graaff reinet

Very little land in South Africa is suitable for planting crops — most is too dry, hilly or rocky for tillage. Still, unique wildlife flourishes across the country, even in seemingly barren places like the Karoo, a vast semi-desert region in the interior of the country.

With climate change decreasing rainfall and chronic underfunding of nature conservation in the country, some, like Candice Stevens, are looking for alternatives to encourage farmers and others in Karoo and elsewhere to be better stewards of the land. Stevens works collaboratively with a range of partners including WWF Nedbank Green Trust, UNDP GEF 5 BLU Project,  SANBI and Birdlife South Africa.

She is head of innovative finance and policy at Wilderness Foundation Africa and is trying to convince landowners to dedicate their land to conservation. The incentive? A tax rebate from the South African government. 

Stevens and her team have won dozens of landowners to the biodiversity cause with the tax model, which has already seen some conservation success.

A film by Henner Frankenfeld and Joachim Eggers

Free Access Week is from 16-20 November. SANParks has added bonus days to include the weekend at some Cape national parks.

South African National Parks Week takes place from 16-20 November.

Free entry applies to just about all the national parks managed by SANParks from Monday to Friday.

You will need to produce a valid South African identity document.

The following are excluded:

– Namaqua National Park

– Boulders Penguin Colony

– Table Mountain Aerial Cableway

As a bonus this year, two extra days of free entry have been added at specific parks in the Cape region.

Free entry has been extended until Sunday 22 November at the following national parks:

– Agulhas

– Bontebok

– Table Mountain

– Tankwa Karoo

– West Coast National Park

As an added bonus parks in the Cape Region i.e. Agulhas, Bontebok, Table Mountain, Tankwa Karoo, and West Coast National Park will be extending South African National Parks Week until Sunday, 22 November 2020.

— SANParks TMNP (@TableMountainNP) November 4, 2020

SANParks has announced that some national parks will implement daily quotas throughout the week.

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Total confirmed COVID-19 cases 119 141 Total recoveries 111 087 Total deaths 4430 Total active cases (currently infected patients) 3624 Tests conducted 707 402 Hospitalisations 634 of which 130 are in ICU or high care

Cape Metro Sub-districts:

Sub-district Cases Recoveries Western 11 076 10 299 Southern 10 745 10003 Northern 7352 6927 Tygerberg 13741 12997 Eastern 11 497 10 755 Klipfontein 9748 9042 Mitchells Plain 9319 8755 Khayelitsha 8616 8089 Total 82 094 76 867

Sub-districts:

District Sub-district Cases Recoveries Garden Route Bitou 825 688 Garden Route Knysna 1788 1585 Garden Route George 4371 3775 Garden Route Hessequa 389 351 Garden Route Kannaland 148 144 Garden Route Mossel Bay 2672 2492 Garden Route Oudsthoorn 1658 1493 Cape Winelands Stellenbosch 2274 2132 Cape Winelands Drakenstein 4637 4391 Cape Winelands Breede Valley 3612 3415 Cape Winelands Langeberg 1211 1152 Cape Winelands Witzenberg 1705 1603 Overberg Overstrand 1802 1695 Overberg Cape Agulhas 356 325 Overberg Swellendam 377 354 Overberg Theewaterskloof 1268 1198 West Coast Bergrivier 530 491 West Coast Cederberg 183 175 West Coast Matzikama 774 684 West Coast Saldanha Bay Municipality 1527 1451 West Coast Swartland 1768 1644 Central Karoo Beaufort West 864 805 Central Karoo Laingsburg 143 135 Central Karoo Prince Albert 36 35

Unallocated: 2129(2007 recovered)

Data note: It is not always possible to check and verify that the address data supplied for each new recorded case is correct, within the time frames required to provide regular and timely updates. This means that in some instances, cases could be allocated to the wrong sub-districts. We are working with the sub-districts to clean and verify the data and where errors are picked up locally, cases will be re-allocated to the correct areas.

The Western Cape has recorded additional 15 deaths, bringing the total number of COVID-19 related deaths in the province to 4430 . We send our condolences to their loved ones at this time.

Garden Route bushfires:

Over the past seven days, the Western Cape has seen a 20% increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases-primarily driven by increases being recorded in the Garden Route District. We are particularly concerned about the increase in the number of cases in George, Knysna and Bitou, where the test positivity rate is around 32%.

Our hotspot teams are working closely with health teams, the municipalities, environmental health officers, law enforcement and SAPS in order to manage and contain the spread of infections. We have also targeted communication to the Garden Route- with SMS and social media messaging.

As with previous bushfires in other areas of the province, we are working hard to manage this flare up and ensure that it does not spread further.

I must appeal to residents in the Garden Route and across the Western Cape to make safe, smart choices to protect themselves and others at this time.

In the bushfires that we have responded to over the past few weeks- relaxed behaviours have played a part in increased spread of infections. We must still wear our masks in public, regularly and thoroughly wash our hands and keep a distance. We also appeal to residents to avoid the 3Cs: closed spaces, crowded places and close contact.

The Western Cape has also observed a slight increase in the number of hospitalisations in the province, and in the Garden Route. We currently have a total of 74 hospital admissions in the Garden Route (COVID-19 positive and persons under investigation), with15 of these in critical care.

Overall, our healthcare services platform is still managing well, even with increasing admissions for other healthcare concerns. Our rural hospitals are currently reporting 75% occupancy, and our metro hospitals have a 77% occupancy rate- of which only 4% are COVID-19 admissions.

The Hospital of Hope at Brackengate has 42 patients admitted, and Sonstraal has one COVID-19 admission, and 12 admissions for TB, as the Western Cape Government is focusing on ramping up TB care services in the province. Our oxygen usage in the province remains stable at 35% of total availability.

Testing update:

The Western Cape continues to use the expanded testing criteria for testing and lab turn-around times have remained stable. In the week between 2 and 8 November, a total of 9167 tests were conducted in the province.

I am also pleased to announce that rapid antigen testing is now available at the Cape Town International Airport for those travelers who have arrived without having had a COVID-19 test. This provides us with an additional surveillance tool and is well timed to coincide with the positive announcement last night that the international travel “red list” would be scrapped in favour of compliance with health protocols which include a negative COVID-19 test not older than 72 hours.

Our hotspot management system has proven to be effective in identifying and managing flare ups where they occur. We also continue to monitor and track infection data using a number of surveillance methods, including wastewater testing.

We call on residents and businesses to partner with us to ensure that we are able to effectively slow the spread of the virus in the province, in order for us to move forward, and focus on important aspects of our recovery such as jobs, safety and dignity and wellbeing.

Issued by: Western Cape Office of the Premier

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of South African Government.

A warm to hot Friday is expected across the country, according to the South African Weather Service. Upington will see a maximum temperature of 38°C.

Fire based warning

Extremely high fire danger conditions are expected over the eastern parts of Namakwa District (Northern Cape), the Central and Little Karoo Districts, as well as Langeberg Municipality (Western Cape) and the western and central regions of the Eastern Cape.

Advisory

Extremely hot conditions are expected over the Sarah Baartman District of the Eastern Cape and the Little Karoo of the Western Cape.

The weather in your province

Gauteng will be partly cloudy and warm.

The expected UVB sunburn index is extreme.

It will be cloudy in Mpumalanga, with morning fog patches along the escarpment, otherwise partly cloudy and cool to warm, but hot in the Lowveld.

Limpopo will be cloudy with morning fog patches along the escarpment, otherwise partly cloudy and warm becoming fine from the afternoon.

The North West will be fine and warm, becoming partly cloudy with isolated thundershowers in the west.

In the Free State, it will be fine and warm, becoming partly cloudy with isolated thundershowers.

The Northern Cape will be fine and hot, becoming partly cloudy in the east and the north with isolated thundershowers.

The wind along the coast will be light to moderate south-easterly, becoming light to moderate north-westerly north of Port Nolloth by the afternoon, and spreading to the south by the evening.

The Western Cape will be cloudy to partly cloudy along the south coast and Central Karoo in the morning, otherwise fine and hot to very hot, but warm along the south coast.

The wind along the coast will be moderate southerly to south easterly, becoming fresh to strong between Table Bay and Cape Agulhas in the morning.

The expected UVB sunburn index is very high.

The western half of the Eastern Cape can expect morning fog over Addo and Grahamstown, otherwise fine and hot, but extremely hot in places south of the escarpment, becoming partly cloudy from the north in the evening.

The wind along the coast will be fresh north-easterly, becoming south-westerly from the west in the evening.

In the eastern half of the Eastern Cape, there will be morning fog in the south, otherwise fine and warm, but hot in places south of the escarpment, becoming partly cloudy with isolated showers and thundershowers from the north in the afternoon.

The wind along the coast will be fresh to strong north-easterly.

KwaZulu-Natal can expect morning fog over the interior, otherwise partly cloudy and warm with isolated showers and thundershowers in the west.

The wind along the coast will be moderate to fresh north-easterly.

The expected UVB sunburn index is very high. 

Click here to see the specific forecast for your city over the next few days.

– Compiled by Kamva Somdyala

People don’t realise how special biome areas such as the Karoo are, and how restricted the species, says Sanbi’s Ismail Ebrahim.

Suspects have been arrested at the West Coast town of Vanrhynsdorp for allegedly dealing in protected succulents without a permit. The four men will appear in court.

CFR Node Manager for Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW) at Sanbi (Kirstenbosch) Ismail Ebrahim talks to Lester Kiewit .

There has somehow been a massive increase in demand for succulent plant species from South Africa and especially from the succulent Karoo which is one of the special biomes that occur in South Africa.

Ismail Ebrahim, CFR Node Manager for Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW) – Sanbi (Kirstenbosch)

People do not realise how special those areas are and how restricted the species are that grow in those areas.

Ismail Ebrahim, CFR Node Manager for Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW) – Sanbi (Kirstenbosch)

Ebrahim says the dwarf succulents, in particular, are very rare and much sought after.

We have thought maybe it is that they are so small it is easy to pack them into a box, and they are novelty succulents.

Ismail Ebrahim, CFR Node Manager for Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW) – Sanbi (Kirstenbosch)

He says in the Karoo succulent landscape, these dwarf succulents spread out at ground level with an enormous variety of species and colours.

Listen to the interview below:

This small municipality is the home of the second largest dam in South Africa, the Vanderkloof Dam. It is also the home municipality of Northern Cape Premier Zamani Saul, who hails from the town of Petrusville. Philipstown and Petrusville are known for their unique Karoo architecture as many of the homes in these two towns are still in their original state.

The political architecture of Renosterberg has also been left somewhat unchanged. In 2016 only two parties made it to council, the ANC and the DA, with the ANC getting four seats and the DA three. When one looks at the 2019 provincial results, this same result would have played itself out, the ANC would have “won” four seats here and the DA three.

The municipality was dissolved by the Northern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Bentley Vass because of its continued dysfunctionality and lack of clear leadership. The DA saw the dissolution as an expedient cover up of corruption aimed at silencing ANC councillors who were willing to work with DA councillors to help uncover wrongdoing in the municipality.

Ward 1 (Philipstown) DA (57%) ANC (38%) EFF (4%)

Philipstown sits on the…

To Dr Roger Price, the swarms of brown locusts he has seen in the Karoo look like clouds of smoke billowing on the horizon, turning darker and lighter as the insects sweep over the land. 

“When a brown locust swarm is spread out, it can easily be 30km long,” says Price, the research team manager for plant health and protection at the Agricultural Research Council. “They can fly over 100km a day. They just go on for hours.”

The locust pot is stirring in South Africa, he says. 

“Our main concern is the brown locust, which is endemic, and only found in the Karoo area and southern Namibia — and it’s a very serious pest once it gets going. It costs the country millions to keep it in the Karoo, to control it and to prevent it from escaping and invading crops in the Free State.”

Price explains the conditions for a large-scale outbreak are favourable after good rains ended a long dry spell in the drought-stricken Karoo, prompting long-dormant egg populations in the soil to hatch into marauding hopper bands.

About 130 farms in the eastern Karoo are already infested. 

“This year’s outbreak seems to be early and I’ve noticed that the rainfall predicted for the Northern Cape is unusually heavy for this time of year so the conditions are good.”

The Karoo is the scene of an immense locust problem, he says, but it’s hidden. 

“Nobody really knows about it in the cities until the locusts occasionally fly out of the Karoo once every 10 years over Bloemfontein or Kimberley. We have to spray pesticides, which are not healthy for the environment and it just costs an awful lot of money.” 

A resurgence in East Africa

At first, to a farmer, it looks like a promise on the horizon: a dark rain cloud, sometimes so big it can block out part of the sun.  

Then the penny drops. 

Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations says it’s a moment of pure horror when the farmers realise what those clouds really are. 

“You see it’s not a rain cloud but a cloud of insects and realise this is a desert locust swarm. They will eat absolutely everything. By midday, you’ve lost your entire crop for the year and maybe for the next year. It’s devastating.”

This year, destructive, desert locusts have swarmed in gigantic numbers in countries including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia and Eritrea, gobbling valuable cropland and decimating livelihoods. 

In January locust swarms that invaded northern Kenya were as big as the country of Luxembourg. 

But while aerial and ground operations have exterminated an estimated 500-billion locusts in the past 10 months, there are worrying signs of resurgence. 

Early, ongoing rains have led to a new cycle of breeding with fresh swarms forming in Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen, warns the FAO. 

In good conditions, desert locusts reproduce like wildfire — their numbers surging by a factor of 20 with each three-month reproductive cycle. 

The new wave wasn’t unexpected, says Cressman, who describes desert locusts as “professional survivalists. When there’s really good rain, the locusts respond.”

Winds over the northern portion of the Horn of Africa now starting to blow southwards again could trigger a re-invasion in Kenya later this year. 

But with almost a year of locust-fighting experience under their belts, affected countries are in a far stronger position to manage and contain the infestations, says Cressman.

“Last year this time, countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya weren’t very well prepared. Now, they’re well-equipped to manage and respond to this type of breeding and any kind of invasion that might occur by the end of the year.”

Somalia, he adds, has not used one drop of chemical pesticides, wiping out its locusts with bio­pesticides made from a natural fungus, which only attacks locusts and grasshoppers.

Unusual weather a factor  

The desert locust outbreak, says Cressman, started with two cyclones that brought heavy rains to the same region of the Arabian Peninsula last year. 

“That’s already kind of strange. In 2019, there were something like eight cyclones in the western Indian Ocean. Normally there’s zero or one. Then we had a cyclone in December — in the beginning of winter, which is very unusual. 

“It could just be a temporary anomaly. What I worry about is if we continue to see this trend — increased cyclones in the western Indian Ocean — that will have impacts on locust infestations in the Horn of Africa that can lead to more emergencies and upsurges that we’ve seen this year.”

In the future, with more unpredictable weather, more opportunities for pest outbreaks will emerge, says Price. “Not just locusts but every­thing from mosquitoes to army worms. They respond very quickly to dramatic, unusual weather patterns. So it’s going to get worse and is not going to be easy to predict.

“The problem is that for many years migratory pests are at a low ebb. So, the ability to predict them and combat them is weakened because there isn’t any investment in technologies and stocks of pesticides. When they do arrive, it’s a surprise and we can’t cope. Boom-and-bust funding is the typical response.”

Professor Frances Duncan of the school of animal, plant and environmental studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, agrees. She explains how unusual climatic conditions are driving outbreaks of African migratory locusts in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, through unusually high rainfall and flooding, as with desert locusts. 

The FAO, which launched an emergency response in September, has warned seven million people are at risk from the outbreaks in southern Africa, facing threats to their food security and livelihoods. 

“What’s really coming home is that there’s not enough surveillance. Unfortunately governments forget that the locusts are around. But we must remember swarms are part of the ecology. Swarms of locusts were mentioned in the Bible so they’re not a new phenomenon.” 

Rise of the grim reapers

More than 860 000 hectares of land in 10 countries have been surveyed and treated for locust infestation since January to counter the desert locust outbreak. Control operations have prevented the loss of 1.7-million tons of cereal — enough to feed more than 10-million people a year — in countries already hard hit by acute food insecurity and poverty. Kenya has contained the locust to just two northern counties. West Africa is no longer at risk of invasion. — Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

Independent specialists and researchers from the Institute for Groundwater Studies (IGS) at the University of the Free State (UFS), in partnership with specialists from Carin Bosman Sustainable Solutions (CBSS), have been appointed by the Petroleum Agency of South Africa (PASA) to design a regional groundwater monitoring network for the Central Karoo.

A 2016 report by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) titled ‘Shale Gas Development in the Central Karoo: A Scientific Assessment of the Opportunities and Risks’, recommended that “a comprehensive understanding of groundwater conditions is required prior to the commencement of exploration to ensure proper interpretation of changes in groundwater over time. Monitoring data would also be used for calibration and verification of prediction and assessment models, for evaluating and auditing the success of management plans, and for assessing the extent of compliance with prescribed standards and regulations.”

Such a monitoring network therefore needs to be established and implemented to ensure an understanding of baseline groundwater conditions in the Central Karoo.

This project aims to establish a groundwater monitoring network that will cover an area of more than 180 000 km² and will be undertaken over a period of 24 months.

It will culminate in the publication of a regional groundwater monitoring network design for the Central Karoo, which will be subjected to local and international peer reviews.

Once established, it will inform decision-making in the adjudication of applications for potential shale gas exploration activities received by PASA, and will also be used for future monitoring of groundwater in this area, irrespective of whether such applications are approved or not.

The specialists employed by the IGS and CBSS to undertake the project include South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions-registered scientists who have expertise and experience in geohydrology and the geology of the Karoo basin, as well as experts in water governance (including the design and development of water monitoring programmes and the evaluation, interpretation and visualisation of water quality data) and software developers who can handle large volumes of water monitoring data.

A groundwater monitoring network needs to generate monitoring results that can provide answers to specific management and/or governance questions asked by relevant decision-makers (including landowners and those involved in national, provincial and local government) and other stakeholders.

Communication of monitoring results to these decision-makers should be understandable, without being too technical, so that the outcome of any monitoring activity will lead to improved decision-making with regard to groundwater management in the Central Karoo.

These management questions will, therefore, be contingent on the needs of the decision-makers, which could relate to one or more aspects of groundwater resources and/or potential activities that could pose a risk of harm to a groundwater resource.

To ensure the monitoring network is designed in a manner that will address the expectations of all stakeholders, the project team has called on all relevant decision-makers and other interested stakeholders to contact them with management questions that they need to be answered by this monitoring network.

Participation in the project is voluntary and there will be no cost implications for participants.

The selection of locations that will form part of the groundwater monitoring network will, to a large extent, rest upon the management questions that need to be addressed by the network.

Therefore, once these management questions have been collected from stakeholders, the project team will undertake geohydrological, geophysical and water-quality assessments to determine the suitability of existing boreholes to provide answers to prioritised management questions.

Where no suitable boreholes can be found to address management questions, recommendations relating to the drilling of additional boreholes for future monitoring purposes will be made. 

For this reason, the project team says it would appreciate and welcome any suggestions from relevant decision-makers and interested stakeholders who may be aware of any existing boreholes or networks of boreholes in the Central Karoo.

The more management questions and information about existing boreholes the project team receives, the more beneficial the final monitoring network design will be to decision-makers and landowners in the Central Karoo, the project team says.

Those looking to share ideas, discuss specific management questions for the monitoring network, or to inform about boreholes that should be included and investigated for this project are advised to contact Dr Fanie de Lange (DeLangeSS@ufs.ac.za) or Carin Bosman (info@cbss.co.za).