The Gamtoos Irrigation Board (GIB) is calling on private landowners to better protect their “vested interest” by collaborating in the fight against alien invasive plant species, which are “stripping out” critical runoff from the rains and impairing water supply to Eastern Cape dams.

The GIB clears nonindigenous vegetation to maximise runoff to the province’s dams amid increasingly crippling drought conditions as part of a recently renewed contract with the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA).

“While funding for this is, in part, covered under the new contract, a lot more money is needed to have the desired impact,” says GIB financial and human resources manager Rienette Colesky.

“Should more private landowners come to the party to contribute to these costs, we would be able to clear more land faster,” Colesky says, adding that landowners are often more committed to keeping their land clear of these alien ‘invasives’ when they contribute to the costs of clearing them.

The National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act requires landowners to keep their land free from alien invasive plants.

“Government can subsidise only so much. We need clean catchments, but we can only do it with public–private partnerships,” she says.

Over the past five years, GIB contractors have cleared a total of 547 697 ha of alien invasive plants.

The contract renewal with the DEA enables the board to continue deploying its provincewide ‘Working For’ natural resource management programmes.

“The organisation is delighted to be given the opportunity to continue the work it had been doing successfully for almost two decades,” says GIB CEO Pierre Joubert, who adds that the project footprint extends across the province, from Tsitsikamma, in the west, to Lusikisiki, in the east, and Matatiele, in the north.

Under the new three-year contract, the GIB is managing four major project categories – working for water, working for wetlands, working for forestry and working for ecosystems.

Under the ‘working for water’ project category, the board is responsible for the prevention, containment and reduction of the density and distribution of established, invasive alien species to reduce their negative effects on the environment.

In line with this, the GIB embarks on terrestrial alien invasive clearing projects and waterweeds projects.

It also manages two indigenous plant nurseries, which provide the stock for the repopulation of cleared and degraded land.

The ‘working for ecosystems’ project category tasks the GIB with the restoration of the biodiversity of degraded areas through the planting of spekboom thicket and the rehabilitation of areas where dryland erosion has taken place and where soil stabilisation measures are required.

Under the ‘working for wetlands’ category, the GIB implements both major and minor structural interventions to reduce the degradation of natural wetlands.

“By building these structures, such as gabions and concrete weirs, the GIB helps to rehabilitate the wetlands to improve water quality and ensure the consistent flow of water,” he explains.

The board also improves the management of Category B commercial forests and plantations and rehabilitates indigenous forests and restores forest loss caused by alien invasives or human activity.

A dedicated nursery supplies indigenous plants for the replanting of deforested areas.

More than 300 small, medium-sized and microenterprise contractors are contracted by the GIB every year to assist with project implementation.

“Employing an average of 11 employees per team, this creates a positive economic impact for at least 3 000 additional beneficiaries and their households,” says Joubert.

The contract sustains 2 000 jobs throughout the Eastern Cape each year.