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The economics of restoration in South Africa – ASSET Research project

March 16, 2021March 16, 2021 admin 0 Comments ASSET Research, database, economics of restoration, GIS interface, system dynamics model

ASSET Research, in partnership with SAEON and with the support of the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF), is developing and populating South Africa’s first database on the economics of restoration (https://assetresearch.org.za/media-resources/). This will equip policy- and decision-makers as well as restoration practitioners to take informed, science-based decisions with respect to restoration. It will also advance the science, business and practice of restoration in general. The database will be used to develop an open access and user-friendly online system dynamics modelling tool that will enable users to simulate the benefits and costs of their own restoration projects.

Biodiversity, nature, climate Featured

Using goats to control the spread of invasive alien plants

January 15, 2021January 15, 2021 admin alien control, Goats, invasive alien plants

Using goats to control invasive alien plants could provide an economic opportunity for small livestock farmers in South Africa. Goat farmers can become entrepreneurs that run alien plant clearing goat herds and so become indispensable in the fight to control and eradicate invasive plants. There is also the great advantage of the goats being a lucrative source of meat and skins with a ready market. We have invasive alien plants in almost every part of South Africa and if properly managed, goats for aliens could become economically important in smaller rural communities.

Biodiversity, nature, climate

Clearing stinkbean in the Kamma River – August/September 2020

December 17, 2020January 15, 2021 admin Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve, Jobs 4 Carbon, Kamma River, restoration, stinkbean, wetlands

These alien trees invade the wetlands, changing both the plant composition and the soil surface stability. This ultimately results in canalisation and increased flow of the water out of the wetland as well as the formation of severe erosion head-cuts, which voraciously eat back into the less protected wetland substrate with each flood. The peat wetlands then begin to suffer the loss of their function as storage systems for water and carbon.

Biodiversity, nature, climate Thought corner

Buffelsbaai’s mirror

September 28, 2020January 15, 2021 admin Buffelsbaai, natural capital, restoration

The outline and meaning of the image in the mirror become clearer like the appearance of the protective rocks, as if from nowhere, in the dissolving morning mist. Buffelsbaai and its swallows are but a microcosm of who we are and what we desire as a people.

General

The Culinary Capital forges an equitable future

June 6, 2020January 15, 2021 admin community, food, food production, Franschoek

The village known for tasting menus, salmon trout, bubbly and hop-on hop-off wine tours is rapidly shape-shifting into a village trying to keep its own community fed. Could Franschhoek become a national community model, and what happens when the crisis subsides?

Biodiversity, nature, climate Economic

Restoration of the land and the people in Vanwyksdorp

May 27, 2020January 15, 2021 admin community upliftment, Conservation Management Services, Jobs for Carbon, restoration, soil erosion, soil infiltration, soil rehabilitation, spekboom, training, Vanwyksdorp

The community of Vanwyksdorp, a little agricultural village in the heart of the arid Little Karoo, was stuck in a status quo of depopulation of rural agriculture, unemployment, poverty and helplessness. Vanwyksdorp has a good school but the situation was exacerbated by the annual exodus of school leavers, full of knowledge and expectations, only to find a world of closed doors and very few or no opportunities.

Featured Thought corner

A letter to the President in the times of the Corona Virus

April 21, 2020January 15, 2021 admin Corona virus, food security, hope, pandemic, regenerative agriculture, response, restoration, water

A letter to the President from Prof. James Blignaut. In the times of the Corona Virus we need to see the light that Regenerative Agriculture provides.