South Africa

South Africa, Our Burning Planet, Maverick News

South Africa’s Drylands are being transformed through community-led conservation

Willem Van Wyk, began Papkuilsfontein's journey towards biodiversity stewardship. This was taken over by his son Jaco and wife Alrie van Wyk. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

By Kristin Engel

10 Jun 2025

Daily Maverick travelled with the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) to see how changing land management practices is supporting habitat restoration in areas impacted by threats such as mining, unsustainable farming, renewable energy projects and climate change through its Drylands Conservation Programme.

A quiet revolution is unfolding as landowners, conservationists and policymakers collaborate to restore ecologically fragile farmlands while maintaining agricultural livelihoods in the arid expanses of South Africa’s Drylands, from the West Coast to the Northern Cape where water scarcity, heatwaves and occasional floods occur,

Farmer Mari Rossouw’s Katdooringvlei family sheep farm is located along the northern part of the Western Cape coastline where they do small-scale cropping, mainly for feed during summer. Their northern farm boundary also forms the provincial border between the Western and Northern Cape.

“I grew up along the West Coast with my father working in the mining industry. Mining was a part of my everyday life. It was only as I got older that I began to realise the impact mining had on my environment,” she said.

The mining companies of the past are long gone, but Rossouw said their footprint is still everywhere and it was the “unprecedented wave” of new prospecting applications currently plaguing the West Coast that compelled her to get involved in the conservation of the coastline and surrounding inland areas.

The vast interior region of South Africa, spreading from the West Coast to the Northern Cape, is classified as semi-arid Drylands and includes the Karoo region, covering about 400,000 km². Drylands are characterised by water scarcity, low and erratic rainfall, heatwaves and occasional floods. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Katdooringvlei recently received approval from CapeNature to proceed with a conservation process, and if successful, will be registered as a private nature reserve. But Rossouw said the application was merely an extension of their already established conservation practices.

“As custodians of this land we have an intergenerational obligation towards future generations to leave them with some, if not all, environment that is pristine and untouched. The proposed nature reserve is an investment not only for ourselves, but for future generations to still enjoy,” she said.

Farmers are probably the best custodians for biodiversity stewardship and securing sites because they’ve been managing their farms.

This all forms part of the voluntary National Biodiversity Stewardship Programme and other contractual tools to legally secure private land and conserve dryland habitats and species under threat.

The West Coast and the Northern Cape, South Africa’s largest and most sparsely populated province, contains globally significant biodiversity, including 40% of the Succulent Karoo biome, a Unesco-recognised hotspot.

But, this fragile environment faces mounting pressures from mining, renewable energy projects, climate change and historical overgrazing.

The Biodiversity Stewardship Unit in the Northern Cape, a small team of four specialists, together with conservation NGOs like the EWT, are working to secure and protect critical habitats through voluntary agreements with private landowners.

The Western Cape also has such a unit (biodiversity stewardship), and the focal area of this piece crosses both provinces.

Rooivlei farm in the Namaqualand region is also in the process being declared a protected environment through working with CapeNature and the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Drylands Conservation Programme. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Biodiversity stewardship

JP Le Roux, a biodiversity officer in the Northern Cape’s Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs, Rural Development and Land Reform (DAERL), has been working within the Biodiversity Stewardship Unit on the formal declaration of stewardship sites.

Most of the stewardship sites in the Northern Cape are private landowners getting into biodiversity stewardship, formally declaring their properties as either protected environments or nature reserves.

“Farmers are probably the best custodians for biodiversity stewardship and securing sites because they’ve been managing their farms. If they don’t manage it correctly, then they kind of shoot themselves in the foot,” Le Roux said.

The unit found that some of the areas with the most pristine vegetation and wildlife are on privately owned farms that are still being farmed.

If you look at the Northern Cape coastline, it’s trashed. There’s this bottom section that’s natural, but already historically was heavily mined.

But when it comes to biodiversity stewardship, Le Roux said they don’t always have the incentive for biodiversity, so they rely on farmers and people who want to declare and have a conservation-oriented mind frame.

And while this remains difficult as the Northern Cape is rife with mining applications and renewable energy applications (solar or wind), Le Roux said there are landowners who see the value and bigger picture.

He said that mining and renewables on these properties offer a short-term gain for the landowners, but eventually operations would stop and what’s left of that property would not be viable for any rehabilitation or restoration.

Louis-Ann and Johan Truter are the landowners of Rooivlei in Namaqualand and are in the process of having the farm declared a protected environment. (Photo: Kristen Engel)

Zanné Brink, programme manager of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Drylands Conservation Project, and Renier Basson, the senior field officer in the programme. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

“If you look at the Northern Cape coastline, it’s trashed. There’s this bottom section that’s natural, but already historically was heavily mined… If you look at places like Alexander Bay and further up… you don’t even see an ant walking around anymore. There’s just nothing left. And that’s what’s going to happen to this whole coastline if we don’t secure it,” Le Roux said.

South African legislation provides for various tiers of formal environmental protection. National parks and nature reserves are afforded the highest level of protection and are governed by stringent laws.

Below these are protected environments, which are areas recognised for their significant conservation and ecological importance, reflecting the country’s biological diversity. Protected areas can be divided into zones to support different land uses, and management plans are created to integrate conservation goals with sustainable land management practices effectively.

This is how it’s being done at Papkuilsfontein farm in the Northern Cape, where controlled livestock grazing forms part of a scientifically informed management plan to restore degraded Succulent Karoo vegetation.

Drylands in South Africa are not only ecologically significant but also support extensive rangelands and agricultural activities, particularly livestock farming. However, their soils tend to be low in fertility and easily eroded, making sustainable management critical for long-term productivity and ecosystem health. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Turning farming land into protected environments

At Papkuilsfontein, in the Northern Cape, landowners are blending conservation with agriculture through the Drylands Conservation Programme, having had the farm declared a protected environment in February 2025.

Nieuwoudtville, where the farm is located, falls within the Bokkeveld Plateau, a region known as “the bulb capital of the world” because it has the world’s highest diversity of indigenous bulbous plants.

Since 2009, the provincial Biodiversity Stewardship Unit had been trying to get landowners on this plateau to go into the stewardship process to protect the area, but a lot of farmers were petrified of signing a document with government in the first place and also potentially losing revenue from their farming style.

Then the EWT got involved, along with DAERL, to look at alternatives and come up with a strategy to increase tourism on the properties, ultimately to diversify income streams.

Western Cape protected areas map of the Drylands area. (Source: CapeNature)

Northern Cape protected areas map, excluding national parks and candidate national parks. (Source: JP Le Roux, Northern Cape Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs, Rural Development and Land Reform)

Zanné Brink, the programme manager of the EWT’s Drylands Conservation Project, said: “By following the protected environment route, you can still carry on with your farming practices, there might be some changes that need to take place, but then we work together to boost your products [tourism] from the property. This allowed landowners to start participating in the process.”

The process at Papkuilsfontein took nearly five years from initial assessments to final declaration. When they first started doing biodiversity surveys they found more than 150 species. Now, Brink said, more than 2,500 species have been identified on the farm, just by doing biodiversity surveys.

Jaco and Alrie van Wyk are the sixth-generation owners of Papkuilsfontein. Jaco’s father, Willem, began the process of transitioning into a protected environment before he handed over to Jaco who explained to Daily Maverick what that transition entailed and how they have adjusted their farming practices over the years to suit this.

“[Now] you are much more aware… You don’t plant on the edge of the river bank anymore… You make [more] drains for water.

The way that we farm now is not making a lot of money… But I think my kids are going to have something to work with.

“It’s not sustainable to farm a lot of sheep… [So] we have less sheep per hectare. We put lamb camps up for two months because it has a greater impact on the sheep you have on the field. You still have them on the farm, but it is on the side of the yellow line,” Van Wyk said.

The farm’s main produce is mostly meat with wool and a little rooibos tea. Now it has the added value of being a protected environment with adventure tourism in nature, including hiking and biking trails around the canyon on the property and its 100m waterfall, as well as birdlife, fauna and San rock art.

Papkuilsfontein is also now home to the first via ferrata (protected rock-climbing route) in the Northern Cape at the Papkuilsfontein’s canyon.

Papkuilsfontein in Nieuwoudtville was declared a protected environment because it is of high conservation and ecological value. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Jaco and Alrie van Wyk are the owners of the Papkuilsfontein farming area and the sixth generation of the family to farm here. They are blending conservation with agriculture. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

As Willem began the journey towards declaring the property a protected area, he made the family and workers aware that the way they had been doing things was unsustainable.

“The way that we farm now is not making a lot of money. You are not going to have a big land cruiser in the house at the beach and something like that. But I think my kids are going to have something to work with… There will be natural veld and animals left. Like the dwarf tortoise that we have here,” Jaco said.

At the moment the biggest threat to the land, Jaco said, is drought, since they are in a water-scarce region.

But even with this, he said there were ways of farming and managing the veld that could reduce the impact of drought on their land from climate constraints.

Blending conservation with agriculture

Rossouw was teary eyed as she described the land of Katdooringvlei. “It’s peaceful, it’s quiet… The evenings are gold and the mornings are… I cannot describe how much I love this land and region… There are a lot of challenges to farm here, but this is home,” she said.

Specific changes made at Katdooringvlei through this process include taking some of the commercial fields located near sensitive areas out of production, and Rossouw said they plan to rehabilitate these fields to the best of their ability.

“It was a complex conversation when we embarked on the conservation initiative. Taking the commercial fields out of production had an impact on the availability of stubble grazing during the summer months. This, in turn, affected the ewes that were meant to mate on those stubble fields,” she said.

The damage caused by mining is visible all around our farm. The thought that everything precious our farm represents… might also look like that in a decade or two was unbearable.

Rossouw said the livestock numbers they can maintain within the proposed reserve did not differ much from what they were already farming with.

Feed costs are likely to increase, but Katdooringvlei has moved away from traditional ploughing methods to no-till farming, which Rossouw said has had a positive effect on their diesel expenses. But, she could only truthfully say how this affected them a year or two into the process.

The Drylands in South Africa stretch from the West Coast to the Northern Cape. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

Willem van Wyk began Papkuilsfontein’s journey towards biodiversity stewardship. This was taken over by his son Jaco and his wife, Alrie. (Photo: Kristin Engel)

“Although we have always been conservation-minded, the increase in prospecting applications, on our land and the surrounding areas, pushed us to take action.

“Our land has been in our family for generations, and we were not willing to lose it to mining. The damage caused by mining is visible all around our farm, and the mere thought that everything precious our farm represents, and what might be lost forever – our family, our traditions, our memories, every little tortoise, every eagle, every flower – might also look like that in a decade or two was unbearable.

This is what compelled Rossouw and her family to take decisive action and pursue the protected environment declaration for their land.

Le Roux said successful restoration requires long-term commitment. “Properties mismanaged 50 years ago still show those scars today.” But when they were able to protect functioning ecosystems, they became markers for surviving climate shifts. DM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REeWvTRUpMk

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

South Africa

Biodiversity stewardship

Turning farming land into protected environments

Blending conservation with agriculture