Lynda Gilfillan
‘Seen from above – from a plane, for instance – South Africa is a dry and empty land: rock and stunted bush, grey and khaki. The landscape art and literature of South Africa’s white settlers harped on the barrenness of their new home, and on its indifference to whether they starved or prospered, lived or died.” JM Coetzee’s description is true particularly of the Nama-Karoo, the dry vastness that comprises some 27% of Southern Africa.
Before the arrival of the settlers, what they saw as an “inhumanly empty landscape” had sustained indigenous people for centuries. This was a time before fences were erected and exotic breeds imported, and before the land was used merely for profit rather than survival.
Years of exploitative or ignorant usage have damaged the Karoo, but now a series of nationwide research projects are attempting to restore the veld. One project into researching and evaluating land restoration technologies is being jointly run by Dr Klaus Kellner of the University of Potchefstroom, and the Department of Agriculture. Based in the arid zone of the Nama-Karoo – where average annual rainfall varies between 200mm and 600mm – the project includes NGOs, community structures and farmers. Eleven sites have been established throughout the country.
One location in the Middelburg district of the Eastern Cape is being restored by Kellner in collaboration with Dr Karen Esler of Stellenbosch University. Here a restoration site has been established on a typically bare, apparently infertile patch of land known locally as a brak kol.
The plot is laid out and subjected to a variety of restoration technologies, including breaking the surface of the soil by ploughing, fertilisation with organic matter such as animal manure, and brush- packing (laying the dead branches of trees across the soil). These technologies approximate naturally occurring processes – for example when animals trample the soil’s surface, thus pressing seeds into the soil, or when dead branches act as barriers, preventing seeds from blowing away and protecting young plants from animals. After germination and growth are thus encouraged, the plots are planted with shrubs and grasses that are nutritious and appeal to domestic stock such as sheep and cattle. Because these plants are locally adapted to the area, their survival rate is likely to be high. In time, the plot will be used for educative purposes for the broader community – including farmers and students at local educational institutions who will be able to view a practical example of veld restoration technologies and become agents in the restoration of our land.
In a related project funded by the European Union and the National Research Foundation, Esler is conducting research on the upper reaches of the characteristic flat-topped mountains (mesas) of the area. Because they are inaccessible, these mesas may contain vegetation that has survived a century of settler overgrazing. They are potential island “arks” where plants have survived and which may provide the means to restore the biodiversity of the area.
In areas such as the Karoo, land- degradation is the result of over-grazing, particularly by small stock such as sheep. With the farming industry under threat from the market effects of globalisation, commercial farmers – many the descendants of settlers – are showing interest in the issue.
Since last year, farmers have been invited to meetings throughout South Africa for consultation on veld restoration. However, while farming returns continue to spiral downwards, for many the only alternative to bankruptcy is to continue to exploit the land on a short-term basis.
In addition, the long-term view – gradual restoration of the land – is foreign to many members of a community who continue to do things as their fathers did.
The view of one descendant of a settler family in the Karoo is fairly typical: “Inheriting this farm [all 5 000ha of it] is a liability for my children – let them go where the future is, and become computer specialists instead.”
Nevertheless, there are many farmers who have been forced to experiment with various restoration techniques because of the deterioration of their land. There are also farmers who see themselves as custodians rather than owners, and who welcome the recent interventions that are the result of such collaborations. Ken Southey, a fifth- generation farmer, stresses the need for farmers to develop “an empathy with the land.
“A project like this encourages interaction between conservationists and farmers, and will help promote a greater understanding of the dynamics of the veld,” he said.
Another hazard facing the Karoo is global warming. However, Esler remains cautiously optimistic even in the face of speculation that temperatures in the Karoo could rise between 1_C and 3,5_C over the next 50 years: “The Karoo has a very slow rate of recovery because it is entirely dependent on rain.
“But the situation can be actively changed if we try to understand how the system functions and what the influences of veld-management, grazing practices and climate have on the environment.”
The results of the research currently being conducted will impact not only on the lives of people in Southern Africa but also on those of the 1,5-billion people who currently live in the drylands that comprise 47% of the Earth’s surface.