More of the brown, less of the green: putting water into our "water factories"

                                                     A media trip to the Western Cape Part III

Photograph used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA

“So we want more of the brown, less of the green?” asked one member of the audience. She was responding to a slide of two people, one standing on brown veld and the other on “lush” greenery (see photo above). The problem with the latter was that the budding greenery was that of a fresh invasion of Invasive Alien Plants (IAPs). The brown was an area that had been treated and subsequently regained its health.

IAPs are not a serious contender for what grabs our attention. We might have a vague idea that invasives have to go, but our buy-in doesn’t go much beyond that. When informed, though, that water lost to invasive alien plants is estimated at an annual 1.44 billion cubic metres nationally we might start paying attention. This volume could sustain 120 000 hectares of crops to increase food production, or supply 3.38 million households of four members for one year.
 

Helen Gordon has done the maths, and her presentation on the first evening of the media tour was certainly food for thought. Gordon is Programme Manager for the WWF Water Balance Programme.

The recent drought’s deleterious effect on agriculture and the economy would show to any observer the importance of water. If you regard water as coming from a tap and have never gone beyond this, then this article will hold little interest to you.

The expense of keeping water in those taps is enormous. R1.4 billion per year is required just to keep existing water infrastructure ticking over. A further annual amount of some R63 billion is called for to upgrade what we have in order to meet the projected demands. And when the rains don’t come, that water supply is threatened before it gets close to our taps.

But investment also needs to go into our ecosystems, what WWF calls “the water factories”. Without functioning ecosystems it doesn’t matter how much is spent on dams and the other water infrastructure!

The Water Balance Programme, through its IAP clearing projects, puts “new” water into freshwater ecosystems. It is an important water supply intervention. A background to IAPs in the country:

• IAPs destroy the proper functioning of wetlands (vleis in South Africa) and the plant habitats and communities along the river margins (riparian zones). The ecosystem services provided by these ecological bulwarks are lost to us.
• IAPs have invaded a total area of some 18 million hectares in the country. Indigenous vegetation cannot compete with them and so the natural balance becomes out of kilter and biodiversity is lost.
• Working for Water is the government response to IAPs. Some 2.7 million hectares have been treated over the past two decades with some R800 million being spent every year. Clearing is costly and requires on-going commitment. 

The next article will deal with the first stop the following day, a look at how the Water Balance Programme saves water, infrastructure (pumps, bridges) and creates jobs.