Revitalizing South Africa's "Forgotten" Grassland - Changemakers Studio October '99

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Background: Birds, the Wetland & Eco-tourism

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Wakkerstroom & Eco-tourism A Little History Eco-Tourism: A Little History

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The Wakkerstroom Wetland
The Wakkerstroom Wetland is the core, or the heart, of the upland grasslands biome, and it is the most sensitive area within this larger sensitive area. Birdlife South Africa regards the Grassland Biosphere Reserve as the most important of South Africa's 121 Important Bird Areas, and the Wakkerstroom wetland as the most important wetland within the Grassland Biosphere Reserve.

This 950-hectare (3.8 square-mile) wetland wraps around the north side of Wakkerstroom, extending for about 9 kilometers (5.5 miles). It is one of the largest wetlands (or "vleis") – if not the largest – in Mpumalanga province.

Among the many birds that can be found in the wetland are the Whitewinged Flufftail, African Marsh Harrier, Crowned Crane and the Grass Owl. Nationally-known ornithologist Warwick Tarboton moved to Wakkerstroom when he found that he could watch endangered crowned cranes roosting in the wetlands. Recognizing the tremendous value of this wetland, Kotze and Tarboton founded the Wakkerstroom Natural Heritage Association (WNHA) in 1991, and leased part of the wetland to form a wetland reserve, which has become the Wakkerstroom Wetland Reserve.

Their 10-year lease of the wetland was superceded by a 50-year lease to the Mpumalanga Parks Board – the official conservation Agency of the Mpumalanga Province – "which now manages the wetland (essentially on our management plan), giving it the status of a provincial nature reserve, yet managed with the community's cattle," Kotze said. "This means that it is still, in essence, a community-based conservation effort."

Historically, the Wakkerstroom Wetland has been critical to the economic survival of local inhabitants. Because the availability of grass for livestock is unreliable during the dry winter months, cattle herders burn the wetlands in the late fall to ensure a supply of green grass until the spring rains return and the upland grasslands recover. During a severe drought in 1933, the wetland supported more than 2,000 head of cattle for more than a year. Poorer inhabitants, then and now, supplement their diet by takin waterfowl, eggs, and fish from the wetland.

The wetland reserve now limits grazing and prevents burning in parts of the wetland, allowing grass to grow that provides cover for birds. As a result, there has been an increase in open water area, and what was once a uniform environment, due to the burning and constant overgrazing, "has become has become a beautiful mosaic of habitats," Kotze said.

Parts of the wetland that have not been burned now have reed beds that are more than three years old, which is what certain birds, such as the Goliath Heron, require to breed. Excluding areas on the periphery of the wetland from grazing or baling of grass has allowed escape routes for birds' chicks, particularly for cranes, which has led to successful fledging. It also provides habitat where Marsh Harriers and Grass Owls can nest.

This immediately produced some dramatic results: In the years immediately before the wetland reserve was established, Kotze and others observed 13 pairs of Crowned Cranes nesting in the wetlands. However, none of their chicks survived. In 1993, after WNHA had managed the wetland for one year, the Crowned Cranes produced 21 chicks that fledged. Since then, in all but one year when extreme flooding wiped out the nests, at least eight Crane chicks have fledged. Three pairs of Marsh Harriers have been seen breeding in the wetland, as well as Goliath Heron, which was merely a vagrant prior to management of the wetland.

The wetland is a model for how conservation and community use of land can work hand-in-hand. About one-third of the wetland continues to be burnt and grazed by cattle each year, and the wetland now serves a large number of tourists. "The difference is that the cattle numbers, and the areas in which they graze, are strictly monitored, and grazing is used as a tool to create a greater mosaic of inhabitants within the wetland," Kotze said.

Most significantly, attempts to conserve the wetland have focused attention on the surrounding grassland. The wetland "has served as a very striking and emotionally appealing flagship for both grassland conservation and ecotourism promotion in the area – truly a 'working wetland'," Kotze said. "The Wakkerstroom Wetland Reserve may be unique in South Africa because it aims to both conserve and manage a large wetland that lies within townlands, and in the longer term, to develop a small rural town into a center for ecotourism."

Birds
(See ZABIRDSTUFF's "Birding Wakkerstroom," and the "Annotated Checklist of Birds found in the Wakkerstroom Area." Source: John McAllister & Elna Kotze.)

Altogether, some 302 species of birds have been spotted in the Grassland Biosphere Reserve, of which 252 are resident or seasonal migrants, and 73 are completely confined to the grassland. Out of this total 302 bird species, 75 are resident or migrant aquatic birds, 65 of which have been spotted in the Wakkerstroom wetlands.

The birds are an excellent indicator of biodiversity, and conservation of their habitats ensures the survival of many other threatened life-forms. Half (20) of South Africa's 40 unique bird species are found within the Grasslands Biosphere Reserve (15 of these in the upland grasslands, and four in the Grassland Bioshpere Reserve's forested areas). Ten of these 20 bird species are unique to the Grasslands Biosphere Reserve.

Of the 40 bird species that are unique to South Africa, 16 are threatened with extinction, and two-thirds of these (11 species) are either entirely restricted to the grassland biome or have a substantial proportion of their population reliant on this biome. Birders come to the grassland from from as far away as Europe and the U.S. to see six species of bird that face worldwide extinction: the Bald Ibis, Blue Crane, Whitewinged Flufftail, Rudd's and Botha's Larks, and especially the Yellowbreasted Pipit. The Grassland Biosphere Reserve probably holds the key to survival for these birds. It also has an important population of the Lesser Kestrel.

Wakkerstroom offers the best place to view seven bird species that are unique to South Africa: the southern bald ibis, Rudd's and Botha's larks, yellowbreasted pipit, ground woodpecker, bush blackcap, and the blue bustard (known locally as blue korhaan). The first four of these species are threatened with extinction, and the Rudd's Lark is classified as critically threatened. The blue korhaan is considered near-threatened. Another four species that are unique to the grasslands are considered near-threatened: the mountain pipit, orangebreasted rockjumper, buffstreaked chat, and the drakensberg siskin.

Tourism Guides
Kotze has established a program to train residents of the local townships to be tourism guides. The program aims to contribute to a sustainable eco-tourism industry for the grassland, while beginning to bridge South Africa's yawning racial gap by giving the black community a stake in this new economy.

Fifteen young township residents went through an initial training, and seven were selected for a five-week training program. Out of this group, three eventually found full-time jobs elsewhere, and one dropped out, leaving three trained tourism guides: Norman Sakhile Mncube, Themba Thusi, and Mandla Sithole.

The training included 16 hours of first aid instruction, which had an unanticipated impact. "Do we realize what this basic first aid knowledge means to them, who live far from medical assistance and do not have the means (car or money for taxi transport) to access it when needed?," Kotze asked. "These youngsters have gained immense stature in their community, and the effect on their own demeanor has been quite startling."

To help build a foundation for mutual appreciation of black and white cultures, the tourism guides spent time studying their own culture. They researched history, interviewing community residents, some as old as 95. They redrew the local map (they refer to it as the "real" map of Wakkerstroom) with the Zulu/Swazi names for mountains, rivers, and other places of importance.

In the process, they began to bridge a gap formed between the young generations and the older generations during the struggle against apartheid. There was a feeling amongst some youth, who were struggling against aparthied, that their elders were too tolerant of a repressive regime. And some of the elders felt there was a lack of respect and maturity in the younger generation.

"We wrote up all our research and rewrote it numerous times as we gained clarity or stories were refuted," Kotze said. "The result is a family tree tracing their lineages back to Swazi and Zulu royalty. In this process of research, the young people discovered that their elders were a fount of wonderful stories, and not just grumpy and demanding. Elders discovered young people were actually interested in their past. I must say it took a lot of talking, and as one youngster put it, 'bending very low,' before the elders accepted that the youngsters were genuine in their desire to research their history, and that there were no hidden agendas. In this manner, some deep divisions between generations dating back to pre-1976 were healed and reciprocal insight gained. What really touched me deeply was their reaction to the discovery of their own history, the rekindling of relationships across deeply divided generations and their utter joy at what their new-found first aid training meant to the community in which they live."

The tourism guides are now offering to take school groups out to educate them about the importance of wetland, grassland, and birds, as well as their own traditions and history. "What we achieved was much more than just the training of tourism guides," Kotze said. "This was empowerment and awareness creation in its truest form."

The training delivered "committed people with a clear understanding of the importance of the environment as a resource base, which needs to be cared for and nurtured. It also gave them a necessary understanding of the tourism industry, something quite difficult to grasp if you have never been a tourist yourself, and live a life battling poverty."

The interaction of cultures that have long been separate, and the accompanying racial tensions, are never far from the surface. "Norman Mncube said that he hated white people before, and his exposure to the training course made him rethink his attitude," Kotze said. "We are now extremely close friends and he loves his clients – mostly white, of course. He, and the others, have also, without doubt, influenced the attitudes and thinking of these same clients – who incidentally just love them too – as much as they influenced mine."

The tourism guides "have all had business come their way and are gaining self-confidence all the time," Kotze noted. However, they still require "advice, money, opportunities to gain experience, and assistance with marketing their activities." The guides highly value the opportunity to hone their skills by working with tourists, and they still have much to learn from advanced, experienced birders.

One measure of the success of this program is its spread. It has been nationally accredited, and is in the process of being rolled-out country wide. The Mpumalanga Tourism Authority has branded it and will be using it to generate much-needed funds for its programs by selling the franchise.

The Mpumalanga Parks Board has requested training programs at the Blyderiver and Songinvelo Game Reserves. Two land-use forums in the Grassland Biosphere Reserve have requested the guide training for their areas (the Mpisi Cooperative Reserve would like to start training their own "Local Hosts," and the Memel forum has also expressed an interest).