Jakkals River Maintenance & Management Plan

The Groenlandberg Conservancy, established in 1994 by a handful of farmers, under the chairmanship of Dr Paul Cluver has been making an ever-increasing contribution to conservation on private and state-owned land over the past two decades. There are currently 39 active and passionate members that are committed to environmental conservation, sustainability and social uplifting.

The Conservancy has a very dedicated committee, who gets together regularly.  The committee members are Stephen Rabe (chairman), Dr. Paul Cluver, Mike du Toit, Nancy Muzlai, Tony Davenport, Sebastian Beaumont, Neville van Buuren with CapeNature and DEA representatives also attending committee meetings. The Conservancy employs a part-time administrator and project manager, Anne Visser.

The Conservancy has been fortunate in partnering with key organisations like the Table Mountain Fund (TMF), who has been fundamental in making many of their conservation projects possible.

A 24-month alien clearing project along the Jakkals River was successfully completed in 2017, with generous funding received from TMF.  Landowners have committed to keep the designated areas clear from all alien vegetation, after initial clearing took place, to ensure long-term conservation of the areas. Ongoing maintenance has been planned along the Jakkals River and its catchment.

The important role of the Jakkals River in the Elgin and Bot River catchment and cleansing areas has been heightened as a direct result of the integrated alien vegetation clearing program.

In 2018 the need was thus identified to develop a Maintenance and Management Plan for the Jakkals river. The Conservancy, with help from river consultants, submitted a proposal to TMF requesting funding to initiate a second phase looking at “Integrated rehabilitation of the Jakkals River ecosystem”.

The Conservancy was successful with this proposal and received further funding from TMF to engage with a river specialist and assess measures that can be implemented to rehabilitate the functionality of the river system.

The river system is currently threatened by large flood flows that results in an eroded river. Cleared lands and river banks are vulnerable to flooding and further channeling of the river. The river floods appear to be more destructive every year, resulting in major environmental, agricultural and infrastructural damage.

After extensive research, landowner engagements and site visits, a Maintenance and Management Plan was prepared by Dr. Liz Day, an independent freshwater consultant, as the mechanism for managing and achieving the project objectives. The plan has been submitted to DEADP and the Conservancy is eagerly awaiting approval.

The primary objectives of the project are to to rehabilitate forests, cleared lands and river banks with indigenous plantings, to design and agree on a River Management Plan, and to ultimately restore a healthy shape to the Jakkals River.

Alien Plants in South Africa

Alien vegetation refers to plants that are not native in a country and have been brought into a country from another. The Department of Environmental Affairs in South Africa describes invading alien plants as the biggest threat to plant and animal biodiversity. The impact, however, goes further than harming just the environment. It also has huge economic implications with an estimated R600 million cost per year to clear the over 10 million hectares of land in South Afrca. For more stats on alien plant invasions in South Africa have a look here.

The most threatening alien plants in the Western Cape according to Cape Nature are:

• Rooikrans
• Black Wattle
• Port Jackson
• Silky hakea
• Long-leafed wattle
• Stinkbean
• Australian Myrtle
• Spider gum
• Cluster pine
• Blackwood

The impact of alien plants

You might wonder why alien plants are so bad as generally we think the more plants the better, but this is not the case. The Department of Environmental Affairs list the following problems alien plants can cause:

• Use up precious water
• Take up favourable spaces were indigenous plants could have grown
• Reduce our ability to farm
• Intensify flooding and fires
• Cause erosion
• Destruction of rivers
• Siltation of dams and estuaries
• Poor water quality
• Lead to extinction of indigenous plants and animals

In the Western Cape alien vegetation also holds serious threats to the fynbos. Although fire is good for fynbos (read our previous post about this here), some alien trees are very flammable and cause frequent and very hot fires (Sanparks).

The task of managing alien vegetation lies mainly with landowners. Here is a list of alien invasive plants in South Africa.

Also have a look at these alien vegetation management guidelines, and have a look at the Department of Water & Forestry’s go-to-guide on cleaning invasive alien plants here.

Helpful alien clearing guidelines

We have been supplied with a fantastic resource, courtesy of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve.

I would urge you all to download these by following the links below:

The Invasive Alien Species guidelines is a comprehensive guide with easy to reference sections. Covering all best practices for clearing methods and herbicide use:

Palmiet Clearing Guidelines_FINAL_23Jluly12(1)

Herbicide Registrations for Invader Weed Control – a full list of species type and herbicide to use – with dosage instructions:

Herbicide Registrationsn June2015

Thank You to the KBRC for sharing this knowledge