Small deeds, despite the sceptics, can make a difference. In Soweto, a community clean-up campaign is helping to restore wetlands that have suffered from decades of pollution. Members of organisations such as the Mayibuye Wetlands Programme are spending hours cleaning up the Klip River, which has been described as one of the most polluted rivers in Gauteng.
Mayibuye (isiZulu for bringing back) is headed by Patrick Kwelepeta, a Soweto resident. He works with a team of local volunteers to restore natural environments along the Klip River. ‘Our mission is to get people to understand the direct link between the state of their health and the state of the environment,” he says. ‘Every one of us can help and every one of us needs to ask: Am I helping to restore the natural environment and uplift the lives of those around me?”
On World Wetlands Day this year, Kwelepta hopes to show that the Klip River catchment can be restored to its former glory. ‘We will also show people the work we have been doing during the rehabilitation process.”
Wetlands are little miracles, among the Earth’s most productive ecosystems because of the huge variety of plants and animals they support. They act like sponges, slowing down flood waters, storing water when it rains and then releasing it slowly during the dry season, helping to ensure a steady river flow and clean water.
But South Africa has lost half of its wetlands to human development, creating a situation in which the wetland is no longer able to purify water adequately. Even more alarming is that much of the heavy-metal pollution stored in the peat of the wetland for the past century could be released back into the water, creating a dangerous situation.
In Soweto the Klip River wetland plays a valuable role in improving the quality of water flowing through the system and into the Vaal River. The wetland has been an important asset for Johannesburg, initially as a source of water and later as a purifier of polluted water.
But during the past few decades the Klip River has suffered degradation. The river’s catchment receives high levels of pollutants from gold mines in the western Witwatersrand. Waste from industry, urbanisation, and dirt from the street also get flushed into the river. If the wetland did not exist, water downstream would contain considerably higher levels of heavy metals and uranium.
Apart from Mayibuye, other community organisations have also committed themselves to improving the health of the wetland, and the City of Johannesburg has donated funds for rehabilitating sections of the Klip River through its Mayoral Legacy Project.
The national environmental programme, Working for Wetlands, has identified the Klip River wetland as a priority for future rehabilitation work and is already active in the river’s catchment.
Funded by the department of water affairs and forestry, the programme employs members of the community to help rehabilitate the Klip River wetland.
Agnes Mtshali, of the Working for Wetlands echo-warriors team, says the Soweto wetlands project faced difficulties from the start. ‘We had a lot of problems; no one knew what a wetland was and didn’t understand how it would benefit them if they conserved it, but now communities in Soweto are slowly starting to see and reap the benefits of safeguarding the township’s wetlands.”
Thomani Mamulungufhala, the provincial coordinator for the programme, agrees, adding that using people from the community has given them a sense that they own the river. ‘In a small way, what we are doing is preserving the system, bit by bit,” he says.
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