WESSA - 90 Years of People Caring for the Earth

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Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM). The valley conserves threatened plant, mammal and fish species, mitigates flood risk and hosts recreational and educational opportunities. This valley had been severely impacted upon by urban encroachment, alien invasive plants (AIPs), dumping, poaching, vagrants, and muggings had made the area unsafe. Community support was needed to turn this situation around. The Baakens Valley Community Partnership (BVCP) programme, developed from 2009 to 2015, has transformed the Baakens Valley into a safe community resource and functional ecological corridor by: • Strengthening community participation (across the economic and social spectrum, including stakeholder involvement in reserve management). • Creating socio-economic upliftment opportunities. • Demonstrating political relevance (through job creation and protecting important recreational and tourism assets) • Increasing environmental education activities. • Improving safety and security with a ranger programme. • Promoting public use and events (concerts, walks, sporting events). • Encouraging voluntary community participation in caring for the Baakens Valley. The BVCP’s principal achievement has been promoting community-based conservation, whereby the local community groups and the NMBM reserve managers have learnt how to work together to protect the Baakens Valley. A key example of this is the partnership between WESSA and the NMBM in creating and managing a cohort of five Baakens Valley rangers. The rangers have done us proud in working with the South African Police, private security companies ADT, Atlas and I-Patrol, and the Baakens Valley Preservation Trust to bring about a significant reduction in crime in this 2 000-hectare urban reserve to negligible levels. The rangers have also been attributed to bringing about a 30% reduction in house break-ins along the Valley. The presence of these rangers has boosted the public’s perception and utilisation of the Baakens Valley with recorded visitor numbers climbing from just 840 in 2009, to over 22 500 visitors across 2014. WESSA is very grateful to the Coca-Cola Fortune company for their donations for the past four years to employ, equip and train these rangers, under their sponsorship of the Baakens Valley RiverWise Project. This project nested within the BVCP, has aimed to monitor, maintain and improve local river health and water flow, as well as to improve access to water and river amenities. Through this programme WESSA is also providing river and riverine forest ecology lessons to schools in our Eco-Schools programme, broadening our ranger training events to include and capacitate community members and has given community co-ops opportunities to develop Alien Invasive Plant (AIP) clearing experience and expertise. By the end of 2014, this project had funded over a 100 hectares of AIPs, to improve river flow. ••• Biosphere Initiative The WESSA Midmar to Albert Falls Biosphere Initiative, generously funded by the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF), is currently introducing the concept of a Biosphere Reserve to private and public sector organisations and will soon be extending the discussions to liaise more intensively with locals in the area. The response to the idea of a Biosphere Reserve has at this stage been positive and if the application is supported, and Biosphere Reserve status is designated by UNESCO, it would become the first internationally registered Biosphere Reserve in KwaZulu- Natal. The project was initiated in August 2014 and, as

•••Healthy Rivers – Healthy people: Citizen science for sustainable water management in a climate stressed society This project aims to equip our government and civil society partners with an accessible citizen science bio-monitoring tool – the free and easy to use Stream Assessment Scoring System (miniSASS) – which encourages enhanced catchment management for water security in a climate stressed society. We are working to achieve this through: • Profiling and marketing capacity development and citizen science tools. • Making the miniSASS website (www.minisass.org) more powerful and accessible for data input. • Developing a network of practitioners to enhance the functionality and use of citizen science tools. We also provide training to local and regional government officials to help them understand the collection and analysis of the data so that it can be used to guide sustainable water management practices. As a result of the project, more and more officials and citizens are increasingly using the tool and uploading the data. This project is funded by the British High Commission and is being implemented in South Africa and in the wider Southern African Development Community trans-boundary region. •••Umngeni Ecology Infrastructure Project The Capacity for Catchments uMngeni Ecological Infrastructure project is implemented by WESSA in partnershipwithWWF and funded by theMaasMaasen Fund. The project focuses on securing ecological infrastructure within the Umngeni catchment through capacity building of the key role players (especially local authorities) to become responsible custodians of the uMngeni freshwater ecological infrastructure. The uMngenu River catchment in KwaZulu-Natal covers an approximate area of 4 416 km2. The river is 225 km long and flows through UMgungundlovu District Municipality, along with its tributaries, entering the Indian Ocean just north of the city of Durban. Ecological infrastructure refers to “functioning ecosystems that deliver valuable services to people, such as fresh water, climate regulation, soil formation and disaster risk reduction” (SANBI fact sheet, undated). This includes provisioning services (e.g. food, fresh water, fuel), regulating services (e.g. climate regulation, flood regulation), and cultural services (e.g. aesthetic, spiritual, educational, recreational). Ecological infrastructure is often considered to be the “nature-based equivalent of built or hard infrastructure” (SANBI, 2012). The project has conducted workshops with traditional leaders, key municipal officials, key departments officials and members of the other key organisations. Dialogues and presentations have been also given in a spirit of promoting the active protection and valuing of the freshwater ecological infrastructure. This capacity building work continues to grow in the municipalities and leaders of our communities so that the catchment is restored and protected by all that work and live in it. •••Baakens Valley RiverWise Project The Baakens River Valley is a ‘green lung’ flowing through Port Elizabeth, one of 28 priority conservation areas in

30 | 90 years of people caring for the earth

31 | 90 years of people caring for the earth