February 2020 – ReStory

Saving Critically Endangered Peninsula Granite Fynbos from extinction at Tokai Park, Cape Town

February 10, 2020January 15, 2021 admin City of Cape Town, critically endangered, Peninsula Granite Fynbos, restoration, Table Mountain National Park, Tokai Park, volunteers

Peninsula Granite Fynbos is wholly confined to the City of Cape Town and found only on the lower, more fertile slopes of Table Mountain on the Cape Peninsula. Peninsula Granite Fynbos is perhaps best symbolised on Table Mountain by the Silver Tree, but is also incredibly rich in plant species and contains nine endemic species, all threatened with extinction: Unistem Aristea (Critically Endangered), Granite Cape Flax (Critically Endangered), Crown-climbers Friend (Rare), Small-flowered doll-rose (Rare), Spreading Everfig (Vulnerable), and Bakoven Brightfig (Vulnerable). Peninsula Granite Fynbos was also the home of the Wynberg Conebush and Table Mountain Widow Reed, but these species have been wiped out as a result of housing and agricultural developments and are now extinct.

Thought corner

Gimme shelter from the gathering #hashtag storm

February 3, 2020February 3, 2020 admin

ReStory narrator: James Blignaut [This article was first published by The Daily Maverick. The article can be found here: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-01-28-gimme-shelter-from-the-gathering-hashtag-storm/

Biodiversity, nature, climate

Cork oak forest restoration in the Maamora cork oak forest in Morocco (June to December 2019)

February 3, 2020January 15, 2021 admin cork oak, forest planting, game farm, management plan, Morocco, overgraze, overharvest, rabbits, rehabilitation, unsustainable

While working on a management plan for a hunting farm (situated between the Mediterranean Sea in the North and the Atlas mountains in the South) in Morocco, North Africa, we came across a valiant effort to restore the Maamora cork oak forest. This forest has been subjected to overharvesting and overgrazing for many decades.

General

Wisdom of the Ages

December 1, 2022December 1, 2022 admin

Two weeks ago the man who some describe as a founding father of Regenerative Agriculture was in South Africa giving a number of Master Classes. It was a privilege to sit for two days and listen to a man who has a global following but doesn’t want to be guru; who has enormous experience but admits he doesn’t know all the answers; who doesn’t believe that his way is the only way, but who does want to share his experience; who shared his belief of how farming should be a marriage with nature, approached as one approaches a responsive lover, not as a warrior engages with an enemy.

General