Fiona Macleod
The future of conservation lies in the hands of communities and individuals like those involved in the Klipkop Conservancy, said the judges when they moved this project from the Natural Resources category to Overall Winner (Emerging) this year.
The story of the Klipkop Conservancy started when the Loots family bought a farm about 12km north-east of Bapsfontein, on the East Rand, in the early 1980s. Though the land around Bapsfontein is flat and known for its maize fields, Klipkop is a hilly area. Slate was mined there, but the soil is not suitable for arable farming.
Old man Loots tried to persuade his neighbours that the best land use in Klipkop would be a game reserve, but they were not interested. In the late 1980s he started erecting a game fence around his property, hoping that once they saw what he was doing they would agree to join the scheme.
Heavy rains badly damaged a large section of his fence when it was only half finished. Discouraged by this setback and the continued lack of support, the Loots family abandoned the project and moved away from Klipkop in 1994.
“Sadly, it seemed to take this event to make the rest of the residents begin to realise the potential of the idea,” says Mary Lewis, a member of the conservancy.
By then Hugh Patrickson, former chief ecologist at the Pilanesberg reserve, was living in Klipkop and he joined a couple of other residents campaigning for a conservancy.
Their campaign was so successful that at a gathering in January 1995, more than 80% of the residents voted in favour of the idea. The Town and Country Planning Office ratified the decision, a committee was elected and a constitution was drawn up.
The idea was to set up a non-profit organisation comprising local residents concerned with maintaining the environment. The primary goals of the conservancy were to protect the area from creeping urbanisation and to conserve its biotic diversity.
The vegetation found in Klipkop is known as Bankenveld, which is unique to the Highveld. It used to cover 24 000ha, but 65% of this land has been transformed into urban areas or farmland. Today only 1,38% of Bankenveld is conserved.
When businessman Karl Gribnitz moved on to the farm abandoned by the Loots family, the Klipkop Conservancy really took off. He fixed the damaged game fence and Eskom donated enough poles to finish off phase one of the reserve’s fencing.
A landowners’ association was registered, with a ratified constitution and a board of directors. Residents who want to join the association agree to lease their land to it for 25 years, with an option to renew for another 25 years.
“According to a recent article in Magnum magazine, many ‘normal’ game farms are now in serious financial difficulties because considerable amounts of money were borrowed to set them up, with a view to attracting overseas visitors wishing to hunt for trophies. However, the number of such visitors has fallen far short of that anticipated,” says Lewis. “Klipkop is very different in that no money was borrowed from outside concerns.
“The members of the association have used their own money to set up the project and started a loan account system so that other landowners interested in joining who don’t have sufficient money to pay for the fencing can get the funds from the association. They pay back the loan by renting the land to the association and by waiving the right to any profit generated by culling or sale of game.”
The members of the association are adamant there will be no trophy hunting or “biltong hunting” at Klipkop.
“But we are realistic enough to know animals cannot be released into a limited are with no natural predators and just left to breed. When necessary, the animals will be captured, sold and relocated,” says Lewis.
But those decisions are still a way off. A number of buck have been released into the reserve and a post-trauma animal rehabilitation centre has been set up under the stewardship of Natanya Dreyer. Of the 195 small animals and birds rehabilitated at the centre so far, 164 have been successfully released on Klipkop.
More animals will be reintroduced as the reserve grows. Now 250ha, the next phase will see it grow to 400ha with the final aim being to finish with a reserve of 3 000ha.
Besides the jobs the reserve has created, it serves the extended local communities through educational workshops, school visits and recreational excursions. Technikon SA students have volunteered their services, and overseas students have offered to pay to stay at Klipkop and help out.
The activities these students undertake are as diverse and energetic as the projects started at Klipkop in the past few years: invader plant control, soil erosion control, fire control, small mammal surveys, game counts, wildlife rehabilitation, water quality monitoring, recycling.
“Klipkop is not for the enjoyment of the limited few who have large sums of money to spend on their leisure,” explains Lewis. “It is for the local population, many of whom do not have the means to enjoy other conservation areas.”
Klipkop is 45km from the centre of Pretoria and 55km from Sandton. Lewis is a human physiologist and business person who has worked in areas as diverse as Garankuwa and Johannesburg.
When asked why she has added her 43ha farm to the Klipkop Conservancy, she says: “As I watch Pretoria, Johannesburg and the East Rand creeping ever closer and closer, I feel it is critical that not all of our green areas are overrun with roads, buildings and industry, but that some are preserved for people to enjoy.”