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
Bits of this and that in the biodiversity sector
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
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:
<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.
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| Ivan Roberts, Wetland Rehab Contractor |
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| Malinda Gardiner: CSA comms |
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| A poplar removed from the wetland |
Thursday, June 2, 2011
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
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Vera Engelbrecht |
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| 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.
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