Winner ‒ Environmental best practice in not-for-profit organisations:
The National Association of Conservancies of South Africa
Four years ago the National Association of Conservancies of South Africa (Nacsa) did not exist. Now it operates in seven provinces, with 750 conservancies, protecting about 30-million hectares of land.
“That is five times more than SANParks and the provinces control, and we do it on no budget at all,” says Nacsa chairperson Anthony Duigan.
Nacsa is powerful because of the passion and commitment of its members. “If we are to strive for healthy communities within a healthy environment we have to protect the spaces that sustain us,” says Duigan. “Citizens are empowered to oppose powerful and elitist developers. We manage the land at community level. That’s our strength.”
The Greening the Future judges commended the organisation for its “impressive network … making a big impact, despite limited resources”. The judges also felt “the conservancies kept plugging away at the sticky land management and ownership issues”.
The conservancies association is represented on the Wildlife and Environment Society’s NGO forum and is applying for World Conservation Union membership.
Although the Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and Free state still have to formalise provincial conservancy associations, the movement is strong in these provinces.
“A conservancy is a community-based conservation initiative,” Duigan says. “It is a registered voluntary association of land owners and users who decide to ‘pool’ and manage their land in a sustainable manner without necessarily compromising their normal land use.”
Mpumalanga has a great deal of land under government protection, including Big Five reserves, the Blyde River Canyon area and the Barberton Nature Reserve. Negotiations are under way to form a provincial conservancy association. Conservancies allow for frogging in the Chrissiesmeer area, birding in Wakkerstroom, black leopards in Lydenburg and fly fishing in the Kwena Basin.
Although it has no formal provincial conservancy association, the Northern Cape is home to some of the most interesting conservancies in the country, including the Riverine Rabbit Brakrivier Conservancy in the Victoria West district. The conservancy covers 70 000ha of private farmland and is home to some of the estimated 250 riverine rabbits left in the wild today. The species is listed as critically endangered.
The province also has a recycling project in the Vluytieskraal Conservancy in Orania and a Yellow fish Project in Warrenton.
The Free State does not have a provincial conservancy association, but it boasts some vital projects: the Clarens bio-region conservancy; the Kliprivier conservancy, which is part of the Seekoeivlei Ramsar Site; and the Vredefort Dome Conservancy in a vast crater formed by a meteorite, which was recently declared a World Heritage Site. The latter conservancy is threatened by the proposed development of three golf estates.
KwaZulu-Natal formed the country’s first provincial conservancy association in 1981. Besides being the custodian of Big Five reserves on savannah veld, the province boasts one of the most interesting conservancies: a rubbish dump.
The Mariannhill landfill site has been “greened” under the guidance of rehabilitation specialist Richard Winn and now serves as one of the province’s foremost environmental education centres. School tours are taken to view biological control of invasive aliens, a constructed wetland, bird hide, grasslands, a leachate treatment plant and a gas-to-energy project.
Nacsa biodiversity coordinator Jean Lindsay, who worked at Mariannhill for four years, explains that the conservancy is a working landfill.
“The landfill rehabilitates as it goes along; each day at four rubbish is covered with soil to repel flies. The rubbish is being deposited now in ‘cell two’. Cell one has been fully covered and revegetated.
“It looks like a mountain covered with trees and grass. A borrow pit near the top of the ‘mountain’, which collects rainwater, has been converted into a thriving wetland. Animals are returning to the site.”
Limpopo is setting a good example. The province’s new Environmental Management Act refers to “conservancies” as “protected resource use areas”, thereby giving them legal protection.
The Waterberg Nature Conservancy has more than 150 000ha under protection. It employs more than 1 000 people and has become the platform from which the Waterberg Biosphere concept was launched.
This biosphere reserve — one of only 400 in the world to be recognised by Unesco — is threatened by golf estates and hundreds of new housing developments.
Golf courses use enormous amounts of water and destroy biodiversity. This threatens the very countryside that the developers are selling. “This is fraudulent marketing since it sells ‘countryside’ and then covers it up with kikuyu or concrete,” says Duigan.
Gauteng also features an interesting mix of conservancies, ranging from rural to urban, industrial, informal settlement and school conservancies. Many are threatened by development.
“The wonderful thing about the conservancy concept is that it can apply to many different land uses from rural to industrial,” Duigan points out. “We are not anti-Âdevelopment, but we want appropriate development that is respectful of the countryside, the heritage and existing land use. For example, in the old suburbs of Jo’burg, such as Bertrams or Houghton, you should not destroy heritage buildings for development.”
“Likewise, the Greater Kyalami Conservancy seeks to preserve the open spaces, giant bullfrog habitat and the horses. Linbro Park is a similar agricultural gem near the inner city.
“We have estimated that there are 97 000ha within Gauteng’s urban edge that can be densified without affecting any green belts or conservancies. Developments must be correctly scaled to suit the quality of space and quality of life in any given area. We believe in stewardship not consumerism. We aim to be stewards of our natural and cultural resources. Then our children will be able to enjoy them too.”
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