Are We Destroying Our Insurance Policy? The Effects of Alien Invasion and Subsequent Restoration - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 330

Fig. 16.4 Workers from
South Africa's Working for
Water Programme. Working
for Water, besides restoring
the landscape by clearing
invasive alien plants, also
empowers local people by
creating jobs for unskilled
workers
Working for Water
In the 1990s South African scientists recognized the widespread damage to the landscape
by alien invasion and acknowledged the urgent need for restoration. In 1996, the gov-
ernment's Working for Water programme began clearing the invasive alien trees in the
Kromme River System (McConnachie et al. 2012 ). Working for Water aims to make more
water available by clearing invasive alien plants that use high amounts of water. It is run
through the Department of Water Affairs. Since Working for Water started in 1995, more
than one million hectares of invasive alien plants have been cleared throughout the
country. Working for Water has also provided jobs and training to about 20,000 people a
year. These people are drawn from the most marginalized areas, and of the total, 52 % are
women. Currently there are 300 projects in all nine South African provinces. (Department
of Water Affairs and Forestry 2006 )
Here we assess how changes in the South African landscape as a result of
increased 'progress and development' have affected the Kromme Catchment. We
ask what changes are likely to happen in the future, not only in terms of continued
land transformation, but coupled with climate change. Have recent attempts to
restore this landscape been successful? Are current restoration programs efficient?
We attempt to discover the main driver of these changes to answer the question:
how can these complex systems be managed in such a way that they become our
insurance against climate change?
16.2 Methods
16.2.1 Study Site
The Kromme River (33S, 24E) is located in the Eastern Cape Province of South
Africa (Fig. 16.5 ). It is about 100 km in length from its upper reaches (550 m
above sea level) to its estuary. The catchment is narrow and steep, bordered by the