The end of 2011 at Kirstenbosch Research Centre

I was just switching off my computer for the last time in 2011, when I thought the moment deserved a bit more ceremony than that.  So I grabbed my camera and stepped outside to catch an image from the front door here at the Centre.   Here is a final blog posting, accompanied by an old year look up at the amazing east face of Table Mountain that towers over us during our normal working day..  Mostly it just towers while we get on with all of the hugely important things that we need to get on with in biodiversity research, planning, policy advising.  Sometimes a visitor will remind us that the mountain  is overpoweringly there, and we'll have to glance up and agree as enthusiastically as possible  before we dive back into the virtual labyrinth behind our computer screens and meeting rooms to solve the problems that beset biodiversity conservation around the world.   But right now I'm going to send this on its way and take a few days off and try to regain some perspective, take stock of the good and productive things that happened in 2011, lament some of the unfortunate ones (like the scratch on the lens of my dear dear G10), and work out what I do to improve the good to bad ratio.  Let's hope that 2011 will turn out to be a year when we look more at the mountain, less at the politics of panic, and understand more deeply the economics of  nature.   Cheers..  Geo

Beehive interviews at COP17

Yannick Glemarec of UNDP talks to Kristal Maze
 in the Living Beehive

A number of leading biodiversity and climate change thinkers came past the Living Beehive at Durban Botanic Gardens  during COP17.   Some of those that we interviewed for a film on "Making the Case for Biodiversity" were:   Peter Seligmann, CEO of Conservation International; Yannick Glemarec, UNDP; Mcebisi Jonas, Eastern Cape MEC;  Simon Susman, CEO of Woolworths; and Carlor Manuel Rodriguies, Conservation International.    Listen to their interviews on the SANBI website:  <Click here>,  and for a video montage compiled by iKind Media, click <on this link to the vimeo site>

What is a Living Beehive?.

CLICK HERE for the 4-part process 

...and how might a Living Beehive find a place in the frenzy of the Climate Change COP17?
The explanation will be too long for a blog post, so let us just say that it's an installation that brings together sophisticated structural steel design, innovative vertical horticulture, glimpses of traditional uses of biodiversity, and a magical space that soothes the human soul.   You can have a look at a quick visual account of its growth on you-tube , or you can watch a more comprehensive version at  http://vimeo.com/32395022 .   See you in Durban 28 Nov to 9 Dec 2011.

The good news is that the Beehive, unlike most of the COP17 razzamatazz, will live on as a permanent feature of Durban Botanic Gardens. 

Growing Together: the learning cycle in urban nature conservation

This is a hurriedly posted blog to draw your attention to a short video clip on you-tube.
In it, Tanya Layne talks about experiences gained during the lifespan of the project Cape Flats Nature, and publication of the book "Growing Together"

Hear what she has to say by going to :    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh5XI9z7XRc

I'll finish this off after I come back from leave in November

George

Making the Case for Biodiversity

A new SANBI video has been posted on You Tube.  It covers an exciting exploratory workshop  held at Kirstenbosch on 13 June 2011.    I'll give a fuller description of it  here in the next few days, but you can still go and listen to a conversation between Kristal Maze, SANBI Chief Director of Biodiversity Mainstreaming, and Mike Freedman, facilitator from Freedthinkers..

click the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKhqL4hYLa0

In Namaqualand with Conservation South Africa (4): A quick retrospective at Leliefontein and then down to the Coast

This posting  is just a place saver for the video material that I still need to edit from the trip with CSA.
I have some material from an earlier visit to Leliefontein, which is an interview with Bertus Meisenheimer and Henry Engelbrecht about the CSA's project Biodiversity and Red Meat Initiative (BRI).  This project looks to local smallstock farmers and asks them to engage with the very real, and very difficult problem that they face in coming to terms with the fact that stock numbers are negatively affecting the landscape, with overgrazing leading to degradation of vegetation, erosion, and impact son water resources.   There is no easy answer.  That is a short piece that I want to include for Leliefontein before we get into the car and travel down to Port Nolloth where we visit two further Skeppies projects.   (I will need to explain this thing about Skeppies, probably simply as a hyperlink to that funding structure that allows resources to flow to the kinds of projects covered by this series of video clips).   At Port Nolloth we meet with two young female volunteers who oversee the Port Nolloth Bird Park, which is a restoration project that is has reclaimed the estuarine habitat from neglect and degradation, and established a potentially important resource for local recreation and education.    The second project is a much more hardcore economic initiative, involving the harvesting of kelp from the beaches adjacent to Port Nolloth.  Harvested kelp is dried, shredded and packed,  and then sold into the market as fertilizer.   Living off the edge of the land.  Malinda Gardiner again narrates us through these two projects at the sea.    

I hope to have these clips posted in the next week or two.  Life has just got a bit too busy right now to try to fit them in.

In Namaqualand with Conservation South Africa (3): The Church Wetland

Visit the Leliefontein church wetland at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r3QFAY00e0

<this entry still very much in draft form.... I hope to get back to it in the next couple of days.... George 9 June 2011 >

16 May 2011: 

Before leaving Leliefontein, we went round the corner from Vera's place to see what Ivan and his team of workers were doing in the churchyard.  In a place as dry as Leliefontein, water is a valuable resource and securing its supply is an important part of climate-proofing.

In the posted video clip, Ivan Roberts talks to Malinda and gives some of the background to work in the backyard of the historical Methodist Church in Leliefontein.   At one level it's just another community care project in which local members of the parish are making their patch something to be proud of.    But the godliness goes further than that:  In the arid landscapes of Namaqualand, Leliefontein is something of an oasis.  Living care is necessary to protect the water that collects in the geological nooks and crannies of the village, undoubtedly what drew Nama herders to settling there many centuries ahead of the Methodist missionaries.   By removing the thirsty alien poplar trees, the natural springs are returning to functionality.    : 

 NOTE:   I realize that I haven't included any footage of the landscape in which Leliefontein is situated.  From the footage of the churchyard, it looks like a pretty green place, but don't be fooled, that is because we were standing in a WETLAND.   Although high for the area because of its altitude, the annual rainfall is of the order of 200mm per year.  

Ivan Roberts, Wetland Rehab Contractor




Malinda Gardiner: CSA comms

A poplar removed from the wetland



In Namaqualand with Conservation South Africa (2): Vera's Kookskerm

View the video clip of Vera's kookskerm here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNjkqs4WFYk

 

 

Vera Engelbrecht



Vera discusses the off-season

kookskerm with the CSA team

This is part 2 of 5-part video diary entry covering a visit with Conservation South Africa (CSA)  to climate adaptation projects in Namaqualand, Northern Cape.   Here we visit Vera Engelbrecht, a local tourism entrepreneur in Leliefontein, and hear about her efforts to generate an income in the beautiful but isolated town of Leliefontein, which sees many visitors during the wildflower season in early spring, but little else for the rest of the year.    Vera's interview is in Afrikaans, but interviewer Malinda Gardiner of CSA introduces us to the project and summarizes in English.

In Namaqualand with Conservation South Africa (1): Ouma Hannah se kookskerm

View video diary entry:  Ouma Hannah se Kookskerm

On the weekend of 14 & 15 May I was at Ratelgat, attending an assembly of people of the Griqua nation.  This was a film-making outing of a team adding material to the CareTakers series, looking for a story of home-coming:  Griqua people come to be at this ancient home site on the Knersvlakte, to pay respects to their leaders, and to meet the new challenges posed by threats to biodiversity, land-use pressures, and the insidious dangers of climate change.  That was a moving week-end, and we hope to have the 9th CareTakers film complete by August. But that is not what this posting is about.

When my filming colleagues headed south on the N7 back to Cape Town, I went north to meet with the team of Conservation South Africa (aka Conservation International) working in Namaqualand. Together we visited five of their projects in the area, all of which are initiatives to grow local skills and capacity for people to engage with a nature-based economy in the face of regional mine-closures, unsustainable levels of small-stock farming, and the harsh realities of climate vairability. 

In this, the first of a planned five video-diary entries, we meet Ouma Hannah and her two colleagues who have set up a small traditional eatery, complete with matjies huts and a kookskerm (cooking shelter).   Malinda Gardiner of CSA is our guide and narrator for this visit.   I'm afraid that the interview with Ouma Hannah has not been translated from Afrikaans as yet, something I hope to do when time permits. I'd first like to get all of the 5 clips completed:  Even if you don't understand Afrikaans, Ouma Hannah is very eloquent.

George 26 May 2011

Biodiversity and Mining: Kristal Maze talks to Martin Creamer



Kristal Maze, Chief Director
Biodiversity Mainstreaming at SANBI
 (photo from Mining Weekly)

 If you want to hear how biodiversity is presented to practitioners in the callous world of mining, have a listen to Kristal Maze and Dan Sonneberg in conversation with Martin Creamer, the legendary and progressive journalist of engineering and mining.  You can find them on  http://www.miningweekly.com/article/how-to-mine-and-shine-2011-05-20  "We have a real ally in Martin Creamer", Kristal has been heard to say.  And indeed, he has been open to airing the biodiversity debate for a long time, going back to the NBI days of the Ball Agreement (anyone remember that?).   Visit the site above and watch Kristal carving a convincing niche for the biodiversity economy in the in the harsh world of coal-fired energy, karoo-fracking and strip mining.     

CareTakers film wins the Short Film Award at Wild Talk Africa 2011

The Guardian can be viewed at  http://www.caretakers.co.za/film.php?id=1132





The 14 minute film “The Guardian”, one of the eight CareTakers films produced by SANBI and STEPS as a teaching, advocacy and information sharing tool, has won the ROSCAR Award for Best Short Film at the 2011 Wild Talk Africa film festival.   At an awards ceremony at the Spier Estate in Stellenbosch on 30 March, George Davis accepted the award on behalf of SANBI, STEPS Southern Africa (Laurence Dworkin, Producer),  and creative author of the piece, Michael Raimondo (African Renaissance Productions).  The film presents a moving personal story told by Tribute Mboweni, a CapeNature field officer, who lived alone on Dassen Island as guardian and protector of the largest breeding colony of African Penguins. 

Wild Talk Africa - an excerpt from their website  at  www.wildtalkafrica.com/

Wild Talk Africa is an international film festival and conference which takes place biennially in South Africa.  It attracts the global wildlife filmmaking industry by offering a forum for networking, debating and negotiating with commissioning editors, distributors and producers. The last Festival held in 2009 attracted 350 delegates from 22 countries and 253 ROSCAR film entries.

The Wild Talk Africa initiative was founded in 2005 when a group of 30 dedicated enthusiastic individuals gathered together to shape the future of the industry.  The initial members of this group included Dr Pallo Jordan - Minister of Arts and Culture, Eddie Mbalo - CEO NFVF, Marcel Golding - CEO e.tv, Mark Wild from Animal Planet and 20 wildlife filmmakers.  The decision taken was that Africa, the very continent that has been the setting for international award-winning wildlife films, should host a wildlife film festival to promote South Africa as the centre of excellence in the wildlife filmmaking genre

 
The other seven films can also be viewed on the project website www.caretakers.co.za/

The 2011 Biodiversity Planning Forum: A meeting of substance

To listen to Judy Beaumont's talk, click here

Some of the Biodiversity practitioners who met in The Wilderness,  8 to 10 March

"Government has agreed on 12 outcomes as a key focus of work

between now and 2014. Each outcome has a limited number of

measurable outputs with targets."  

These are the opening words of the Dept of Environmental Affairs' Delivery Agreement for OUTCOME 10, which deals with "...outputs and measures regarding environmetnal assets and natural resources that are well protected and continually enhanced".  (Draft dd 10 May 2010).  Part of the vibrancy that flows from this commitment can be seen in the high levels of energy and optimism that were generated at the 2011 Biodiversity Planning Forum, co-hosted by SANBI and the Dept of Environmental Affairs.   That was a get together that happened in The Wilderness in early March. In this blog post I will refer you to a 30 minute You Tumbe  video talk by Judy Beaumont, Deputy Director General in the Presidency on some of the deeper thinking around which our strategies and planning for protected biodiversity need to be built.    It is also a talk that offers recognition for some of the ground-breaking work already done.   With more video footage still to be edited, I will add more material over the coming weeks in which you can meet some of the people involved in this serious effort being made to secure a sustainable future.

Just as additional information, Outcome 10 has 4 outputs, which are:

1.  Enhanced quality and quantity of water resources;

2.  Reduced greenhouse emissions, climate change impacts and improved atmospheric quality

3.  Sustainable environmental management; and

4.  Protected biodiversity.

Biodiversity Expo 2011 at Kirstenbosch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts8FinljVk8

Have a look at the above You Tube posting to hear Augustine Morkel tell you how the biodiversity expo came to be

Augustine here. How can I help?

SANBI has hosted a Kirstenbosch Biodiversity Expo for 3 years running.  2011 will see a similar convergence of schools and members of the public descend on the world famous garden in early May, to meet up with biodiversity practitioners, to ask them questions, to look at practical demonstrations of their particular passions, and generally to take part in conversations about conservation.

For a look at what happened in 2010, go to the following clip:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NdSXmlrajw

The 2011 Biodiversity Expo will be held at the Old Mutual Conference Centre at Kirstenbosch between 5 and 8th May.    You will find the latest postings about the Expo at www.biodiversityexpo.blogspot.com 

Mainstreaming during 2010, the international year of biodiversity

This is not a blog post that refers to a specific video product.  Instead I'm taking the liberty of bending my own rules in order to get this summary of last year of some events and efforts in SANBI's Division for Biodiversity Planning and Mainstreaming out into the world.   You will find a copy of this occasional newsletter stored in my google docs account by  clicking here.   Publication of the biodiversity primer at Nagoya COP was a big milestone for 2010, so the cover features here, as well as the video interview with Caroline Petersen in an earlier posting. 

Trevor Sandwith of IUCN talks about the Global Protected Areas Programme

VIDEO LINK to TREVOR SANDWITH's CAPE TOWN TALK

On 28 Jan 2011, Trevor Sandwith, now stationed at IUCN headquarters in Switzerland, revisited his old stomping ground in Cape Town, and made time to share his current global perspective of protected area thinking.    His former colleagues gathered in the seminar room of the Kirstenbosch Research Centre, and to a packed house he presented a wide-ranging backdrop to his new role as Leader of IUCN's Global  Protected Areas Programme.    His prestentation was videographed, and then spliced together with his powerpoint,  and has now been posted on You Tube (in three 15minute slices presented as a playlist).

Please visit You Tube at < THIS LINK>  if you would like to share in this cutting edge of thinking, researching,  planning and action around the challenges of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management in the face of suites of globally significant changes.   A thought-provoking presentation, and an insight into the IUCN position on these weighty issues.


posted by George, 16 Feb 2011