims and which has allegedly run out of money. Be that as it may, it has been an extraordinary journey from those first days in Kruger where communities were excluded from conservation, to today where communities have chosen to put their land into conservation and are running their own parks. Somkhanda is a key pilot project. From 1 October 2009, The Wildlands Trust, with The Green Trust’s support, took over the management of Somkhanda’s game guards. The Gumbi community has also formed a joint venture with a respected hotel group and estate developer to ensure that the hospitality and development side of the reserve is professionally managed. Both of these decisions were taken by the Gumbi community who recognise the need for strong partnerships and assistance. It is romantic to believe that communities can become successful conservation and lodge managers overnight, but the reality is that they need to be nurtured and partnered by successful companies and organisations that have been in this game for many years. It is thoroughly rewarding to witness the number and diversity of community conservation projects throughout South Africa today. If The Green Trust had not invested in the groundwork for these projects over many years, we would not have achieved what we have in terms of developing community capacity, investment and interest in conservation. It is all about shifting, nurturing and changing behaviour and this takes a lot of time, energy and commitment. The Green Trust has always understood this.

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Conservation organisations are working more closely with communities and land owners to ensure the land is better managed and conserved.

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Building partnerships project

top: During the implementation of the Eco-Partners Programme, Dr Andrew Venter regularly met with communities to discuss management of their land.

above: St Lucia is a popular tourist destination and was also the main arena for Eco-Partners work.

Eco-Partners Programme, St Lucia

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Nurturing environmental leaders project

Southern African Wildlife College

Building trust in communities and gradually introducing environmentally sustainable

The Southern African Wildlife College in Limpopo province, near the Kruger National

alternatives is The Green Trust way.

Park, attracts students from all over the world.

Launched in St Lucia on KwaZulu-Natal’s north coast, The Green Trust’s EcoPartners Programme was a pioneer in community-based conservation and sustainable use of natural resources within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. It was a monumental undertaking, which included over 70 000 people from several poverty-stricken communities in the region, notably the Sokhulu and Khula communities, who depend on the region’s natural resources for their survival. Through this project, The Green Trust and its partner, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, helped these communities develop co-managed community conservation areas with high biodiversity value. The Sokhulu community’s conservation area consists of 1 700 ha of coastal dune and 300 ha of swamp forest; the Khula community’s of approximately 1 200 ha of coastal lowland forest. The Eco-Partners Programme helped to establish the Simunye Tourism Association and assisted with the skills development required to establish professionally managed, communityowned ecotourism ventures, including horse and canoe trails. The programme provided an important learning curve in community conservation development. Being the first of its kind, there were no existing guidelines. In its process of trial and error, the team overestimated the communities’ ability to understand conservation processes and underestimated the time period it would take to implement the partnership. Unrealistic expectations raised in the communities at the outset of the project led to misunderstandings, clashes, trust issues and delays. Lessons learned, which have been implemented in subsequent community conservation projects, included the realisation that significant change and capacity building in communities is a long-term process, where results really only start showing after about 10 years. Many years of support for the communities and project leaders are required to empower communities and to assist project leaders in this truly challenging process. The Eco-Partners Programme provided an invaluable foundation and benchmark for the ongoing conservation-based community development within the greater Maputaland and Zululand regions.

The facility, established in 1996 with funding from the German government and WWF, has seen scores of students from South Africa, Australia, the United States of America, Uganda, Zambia and other African countries attend courses where hands-on training in all aspects of nature conservation is given.

The aim of the EcoPartners Programme was to equip communities with the necessary skills to run community-owned tourism ventures, such as horse riding and canoe trails.

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Since opening its doors in 1997, the Southern African Wildlife College has trained more than 3 000 individuals from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and beyond.

The Green Trust sponsored the short courses offered by the college for several years. They were designed to meet specific needs within the fields of ecology, wildlife and environmental conservation and community-based conservation. They included programmes for game rangers, reserve managers, ecologists and veterinary staff, as well as workshops in communitybased conservation and natural resource management. The importance of the Wildlife College in nurturing environmental leaders for the future was best summed up by internationally renowned conservationist, Dr Ian Player, when he visited the college: ‘Nature conservation is the most noble cause in the world today. Many years ago my friend and mentor, Magqubu Ntombela, put it this way: “We are doing the work of God. Our reward will come when people realise how important our national parks and game reserves really are”.’

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Conserving the land project

Land Restitution Support Programme

While land restitution can pose a significant and immediate threat to conservation in South Africa, The Green Trust, together with the Wildlands Conservation Trust, is transforming this potential threat into a conservation opportunity by supporting landclaim communities to drive wildlife and tourism businesses on their land.

The Black Rhino Range Expansion Project donated 11 black rhinos to the Gumbi community who are successful land claimants of the Somkhanda Game Reserve. These rhinos are helping the reserve to become a viable tourism option.

Launched in August 2006, the conservation-based Land Restitution Support Programme is helping to up-skill land claimants and land restitution communities in conservation-based land management. The support offers them a firm foothold in the wildlife and tourism market and ensures that both the communities and conservation benefit. The upshot is that communities benefit through new, sustainable income opportunities and joint ventures with commercial operations, while at the same time ensuring that the land, which they now rightfully own, is maintained in a healthy state. Their is often marginal for other agricultural use and it is a more sustainable option to retain a conservation land-use than it is to pursue other options that would ultimately lead to heavy degradation and entrenched poverty. This programme is linked to WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project (BRREP), which is successfully expanding the range of the black rhino outside of the Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife protected areas onto private- and community-owned land. The project has increased the black rhino population and reduced its critically endangered status. Black rhinos require an extensive range – in northern KwaZulu-Natal, the carrying capacity is 300 to 400 ha per animal. BRREP Project Manager, Jacques Flamand, said: ‘We develop strong partnerships with communities and private owners. They must comply with strict criteria regarding the management of the black rhino – from security to land size – before we move the animals onto their land.’

The entrance sign to the Somkhanda Game Reserve, which is home to 11 black rhino donated by the WWF Black Rhino Range Expansion Project.

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Nathi Gumbi: save the rhino! Green Trust champion and leader of the Gumbi community The Green Trust-supported Somkhanda Game Reserve is a flagship pilot project for land reform. Called Somkhanda Game Reserve, it is the fruit of a successful land claim made by the Gumbi community for 20 000 ha bordering the Pongola Biosphere Reserve. ‘It was an undisputed claim and we had to decide what to do with the land,’ explains Gumbi, a son of the Gumbi community and an outstanding Green Trust champion for his dedication to Somkhanda. ‘This is prime wildlife land and we made a community decision to develop a game reserve because the habitat and low rainfall is not good for livestock or agriculture. ‘Some land was also set aside for housing and subsistence farming for our people, and we also have a partnership in place with a large property group, which is set to develop an estate on 200 ha of our land. Money from the estate will go into the management of the reserve.’ In partnership with The Green Trust, WWF and The Wildlands Conservation Trust, Somkhanda Game Reserve is now open for tourism. In addition to the employment opportunities offered by the reserve, the community is employed in bush clearing and alien plant control initiatives inside and outside the reserve. With a backdrop of the Lebombo Mountains, Somkhanda offers spectacular scenery for game viewing. A major boost to the reserve was the introduction of black rhinos through WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project. ‘At first we said “No” to the idea of introducing black rhinos because we saw them as dangerous,’ Gumbi explains. ‘Then WWF took us to see black rhinos and told us all about them. It changed our hearts and now the community loves and protects our rhinos. Our attitude today is that God created this world and we need to share it with all the life he created.’ The Gumbis have come a long way back to the home of their ancestors and are proud of their achievements. ‘We work on strict business lines and we are also very careful not to raise the expectations of the community too much as it will take a lot more hard work before we start seeing results. Perhaps the government can learn from this and start to manage Land Affairs better. Perhaps they need to approach WWF and The Green Trust to manage their budget!’

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above: Many members of the Gumbi community, who own the Somkhanda Game Reserve, are employed by the Milimani Lodge or in bush clearing and alien control initiatives in and outside the reserve.

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Restoring dignity to one and all project

!Khomani Bushmen return to their land

In the late 1990s The Green Trust sponsored the appointment, for two years, of an advisor – David Grossman – to Derick Hanekom, then Minister of Agriculture and Land

by Funded rust een T The Gr –2001 1999

Affairs. Hanekom asked Grossman to assist in the land claims process in the Kalahari.

‘‘

The descendants of South Africa’s first people have their land back, and they are managing it in a responsible manner. DAVID GROSSMAN Advisor to Derick Hanekom, former Minister of Agriculture and Land Afairs

‘Things are going well with the 25 000 ha in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park that the !Khomani Bushmen now own (they choose to be called Bushmen),’ says Grossman who has been working with the !Khomani community for 12 years. ‘They have their own entrance gate, and they have certain rights to harvest medicinal plants sustainably, such as Devil’s Claw and Hoodia, and to hunt the traditional way with a bow and arrow. Several members of the Bushmen community work as guides and trackers in the park. ‘The neighbouring Mier community also had 25 000 ha in the park returned to them, adjacent to the Bushmen’s land. The park is co-managed together with South African National Parks (SANParks) through a joint management board, which recently received R4.8-million from the lottery fund to support the joint management board’s activities. ‘The funds have been handed over to Peace Parks who are administering them. A small percentage of the money will be used to buy a vehicle to transport members of the community into the park. They have their own “veld school” where the elders take the youths into the park to explain the cultural and environmental significance of the park and the land. ‘I’m now in the 12th year of what was supposed to be a six-month project. Working with communities and helping to sort out community land claims is a long-term process, as The Green Trust well knows. There has been unbelievable pain, death, murders, problems with corruption – and amazing breakthroughs. ‘The good news is that these descendants of South Africa’s first people have their land back, and they are managing it in a responsible manner. The elders of these communities can finally enjoy some peace for the first time in 2 000 years.’

The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park at sunset.

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Oelliset and Oupa Dawid Kruiper of the !Khomani community with project advisor David Grossman.

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!Khomani Bushmen own 25 000 ha of land in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. They also work as guides and trackers in the park, and make beads and other artefacts to sell to tourists.

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Working with climate change by Mark Botha

The Green Trust is investing significantly in natural environments or ‘living lands’ and their attendant ecosystem services. This will ensure their ecological conservation and help South Africa manage the effects of climate change. The author

Chapter seven

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Much of South Africa’s natural environment is in private hands, mostly in the agricultural sector. Sustainable farming practices, from meat and wool to wine and flowers, is crucial for the protection and conservation of our valuable ecosystems.

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limate impacts are likely to be far worse than some people believe possible. Research has shown that our current approach to climate change is hopelessly inadequate. We need to prepare our ecosystems and agriculture for far greater variability, as well as reducing emissions wherever we can. The next couple of years are going to require a rapid shift to low-carbon economies. In response to this, the Green Trust and Nedbank are looking ahead to nurture the leadership and innovative approaches that will promote stability on our planet. They are supporting projects that show how to manage things better on the ground, from catchment to biodiversity management. The value and foresight of these projects is of huge significance to the future of South Africa. Looking to the next 20 years, The Green Trust will continue to invest in projects on a grand scale that build resilience and better management practices within natural ecosystems. This increases the ability of landscapes, plants and animals to withstand extreme events, such as floods or droughts. Better management practices increase soil carbon, grass and plant cover, and extend the network of natural corridors across the country. Better land-use decisions protect key ecosystem services and sensitive landscapes from incompatible or destructive practices such as forestry and mining. In return, these healthier, intact landscapes will help mitigate the effects of flooding, preventing greater damage to infrastructure or increased crop loss. This is the nexus of a sensible societal response to climate change, as well as safeguarding our priceless natural heritage. The Green Trust has always recognised this, and invested in projects and processes that improve the quality of life for all South Africans. Water is essential to life, yet the legislation governing our catchment areas is hopelessly deficient. The authorities need urgently and radically to rethink how to manage catchment areas and water rights without overallocating existing resources. A key thrust of The Green Trust in the future will be to support pioneering initiatives that promote greener lifestyles and livelihoods.

Mark Botha joined WWF in 2009 as head of the Living Lands Unit. He has an MSc in Botany from the University of Cape Town, and was the former Director of Conservation at the Botanical Society where he served for 10 years. Botha has made a significant contribution to environmental conservation and to raising the profile of conservation issues across South Africa. An outspoken advocate for better land management practices on private land, he has pioneered numerous initiatives, including the Biodiversity & Wine Initiative – a partnership between the South African wine industry, Botanical Society and The Green Trust.

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Facing our ‘Frankensteins’ Among other things, our attitudes towards recycling rather than simply disposing of materials will need to change drastically. The future is about facing our ‘Frankensteins’ and developing environmentally sustainable, biodegradable products and tools. In developing any product, we will need to think carefully about how we are going to limit unnecessary waste – indeed, we need instead to create innovative mechanisms to use waste effectively. For example, humans generate huge amounts of nitrogen waste that we need to capture and use to grow food. Alien vegetation is another huge problem, but it also represents an opportunity as a ready source of biomass waiting to be transformed. We need to clear more alien vegetation and use it for compost, as it contains significant quantities of carbon,

which is excellent for binding soil. This should replace artificial fertilisers, which are enormous greenhouse-gas generators. Alien vegetation can also be used to replace coal. Electricity is the key energy carrier of the future and we need to generate it from any source that does not emit coal- or oil-derived greenhouse gases. Transforming to a low-carbon economy means shifting our source of energy from relying on ancient carbon – coal, oil and natural gas – to relying on renewable energy, such as solar and wind-generated energy. Ancient carbon should only fill small gaps in our renewable energy system, and not the other way round. We have sufficient renewable energy capacity and technical expertise to power South Africa, yet we are still massively investing in coal and oil. This is tantamount to economic and environmental suicide.

Protected areas – natural solutions to the climate change crisis Protected areas offer a cost-effective solution to the impacts of climate change. This is the message of a significant book on climate change released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), The Nature Conservancy, the United Nations Development Programme, Wildlife Conservation Society, the World Bank and WWF. The book, Natural Solutions: protected areas helping people cope with climate change, clearly articulates how protected areas significantly contribute to reducing the impacts of climate change and what is needed for them to achieve even more. It explains how protected areas play a major role in reducing climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere: 15 percent of the world’s terrestrial carbon stock – 312 gigatonnes – is stored in protected areas around the world. In Canada, over 4 000 million tons of carbon dioxide is sequestered in 39 national parks, estimated to be worth $39–87 billion in carbon credits. In the Brazilian Amazon, protected lands are expected to prevent 670 000 km2 of deforestation by 2050, representing 8 billion tons of avoided carbon emissions. Protected areas also serve as natural buffers against climate impacts and other disasters, providing space for floodwaters to disperse, stabilising soil against landslides and blocking storm surges. It has been estimated that coastal wetlands in the United States provide $23.2 billion a year in protection against flooding from hurricanes. And protected areas keep natural resources healthy and productive so they can withstand the impacts of climate change and continue to provide the food, clean water, shelter and income that all communities rely upon for their survival.

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Richard Worthington WWF Climate Change Programme Manager since 2008 Climate change encompasses every aspect of our lives. What we do to decrease global warming today will have a direct impact on humankind’s future survival. ‘The world is getting hotter. This is a scientific certainty, as is the primary evidence of the human role in global warming. These are the findings of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and governments throughout the world have accepted them,’ says Richard Worthington, who from 2000–2008 served as Project Co-ordinator of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Project (SECCP) for Earthlife Africa Johannesburg. Co-ordinator of the South African Climate Action Network (SACAN), Worthington was named Energy Personality of the Year in 2002 by the Sustainable Energy Society of South Africa (SESSA). ‘If we want to survive, we need to keep global warming below two degrees. This translates into global carbon emission cuts of 50–80 percent by 2050. Conserving Africa’s tropical rainforests is central to this goal. Twenty percent of global warming is attributed to forest losses and Africa is losing forests to the extent of two Kruger National Parks a year. ‘South Africa is one of the highest carbon emitters in the world and we need our government to commit to substantive renewable energy targets and an accelerated implementation of energy-efficient systems. Eighty percent of our emissions are associated with energy, primarily coal. Apart from shifting to renewable energy, we need to be far more efficient in the way we use coal. We also need to commit to extensive environmental conservation programmes and we are going to have to become a lot smarter about how we conserve water. ‘Time is running out. We need to act now because the survival of our planet is at stake.’

We need to think very differently about how we run our economy – from our energy supply, to how we build our houses, to how we produce our food. We need to use less cement and steer away from heavily manufactured or toxic products, and rely less on processed or technology-driven food. We need to shift, and fast, to more natural commodities, to natural food that is sustainably grown or veld-raised in the farm environment and to electricallydriven forms of transport. We need to reduce our reliance on technology that exacerbates the Earth’s carbon footprint. We can no longer avoid these challenges if the planet, our home, is to survive. In short, the future requires us to drive environmental sustainability while at the same time protecting natural areas for our survival. I am confident that The Green Trust will continue to lead the way.

2010: International Year of Biodiversity Establishing, maintaining and expanding protected areas needs to be recognised as a powerful tool against climate change, and should be a component of national climate change strategies. But, despite their value for both adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, financial support for the global protected areas network is less than half of what is necessary, placing these systems at risk. World leaders need to understand that investing in protected areas is an investment in the security of their communities. ‘In the rush for new solutions to climate change, we risk neglecting a proven alternative,’ says Alexander Belokurov, Landscape Conservation Manager of WWF International. ‘Protected areas are an investment that societies have made for millennia, using traditional approaches that have proven their potential and effectiveness in modern times.’

WWF works to support the transition to a low-carbon economy by advocating that we change our energy-supply from coal and oil to clean, renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind.

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Three cheers for conservation project

Biodiversity & Wine Initiative (BWI)

Today, BWI’s conservation footprint of 118 000 ha of indigenous Cape Floral Kingdom vegetation is in excess of South Africa’s total vineyard footprint of 102 000 ha. BWI was initiated in 2004 by the Botanical Society of South Africa in partnership with the wine industry to conserve the highly threatened Cape Floral Kingdom: the smallest and richest plant kingdom on Earth, and home to more than 10 000 plant species. This is also the region where 90 percent of the country’s wine is produced. The Green Trust was a primary funder of the initiative.

Over 160 wine producers and 11 producer cellars are BWI members and champions, and have changed to more sustainable farming practices. The initiative accredits environmentally responsible wine producers who are making a significant contribution to the environment by setting aside valuable natural areas for longterm conservation, whilst implementing sound environmental management practices within their vineyards and cellars. BWI benefits participating wine farmers and producers by giving them the right to use the attractive BWI label and its associated conservation message as part of their marketing strategy. It’s a win-win for wine, for biodiversity and for business.

Inge Kotze Co-ordinator of the Biodiversity & Wine Initiative since 2007 Inge Kotze has a Masters degree in Environmental Sciences and GIS, and 12 years of experience in conservation. For 10 of these she worked as an Environmental Researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in the Biodiversity Research Group, before joining BWI in January 2007.

BWI champion Waverley Hills often invites learners from schools in the Ceres and Tulbagh area to come and learn about the biodiversity on the farm.

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Snow can often be seen on the mountain peaks surrounding the Lorraine Private Cellar, a BWI member.

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She was awarded the 2010 International Personality of the Year Award for her role in conserving the Cape Floristic Region. Said Kotze ‘This award could not have come at a better time, considering that 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, the year in which South Africa is showcasing its natural splendour and cultural diversity, and the year in which we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Green Trust. The award is a tribute to our passionate and dedicated South African wine producers doing all the groundwork. I want to thank them and my BWI colleagues for making this initiative a success, ensuring that we conserve places of outstanding value and iconic species, whilst maintaining productive and living landscapes.’

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The choice is yours project

GreenChoice

Funded by The Green Tr ust 2008–current

GreenChoice addresses the manner in which all food and beverage products in South Africa, as well as natural fibres (such as wool and mohair) and flowers (harvested wild flowers from the Cape Floral Kingdom), are produced, processed, marketed and consumed. ‘We have reached the point where product diversity has exceeded biodiversity. We now have 600 million known species on our planet and over 650 million products (according to an Environmental Protection Agency study conducted in conjunction with the United Nations Task Force on Global Developmental Impact). Clearly our consumption patterns are unsustainable and we need to look at the entire production chain – from farmers to retailers – if we wish to save our planet,’ says GreenChoice project co-ordinator, Tatjana von Bormann. ‘Our greatest ambition for GreenChoice would be to fundamentally change the way that retailers approach product purchasing because they are the link between the producer and the consumer.’

If, as Wal-Mart has done, retailers make social and environmental sustainability criteria integral to food procurement policies (while continuing to offer sustainable value), it immediately shifts production and processing practices in the right direction. ‘A key focus area is how we are going to feed our nation into the future,’ adds von Bormann. ‘With the decline in the number of farmers in our country, and reduced government support, GreenChoice has taken the initiative to promote good farming practices and to offer technical assistance to farmers through conservation-led business and biodiversity initiatives.’ Over the past year, GreenChoice, in partnership with WWF, has developed the ‘Living Farms Guide’, which provides a framework for social, economic and environmental good farming practices. Apart from producing our food, farmers are the custodians of biodiversity. Only 10 percent of South Africa’s natural environment is under formal protection. The remainder is in private hands, mostly in the agricultural sector. ‘From beef farmers to potato farmers, to rooibos, honey, wine, citrus, mohair, wool and other farmers … we are working with them to encourage sustainable, biodiversityconscious land use,’ von Bormann explains. ‘We need to support them and work with them as they shoulder an enormous responsibility. At the same time we need to start questioning all aspects of our consumerism. We can start by asking whether we need 650 million product variations. Once we start asking the right questions we will find the answers for a sustainable future, for our country and for our world. The choice is yours.’

Greenchoice supports the Flower Valley Conservation Trust that was set up in 1990 to promote sustainable harvesting of wild fynbos.

Tatjana von Bormann GreenChoice Co-ordinator

top: South Africa is the leading exporter of protea cut flowers.

middle: Freshly-picked vegetables on their way to the market.

above: Insects play an important role in sustainable farming.

Blue cranes are often spotted wandering past the vineyards on La Motte wine farm, which is a BWI champion.

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‘Agriculture and energy are key in achieving sustainability in the 21st century. Current production methods and dietary demands have impacted more on the natural world than any other human activity. Agriculture practices, which are draining freshwater supplies, overloading ecosystems and destroying forests and biological diversity, must be reformed,’ says GreenChoice Co-ordinator, Tatjana von Borman. ‘All evidence indicates that doing so will result in environmental benefits and social and economic returns too. Collaborative action is needed throughout the agricultural value chain to ensure that all food is produced in a way that is affordable, healthy and sustainable. ‘GreenChoice provides an effective multistakeholder platform to promote mainstreaming of sustainable agriculture and co-ordination between producers, agricultural industries, manufacturers and retailers, government and the conservation community. Every successful collaboration – like WWF’s work with Woolworths to promote sustainable agricultural practices – points to a more optimistic future.’

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SASSI and the seafood emergency

Oh sugar, sugar …

project Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative

project

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Amatikulu Small-scale Sugarcane Growers

Geelbek, Red and White Steenbras, Rockcod, Red Stumpnose, Carpenter … these are some

In the traditional tribal lands up the north coast of Zululand, a Green Trust project is

of the widely consumed linefish species of which stocks are at dangerously low levels. An

helping small-scale sugarcane farmers to reap the benefits of the ‘green’ sugar way, by

alarming 67 percent of our top 27 recreational linefishing species (i.e. they are caught in

using best management practices.

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the inshore zone between depths of 5 m and 130 m) have been classified as ‘collapsed’. Six out of the 10 of our most important commercial linefish species fall well below critical stock levels in the Western Cape – where the bulk of national linefish catches are made.

top: Through lack of knowledge, many seafood restaurants still sell fish that are on the SASSI red list.

above: Consumers can SMS the SASSI FISHSMS line to check whether their favourite fish is on the green list.

A fisherman shows off his latest catch, yellowtail, which is on the SASSI green list.

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This project is helping hundreds of small-scale sugarcane farmers (young and old, men and women) to implement better, greener farming practices today to ensure a thriving harvest tomorrow. One of the green sugar initiatives entails using ‘green manure’. It shows how a ‘break’ crop such as cowpeas or oats acts as plant manure for sugarcane, reducing the need for artificial fertiliser and cycling nutrients in the soil. Green cane harvesting is another practice that enriches the soil, as opposed to traditional burning – which makes the sugarcane easier to cut, but which dries out the soil. Cutting the sugarcane without burning creates a blanket of leaf matter, which retains the moisture and nutrients in the soil and protects it against erosion and weed growth. Now in its second year, the project has a long-term vision to see yields increase, the participating communities benefit and the wetlands become pollutant free. ‘Many of the small-scale farmers had been complaining that their yields were getting worse every year. Several have already gone out of business and others are struggling to survive,’ says Maurits van den Berg, founding project leader for Best Management Practices for Small-scale Sugarcane Growers in the Amatikulu Catchment. ‘The green practices we are promoting will help to conserve this wetland-rich region, but, most importantly, they will ensure the survival of the small-scale sugarcane farmers.’

In Zululand small-scale sugar farmers are taught better land management practices to ensure thriving harvests for themselves, and for generations to come.

These revelations prompted the South African marine authorities to declare a ‘state of emergency’ in the linefishing industry in December 2000. Recognising the crisis, The Green Trust sponsored the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI), a widely acclaimed initiative aimed at conserving overexploited linefish and other seafood species through education and awareness. Since its inception in 2004, SASSI has informed and educated all participants in the seafood chain, from wholesalers to restaurant owners to seafood consumers, about the critical need for sustainable fishing and seafood consumption. Consumers across South Africa have responded with enthusiasm to SASSI’s multi-pronged awareness-raising programme, including the innovative FISHSMS, which now has over 10 000 consumers regularly using this service. Consumers can SMS the name of a fish or seafood species to 079 499 8795 and SASSI will immediately SMS back its status and whether it is a green-listed (eat away), orange-listed (avoid if possible) or red-listed species (don’t go near). On the fishery front, SASSI is collaborating closely with WWF-SA’s Responsible Fisheries Programme, which works with fishers and fishing companies to encourage responsible fishing practice across the board. SASSI has also achieved laudable buy-in from retailers, three of which – Pick n Pay, Woolworths and Spar – have joined the SASSI Retailer charter. What this means is that they are committed to providing more sustainable seafood to their customers. The seafood franchises are coming on board too, including John Dory and The Ocean Basket. Restaurants and chefs have been highly responsive to SASSI’s campaign, which encourages them to include green-listed species on their menu. It’s all about expanding their customers’ palates, away from the old favourites like kingklip, sole and prawns (all three are orange-listed) and encouraging them to order delicious, green-listed species like dorado, yellowtail and snoek. Several leading South African chefs, championed by Pete Goffe-Wood of Kitchen Cowboys, have teamed up with SASSI to create irresistible ‘green’ seafood dishes. SASSI’s goal is to influence each and every sector in the seafood chain of responsibility in South Africa.

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Nedbank’s green journey Working towards a low-carbon economy for South Africa In 1990 Nedbank set out on an incredible “green” journey that started with the launch of The Green Trust. In 2009 Nedbank was rated as South Africa’s Top Green Company (several surveys that year, including the Ask Afrika Trust Barometer and the Millward Brown Brand Awareness Survey, revealed that consumers view Nedbank as a “green” leader and as South Africa’s “greenest” company). A year later Nedbank declared its

‘‘

carbon neutral status. Today Nedbank is a leader in the “green” revolution, advancing

As members of

environmental sustainability in South Africa and helping to conserve our planet.

organisations, as

individuals and as citizens of a global economy that

threatens to move us into the uncharted territory of global warming, we can no longer afford to delay behaviour change. Gone are the days when business was able to shrug off environmental concerns as being incompatible with maximising shareholder value. Surveys show that South African consumers are concerned about climate change and other

‘‘

sustainability issues, and often prefer to support

businesses that respond to these issues.

Tom Boardman Nedbank Group’s former CEO

acknowledging that climate change is a pressing global issue requiring a cohesive response to ensure the preservation of our planet motivated us to lead the way,’ says Brigitte Burnett, Head of the Sustainability Portfolio for Nedbank Enterprise Governance and Compliance. ‘As South Africa’s Green Bank we play a huge role lobbying business and government to set standards for carbon emissions and emission control.’ Nedbank’s carbon-neutral status is based on its 2009 carbon footprint, calculated in January 2010. ‘Our carbon footprint for 2008 was approximately 130 000 tons of CO2, while the figure for 2009 increased to approximately 260 000 tons of CO2 because we included all our leased retail branches,’ explains Burnett. ‘To achieve carbon neutrality we set strict intensity reduction targets, and we offset the remainder of our emissions by investing in carbon initiatives and green projects.’ Nedbank is a signatory to the Carbon Disclosure Project, which encourages transparency from the corporate sector about how it is dealing with carbon emissions and climate change.

Measure, monitor, analyse To make sure it lives up to its name as South Africa’s top “green” company, Nedbank measures, monitors and analyses its carbon emissions and its footprint in order to continue reducing it. ‘Our close partnership with WWF offers us significant expertise in this field,’ adds Burnett. ‘We have also established the Nedbank Environmental Forum – a team of senior leaders within the bank who have the management expertise to analyse and monitor the Group’s ecological impact, and to offer advice on how to achieve the lightest possible footprint. ‘We set ourselves ambitious targets, known as “intensity reduction targets”, to reduce energy, water, waste, paper and carbon emissions across the group,’ says Howard Rauff, Head of Portfolio and Facilities Management at Nedbank’s Group Property Services. ‘We are already approaching the 12 percent target for reduction in energy consumption that we set ourselves to achieve by 2015, and we are tracking each and every kilolitre of water used across Nedbank’s 11 campus sites. ‘We are significantly reducing our carbon emissions by cutting down on local and international road and air travel, increasing our participation in teleconferencing and webinars (web-based seminars), reducing the number and size of hired cars used, and reducing energy and paper consumption. We monitor this, together with energy and water consumption and travel reduction, as part of employee performance scorecards. Where we can’t monitor usage individually, such as energy, then we assess it per building to encourage staff members to collaborate for the lowest footprint.

The Equator Principles The Nedbank Group was the first African bank to adopt the Equator Principles when it became a signatory, with effect from 1 January 2006. The Equator Principles are a set of international guidelines for banks to ensure that the projects they finance are developed in a socially and environmentally sound manner. Over 60 major banks and financial institutions worldwide have adopted the Equator Principles in the past six years – testament to their credibility and success.

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Mike Brown Nedbank Chief Executive Officer since 2010 Nedbank is truly proud of celebrating the 20th year of the Nedbank Green Affinity Programme and The Green Trust. First we would like to thank all our partners in this journey. Without the continued support of our Green Affinity clients we would not have been able to donate the sum of R100 million to The Green Trust. We also applaud WWF-SA: without their vision, dedication and commitment to conservation we would not be celebrating any of the key achievements profiled in this book. We are proud to announce that we have extended our relationship with WWF-SA into the future with a further commitment to The Green Trust to continue funding cuttingedge conservation projects. We are extending this relationship through the WWF Nedbank Conservation Partnership that was launched in 2005 and will continue into the future as the Nedbank WWF Climate Partnership. The partnership has helped Nedbank gain a better understanding of the sustainability requirements for business, government regulators, local communities, environmental groups and other important stakeholders. WWF-SA has provided guidance for our social and environmental risk management programmes, and has consistently challenged Nedbank to explore new frontiers. Through this partnership with WWF, Nedbank has become the first large corporate and only domestic bank to commit to being carbon neutral, cementing our commitment to ensuring that environmental considerations are central to all our operations and business decisions. In 2008 Nedbank publicly launched a Climate Change Position Statement in which we pledged to reduce our impact on the environment through reducing consumption of energy, water, paper and travel. Across the group we have incorporated reduction targets into business and individual performance scorecards in order to accelerate behavioural change. Ultimately, sustainability is about creating a better future, together. This philosophy lies at the heart of our sustainability journey, driving our commitment to Make Things Happen, for our clients, staff, partners and shareholders, as well as the communities and the natural environment in which we operate. Since 1990 Nedbank has received many accolades in this regard, such as being named the leading ‘green’ corporate in the Ask Afrika Trust, ranking number one in the South African Carbon Disclosure Project Leadership Index, and receiving a 4-star Green Star SA rating – the first such rating in the country – for our Nedbank Phase II building in Sandton. However, the real reward comes from knowing that we are doing business the right way; and in the process we are creating a bank, a country and a planet that offer a brighter future for all. As the first steps are taken towards formulating a comprehensive climate change policy for the country, Nedbank anticipates walking together with government, business and civil society in developing a ‘greener’ future. Central to this aspiration is our desire to serve clients across all of our businesses in exciting, innovative and relevant ways that enable them to participate in the shift to a low-carbon economy.

‘As the Green Bank we make sure that all project and finance proposals, including large property developments, mergers and acquisitions, are either assessed within the requirements of the Equator Principles, or within our best practice sector guidelines or within the sustainability risk principles of the International Finance Corporation,’ explains Leigh Hoekstra, Nedbank’s Head of Governance and Compliance for Investment Banking. ‘When a project is presented to us, our assessment includes its likely environmental impact, its carbon impact, its water impact, how it affects any people or communities living in the area, whether it complies with environmental and social laws and whether it falls within a culturally sensitive site. Where projects may have an impact, a social and environmental management plan must be incorporated into the project’s business processes to manage the impact, risks and corrective actions. Our clients are generally receptive to our recommendations, but if not, or the borrower is non-compliant, our policy is not to provide loans.’

Carbon Credits Established by Nedbank Capital, the Carbon Origination Desk is peopled by a cutting-edge Carbon Finance Team that is positioning Nedbank and its clients for an energy-efficient, carbonconstrained future.

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Being green is a

key differentiator

between Nedbank and our competitors. Our

green journey has taken a considerable amount of commitment, and it is not something that can be replicated overnight. Green is not a colour, it is a culture: it is about educating our employees; it is about considering our impact in the long term and the way we approach life. Today we can say with confidence that if people want good service, but also to be associated with

‘‘

a business that lives and breathes the green way, then we are the bank for them.

Selby Baqwa Head of Governance and Compliance at the Nedbank Group

‘Climate change is a critical issue that directly and indirectly affects the financial sector,’ says Nedbank’s Carbon Credit Originator, Karen van der Wath. ‘Combating climate change will involve large shifts in investment and financing patterns across a wide range of sectors. The fastest, most effective response to climate change is to approach it from a business perspective. At Nedbank Capital we are confident that money can be made from “green” initiatives. This way, it’s a win-win situation for business, for people and for our planet.’ The Carbon Origination Desk holistically manages the financing process for viable alternative/renewable energy projects, such as solar, wind, hydro, biogas, biomass and landfill sites, as well as forestry projects with community benefits that qualify for carbon credits. As a result of intensive groundwork, 2009 saw active registering of carbon credits and associated projects by developing countries such as China, Brazil and India. South Africa is leading the African continent with 17 out of the 36 African projects registered. Through a lengthy registration process, carbon credits are issued to the project and these Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits can be sold for a current average price of 10 Euros (R120) per ton of CO2. It is estimated that the price per ton will rise to 30 Euros (R360) per ton of CO2 by 2012, and keep rising. Carbon credits and carbon trading will gain significant territory in the next couple of years. It’s good news for the planet and it’s good news for business because the more you reduce your footprint, the more money there is to be made.

“Greening” your money ‘Our goal is to encourage the majority of Nedbank’s clients, large and small, to “green” their money,’ says Maseda Ratshikuni, Head of Cause Marketing & Affinities at Nedbank. As part of its Greening Your Money drive, Nedbank offers several products and services within its everevolving programme. ‘Within our Green Affinity Programme we have current accounts, savings accounts, investment products and eco-insurance options that offer clients the opportunity to contribute to environmental sustainability without its costing them a cent. If a client opts for a Green Affinity credit card, a percentage of every purchase with this credit card is donated to The Green Trust. With the Green Affinity current account, a percentage of every cheque ordered is donated to The Green Trust. With the Green Affinity savings account, a donation is made to The Green Trust when you open this account, as is a percentage of your daily credit balance. ‘On the “green” investment side, from fixed deposits to term deposits to money-market investments, Nedbank will make a donation to significant environmental initiatives, such as climate change mitigation, based on the percentage of your investment. Again, this does not cost you a cent,’ continues Ratshikuni. ‘We also recently introduced Eco insurance, where we pay a percentage of every premium for car, home, household contents or building insurance to The Green Trust.’

workshops covering the full range of “green issues”, such as what carbon offsetting means and how it works. The tools include educational DVDs with titles like Green Office, Green Home, Waste Management and Green Travel. ‘We also have an interactive “green” intranet site for all Nedbank staff,’ Wellsted explains. ‘It is linked to our website and each day we feature letters from our staff about what they have done to go greener – such as introducing a solar heater at home. We also feature a daily “green news banner”, “green tip of the day” and interesting “green articles”.’ Wellsted believes that “green collar” executive positions are soon going to be standard. ‘The “green way” needs to be entrenched at every level of our lives. In business and in government it needs to be driven from the top, with “reduce, recycle and re-use” targets included in employee scorecards across the board. Green collar posts need to be created in every large company, corporate and government department, and “green management” needs to drive the bottom line.’

Take a look at yourself ‘As the Green Bank, we are investing considerable effort into getting our house in order in all areas of environmental sustainability. From our operations to our carbon-neutral position, we are walking the walk, starting with our staff,’ says Maseda Ratshikuni. ‘In 2009 we focused on encouraging our staff to get involved in “green volunteer work”, and in 2010 we are tracking it,’ Ratshikuni explains. Nedbank offers significant community-minded incentives for volunteerism. For example, a staff member who commits to a sound environmental project for a minimum of six months stands to receive a donation of R200 000 for that project.

Deep Green Day Once a year Nedbank sets aside a day to celebrate its journey as the Green Bank. ‘All 29 000 staff members participate in this day, which we call Deep Green Day,’ explains organiser Elizabeth Florencio, Public Relations Manager for Nedbank Group Communications. ‘The heart of Deep Green Day 2009 was our head office at the 135 Rivonia campus where we had a “green market” in the atrium. Here, exhibitors, inventors, producers and NGOs showcased their “green wares”. Solar panels, organic vegetable schemes, energy-efficient

It starts with the staff ‘It starts with our staff members,’ says Nedbank Retail’s dedicated environmental sustainability manager, Nina Wellsted. ‘Each and every staff member helps us to champion the “green way” and to achieve our carbon neutral targets.’ Nedbank dedicated 2009 to “internal greening”, advancing Nedbank’s 29 000 staff members from “neutral greens” to “engaged greens”. Wellsted initiated several “green tools” which include

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light bulbs, wormeries for organic compost, organic chocolate, designer clothing made from recycled plastic bags and bottles … we featured them all.’ In support of Nedbank’s carbon-neutral target, staff members stepped out of their offices on Deep Green Day and got involved in community initiatives, such as planting indigenous trees at Eco-Schools and in disadvantaged communities.

Nedbank in the lead

Phase II of Nedbank’s head office campus became the first commercial building in South Africa to receive a 4-StarGreen-Star design rating from the Green Building Council of South Africa.

In October 2009, Phase II of Nedbank’s head office campus at 135 Rivonia Road became the first commercial building in South Africa to receive a 4-Star-Green-Star design rating from the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA). ‘We are proud to be pioneers in “green building”,’ says Charl de Kock, Head of Nedbank’s Group Property Services. “Green” factors incorporated in the design include, among others, a black-water treatment system. All water used in the building is recycled in the basement and re-used for non-potable water uses. This saves up to 120 kl of water per day. There’s an economy cycle in the air conditioning system while the energy-efficient lighting system automatically monitors, dims and switches off lights in all unoccupied offices. Phase II also has a Cycle Park with lockers and shower facilities for Nedbank staff member

to cycle to work or to make use of the Sandton Gautrain node, which is 500 m from the campus. ‘If we look at what is happening in the United States and Australia, green building is going to be huge in the next while,’ says De Kock. ‘We are on the map with Phase II.’

“Deep green” dining at Nedbank The Green Bank makes sure that food served in its campus canteens, dining rooms and at its events reflects its environmental sustainability ethos. To this end Nedbank has introduced “deep green guidelines” and contract requirements for all its caterers and kitchen-related contractors. One such requirement is that the caterers adhere to the Sea Food Chart, drawn up by The Green Trust-supported Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI). ‘We’ve a way to go but we have introduced several environmentally friendly catering initiatives on our campuses, based on the Green Catering guidelines drawn up by WWF,’ says Mike Kelly, Head of Nedbank Catering. ‘The food and wines we offer have become a talking point because we are going out of our way to source GreenChoice products,’ adds Andrew Kamanga, Nedbank’s National Food and Beverage manager. Foodstuffs are mainly sourced locally to reduce the carbon footprint associated with transport, and they have introduced 100 percent biodegradable take-away containers and cutlery at several campuses. ‘These are made from plantbased starches, as opposed to the petroleum-based plastic containers,’ explains Kamanga.

Green IT Computing generates 2–3 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases: a significant percentage in the overall picture, which is why Nedbank recognises that the heart of IT has to be sustainability. ‘Using existing technology, we are reducing the number of physical servers on each of our campuses and starting to run multiple applications, instead of just one, per server,’ says Kevin Kassel from Infrastructure and Operations at Nedbank’s Data Centre Services. On the software side, Kassel and his Green IT team are working towards introducing software that will enable them to switch off the entire group’s desktop environment overnight. ‘Everyone will still have the capability to switch on their PC if they need to work after hours, but the general switch-off will contribute to significant energy savings,’ he says. ‘Internationally, most technologies are becoming more environmentally friendly because big business expects it, so it’s a matter of time before we convert our whole system.’

Changing the way we think and live When you have over 4 000 suppliers and each one of them knows that your requirements are “green”, the knock-on effect in environmentally responsible behaviour is vast. ‘We insist on environmentally friendly practices in our tender documents and, when registering, our suppliers fill in an environmental questionnaire,’ says Howard Stephens, Chief Procurement Officer, whose team controls all products and services used by the Nedbank Group. ‘They all know where we are coming from and they have changed and grown with us. ‘In 2010 the environmental revolution is very much here. Because of this, companies all over the world are coming up with extraordinary products and ideas that will change the way we think and live within the next couple of years.’

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I believe in the power of nature and wild places. I will play my part in conserving the environment because when all is said and done, we all need to ask ourselves: ‘Am I contributing to the wellbeing of our planet; is there substance behind my name?

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Reuel J Khoza Chair of Nedbank Group

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Temporary caretakers: the next 20 years by Reuel J Khoza

The Green Trust has been the backbone of Nedbank’s pioneering environmental mission for the past 20 years. It has lived the ethos espoused by South Africa’s corporate governance icon, Mervyn King, The author

that we are all ‘temporary caretakers’ of planet Earth.

believe that Nedbank and The Green Trust have an important role to play in the ‘green revolution’. Armed with our knowledge, our resources, and the

many dedicated and committed people who drive our ‘green’ cause, we need to build on our achievements, and make sure that we lead the way as the first carbon-neutral bank in Africa. Mervyn King’s environmental message, as spelled out in his book Temporary Caretakers, resonates deeply with The Green Trust and Nedbank’s message. It is an extension of his call for good corporate governance:

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The directors and executives of all companies must direct their company

in such a way that they can say that their company has made its money as a

responsible corporate citizen. That is the critical issue that stakeholders will be asking

companies in the 21st century. Sustainability has become a critical issue in the running of businesses, and it is our duty to play our part to try and leave this Earth without having compromised the needs of those who come after us. There are increasing public demands for companies and governments to do something about climate change; to reduce the pollution of our waters; to reduce the use of timber; to improve the lives of 4 billion of the 6 billion people on our planet who live in poverty; to create and use alternative energy sources. There can no longer be a continuation of the use of energy sources, as we have known them. Great companies have to change

‘‘

their use of energy sources. Experts believe that the next big global conflict will be in regard to the availability of unpolluted water. In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, published in 2005, it was found that ecosystem services are being used unsustainably. This includes fresh water, fisheries and the air we breathe.

Chapter eight

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final word

Our goal at Nedbank and The Green Trust is to leave Nedbank and The Green Trust’s goal is to leave our planet for future generations in a far better state than it is today.

opposite:

our planet in a far better state than it is today. Because of our conscientious approach to corporate citizenship, an increasing number of environmentally concerned investors are choosing Nedbank, including the International Finance

Distinguished thinker, business executive, President of the Institute of Directors, Africanist, public speaker and change agent, Reuel J Khoza has been hailed as a role model to all in the duties and responsibilities that a citizen should take on. With an Honours degree in Psychology, a Masters degree in Marketing Management, a Doctorate in Business Engineering and an LLD honoris causa from Rhodes University, he is known for promoting the management philosophy of African humanism, or Ubuntu. In 1977 he was appointed Chair of Eskom, and he led the company until 2005. He is the author of Let Africa Lead, which carries the spirit of human empathy and the connection between community spirit and corporate vision into the business world. He is Chair of Nedbank and also Chair of The Green Trust’s Board of Trustees.

Corporation and the African Development Bank.

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Looking to the future, despite the disappointing, diluted decisions taken at Copenhagen in 2009, we remain hopeful that the hazards of global warming will be increasingly understood and rapidly and appropriately responded to by leaders in all walks of life: corporate, cultural, political, national, continental and global. It is our hope that nations great and small will cease to be self-serving and become magnanimous in their approach to tackling the global challenge of fighting global warming and climate change. I once again quote Mervyn King who argues that the challenge of global warming and the preservation of our planet is not a challenge confined to global leaders and corporations. It includes each and every individual who embraces the challenge to reduce their consumerism and the excessive use of everything we have at our disposal – from water to waste. At the Green Bank we have taken it upon ourselves to share this culture of conservation with all our staff members, contractors, suppliers and clients. We have the opportunity to extend our ethos deeper into Africa. We are already operational in Namibia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland, and we want to expand our presence in sub-Saharan Africa – organically or through partnerships, alliances and acquisitions. As we grow and expand, we will be conscientising all those with whom we are working along the way. Nedbank, the Nedbank Foundation and The Green Trust will step up their ‘green’, awareness-raising culture through the many wonderful programmes we sponsor like the EcoSchools Programme. Environmental education needs to be a key component in the curriculum We need to support and encourage the innovative development of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and to lighten our footprint on the planet. below and opposite:

in order to nurture environmentally conscious citizens of the future. We need to encourage learners to seek careers in the environment and we need to elevate environmental conservation to priority news status. On the bank’s carbon desk side, we need to be drivers of ‘green’ trading. I would rather there were no carbon to trade, but since this is not the reality, we need to support and encourage the innovative development of renewable energy sources to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. In a highly industrial society like ours it is impractical to denounce coal- or nuclear-generated energy, but we urgently need to move towards a better mix. We need to lighten our footprint, develop truly biodegradable products, recycle, reduce, re-use. In short, we need to stop being such a ‘throwaway’ society. These measures are not corrective like BBBEE (Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment); they are about survival, about the survival of our habitat and ourselves because we only have one planet Earth. In the next 20 years we need to take a giant leap towards survival and beyond survival towards environmental prosperity. Through all this, Nedbank and The Green Trust will continue to lead by example. In my capacity as Chair, I will play my part. I am a man of the land, I was a herd boy until I was 17 years old and I believe in the power of nature and wild places. I will play my part in conserving the environment because, when all is said and done, we all need to ask ourselves: ‘Am I contributing to the wellbeing of our planet; is there substance behind my name?’

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Picture credits

credits need to be checked eg additional Rooibos pics

Karin Schermbrucker: p.1, p.4, p.6, p.12, p.14, p.15, p.17, p.18, p.19, p.28, p.41, p.77, p.84, p.95, p.102 Dale Morris: p.1, p.4, p.8, p.9, p.45, p.46, p.47, p.62, p.90, p.102, p.112, p.113 Martin Harvey/WWF-Canon: p.1, p.2, p.4, p.33, p.36, p.42, p.51, p.52, p.53, p.92, p.105 Peter Chadwick: p.2, p.3, p.33, p.38, p.43, p.49, p.56, p.59, p.60, p.62, p.63, p.65, p.66, p.67, p.70, p.72, p.74, p.114 Flower Valley Conservation Trust (www. flowervalleytrust.org.za): outside front cover, p.2, p.96, p.102, p.103 Andrew Woodburn / Africa Imagery: p.5, p.59, p.69 Working on Fire: p.5, p.75, p.81 Images of Africa: p.5 Lorraine Private Cellar: p.5, p.101 Carlos g. Vallecillo/WWF-Canon: p.5, p.116 Greg Laws: p.20 Kim van Wijk: p.21 Roger de la Harpe/Africa Imagery: p.22, p.30, p.61, p.89, p.90, p.98 Brent Stirton Getty Images: p.26, p.105 Dawie Verwey: p.27 Michael le Grange: p.27

Michael Bulugha: p.31 Ariadne van Zandbergen/African Imagery: p.32 Jurgen Freund/WWF-Canon: p.33 Martin Ramothibe: p.34 Andrey Nekrasov/WWF-Canon: p.39 Roger Leguen: p.39, p.98 Jan Menzel: p.40 Guy Stubbs: p.29, p.42, p.66, p.75 Enkangala Grasslands Project: p.75, p.78, p.79, Bruce Sutherland: p.80 Ukuvuka Campaign: p.81 Saskia Fourie: p.82 Sarah-Leigh Paul: p.82 Alex Craib: p.83 Wildlands Conservation Trust: p.86, p.87, p.93 South African Wildlife College: p.86, p.91 Ingrid van den Berg/Africa Imagery: p.88 ThĂŠrĂ¨se Brinkcate: p.90 Heather Dugmore: p.48, p.93 Nigel Dennis/Africa Imagery: p.94 Waverley Hills: p.100 Graeme Robinson/Waverley Hills: p.100, p.101 Lamotte: p.102 Jaco Barendse: p.104 Thomas Peschak: p.58, p.68, p.104, p.117

Richard Perkins/WWF-UK: p.105 Helen Gordon/WWF-SA: p.age 105 Professor George Branch: p.71 Peter and Even Timm, Triton Drive, Sodwana: p.71 Dennis King: p.71 Kerry Sink: p.67 Pippa Herrington: p.60, p.64, p.65 Mabula ground hornbill project: p.54 Bradley Gibbons: p.52 Louis du Preez: p.48 WWF-SA: p.4, p.16, p.21, p.23, p.24, p.27, p.29, p.32, p.35, p.44, p.49, p.55, p.76, p.77, p.104 WWF-Canon: p.50, p.99 Holy Cross Primary School: p.27 Albert Froneman: p.121 Articles: Page 45: Zululand Observer Weekend Page 67: Wildside Magazine Page 106: Business Report (national) 29 September 2009

Blue crane numbers have stabilised, thanks to The Green Trust-funded conservation project.

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