A scheme that pays unemployed people to abseil down cliffs and hack plants with chainsaws is claimed to be a model for how the world should tackle invasive alien species.
South Africa has been chosen to spearhead an international initiative against destructive plants and wild-life, after mobilising its township poor to save indigenous habitats.
Teams using helicopters and rock-climbing equipment purge mountains of non-native vegetation — often a perilous mission for which they earn about R74 a day. Lives and limbs have been lost to chainsaws, and in falls.
South Africa was chosen as the headquarters of the Global Invasive Species Programme, an organisation set up by the World Conservation Union and other environmental organisations. A World Bank-funded secretariat in the Kirstenbosch botanic gardens will be launched in January to coordinate a global response and share successful techniques.
So far the programme has cleared one million hectares of alien species, in what is said to be Africa’s biggest conservation project to control a ”cancer” that threatens biodiversity and water supplies.
”The work is extremely tough, it’s dangerous and the pay is not good. But we’re keen to employ as many people as we can, to give them the dignity of work,” said Guy Preston, head of the the programme, last week.
The introduction of alien plant species to new habitats can lead to the extinction of native species and can have a devastating impact on agriculture, fishing and water supplies.
European colonialists who imported Australian and American plants as hedges, windbreaks and garden decorations are blamed for many of Africa’s problems because of their spread.
”It is analogous to a cancer, like cells in the human body causing destruction. There is a risk of a massive loss of biodiversity in many parts of the world,” Preston said.
Only a small minority of the workforce operate at high altitudes, but their work is crucial.
Recently an eight-person team abseiled from the Voelvlei mountain in an area called Somchem near Cape Town, to clear hakea plants, an Australian import that is worsening the drought and threatening proteas.
Wearing a helmet and gloves Ferdy Carolus (27) used ropes to lower himself over an outcrop and attack a hakea with a chainsaw. It took four minutes for the blade to scythe through the thick branches and cast the hakea into the gorge, after which he smeared a herbicide on the stumps.
”In the beginning I was scared and my mother kept asking me to be careful. But now I’m used to it. I do my job and I go home,” he said.
The Western Cape mountain teams have suffered three fatalities, Louise Deroubaix, a conservation manager said. ”We also have people losing limbs to the chainsaws or having an eye poked out.”
But she said morale tended to be good, even among the non-specialised workers who earned about R35 a day.
Despite the mass mobilisation, victory is far away, since the invaders affect 10-million hectares — 8% of the country. Of the one million hectares that have been cleared, not a single invasive species has been eradicated, merely controlled, said Preston. At least three follow-up applications of herbicide are needed. — Â