J.P. Morgan today announced its funding in support of The Nature Conservancy-led Greater Cape Town Water Fund (GCTWF) to remove invasive plants in priority source water areas in the Greater Cape Town region. GCTWF brings together a diverse coalition of public and private sector partners to invest in watershed restoration activities that will yield the greatest benefit for … [Read more...]
Running out of time to save our coral reefs
Beneath the ocean surface, an expansive network of dynamic skeletal-like invertebrates harbours at least 25 per cent of all known marine species. Both hard and soft corals provide the basis for functioning coral reefs, which are some of the planet's most biologically diverse and valuable ecosystems. They provide important cultural, economic, recreational and social benefits … [Read more...]
Ecosystem restoration for people, nature and climate
UNEP has released a synthesis report as a call to action for anyone and everyone to join the #GenerationRestoration movement to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It details the economic, environmental and social rewards that restoration can bring. Far from being a ‘nice to have’, ecosystem restoration is needed on a large scale in order to … [Read more...]
Restoring our ecosystems one change at a time
Life on earth is symbiotic; each component within the ecosystem plays a significant role. The decline of the bee population and its effect on food systems is a timely reminder of just how interconnected everything really is. However, as urbanization, intensive farming and resource extraction increases, so we are witnessing the fragmentation of the environment even further. … [Read more...]
Make-a-Difference Week beach cleanup a great success
The 5 to 13 June 2021 was Make-a-Difference Week, a worldwide effort to reduce negative environmental impacts. The Cape Town Environmental Education Trust (CTEET) team kicked off the nine-day commitment with a beach cleanup from Sunrise Beach to Muizenberg on World Environment Day, which was also the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. There was … [Read more...]
World Frog Day celebrated with successful wetlands restoration
On Saturday, 20 March, the plight of amphibians came into sharp focus with the celebration of World Frog Day. One conservation-driven developer that is creating a safe indigenous habitat to protect the local species from extinction is Renishaw Property Developments, developers of Renishaw Hills, a mature lifestyle estate in the mid-KZN South Coast. In partnership with the … [Read more...]
EU commission plans green reset for agriculture
Yesterday, the European Commission published their roadmap for EU policy action on biodiversity and food for the coming decade. In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak that has brought our relationship with the natural world into sharp focus, the strategies have never been more timely. The EU Farm to Fork and 2030 Biodiversity Strategies launched today are potential game … [Read more...]
Big potential benefits from restoring spekboom thicket ecosystems
When the goats on his farm had nothing more to eat, the soil had eroded and most of the vegetation had been destroyed, South African farmer Pieter Kruger had to make one of the toughest decisions of his life. “I have always been a farmer,” he says, “but that moment in 2007, I knew that I could not go on. There was no more water. Zandvlakte is the last farm in our valley in the … [Read more...]
The global rise of crucial eco-restoration camps
For millennia we humans roamed the vast lands of this planet Earth, foraging for foodstuffs, hunting animals to supplement our diet as necessary. We took what we could find, as needed, and our searches led us across the accessible landmasses. It is fascinating to think of the various landscapes that scores of successive generations saw - Earth in a state before any human … [Read more...]
BP oil spill killed several trillion larval fish
Louisiana's coastal marshes will be the key focus of $8.8 billion BP will pay to restore vast natural resource losses caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, part of a $20.8 billion settlement with federal and Gulf state governments announced Monday (Oct. 5). The environmental portion also includes targeting significant money on Gulf of Mexico resources, federal … [Read more...]
Around the world for global change
On board the BIO Hespérides, docked in the Cape Town harbour, we met the first team of researchers ever circumnavigating the globe to research the impact of global change on the oceans. The Malaspina expedition was named after the Spanish naval officer, Alajandro Malaspina, in whose footsteps, or rather waves, this initiative followed. Some 200 years ago he launched the … [Read more...]
