Restoring the Landscape to Secure Port Elizabeth a Sustainable Future
Location: SOUTH AFRICA
Through a 20-year partnership with local organizations, Commonland is exploring the potential of restoration to generate social, ecological and financial capital for the people of the Port Elizabeth catchment area.
Decades of unsustainable practice have rendered the Port Elizabeth catchment area, a region crucial for the supply of water and food to millions, more vulnerable to droughts and flooding. Through a long-running program of restoration initiatives, Commonland is helping put local people back in touch with the land to build their resiliency.
PARTNERS
In 2014, international land restoration advocates Commonland established a partnership with a number of local institutions dedicated to regenerating the Port Elizabeth catchment area:
Living Lands
Grounded
The Baviaanskloof Development Company
The Baviaanskloof Heartland Conservancy
The Langkloof Honeybush Company
The Langkloof Honeybush Association
AIMS
Commonland and its partners are working to highlight the social, ecological and business cases for turning over a high proportion of land in the Port Elizabeth catchment area to regenerative management. Their goals are ambitious - within 20 years they expect at least 32,000 hectares of land to be managed for either direct rehabilitation or regenerative agriculture. This will be achieved through a program of initiatives run by many organisations and groups, from engagement efforts, to ecological interventions, to the development of sustainable businesses.
An important part of this work is engaging with local people to bring them into relationships with the initiatives and with their land. Commonland has been running workshops in the area for several years now and expects to have reached at least 10,000 people by the end of 2020.
Regeneration cannot and should not take place outside of the local economy - in fact, job creation is an intrinsic part of the partnership’s work. They aim to create around 500 jobs through their initiatives, empowering local people to take an active role in the regeneration of their landscape.
CONTEXT
Port Elizabeth, a city on the South-Eastern corner of South Africa, is home to over one million inhabitants. 70% of the water those people use is supplied by the 500,000 hectares of the Port Elizabeth catchment area, which consists of the Baviaans, Kouga, and Krom catchments. The area also plays a crucial role in South Africa’s food production.
In recent years it has become clear that the catchment area is suffering from decades of overgrazing and unsustainable land management. The loss of carbon capture, biodiversity and soil fertility have all led to a significant reduction in agricultural potential in the region. The land has also lost much of its ability to absorb, retain and transport water as soils have been degraded and invasive plants have interrupted pre-existing equilibriums in the water cycle. Climate change has exacerbated these issues, accelerating the impacts of droughts and floods both in the catchments themselves and downstream in Port Elizabeth. All of these factors are combining to put the livelihoods of farmers, the industries of Port Elizabeth and the employment of local people at risk.
In 2014, the international organisation Commonland partnered with local groups, Grounded and Living Lands to explore the possibilities of large-scale landscape regeneration in the catchment area. The partnership’s focus is long-term - they recognize that deep restoration of ecosystems can’t happen overnight, and are committed to working in the region for at least 20 years.
METHOD
Since the formation of the partnership, a number of different practical activities with potential to restore the landscape of the catchment area have been taken up locally. Invasive plant species are being cleared to minimize ecosystem disruption and make space for the planting of indigenous crops. Holistic grazing management practices and sustainable harvesting methods are starting to replenish the ability of local soils to capture carbon and retain water. Degraded hillsides and alluvial fan areas are being restored through large-scale tree-planting, sponsored by corporate partners.
Alongside the emotional investment in restoration that is emerging from community engagement, local populations are also becoming economically invested in restoration projects through the development of new businesses. The Baviaanskloof Development Company (Baviaanskloof Devco) is a farmer-owned business which delivers capital to local farmers, empowering them to participate in regeneration work. To date Baviaanskloof Devco has secured over 2.5 million Euro in funding. Its primary focus is on opportunities for regenerative aromatics and essential oils crops, as more sustainable and profitable alternatives to the traditional goat farming which often contributes to overgrazing.