by Rehana Dada & Jacolette Adam
This year the IMCG Pre-Congress tour takes you to some of the most spectacular wetlands in southern Africa including Mfabeni, an active 45,000 year old mire in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park and the De Mond Ramsar site on the southernmost tip of the African continent. Get a quick peek at South Africa’s innovative and highly successful Working for Wetlands and Working for Water Programmes that alleviate poverty through labour-intensive wetland rehabilitation and alien plant eradication and get a suss on the unique problems South Africans face in protecting mires.
South Africa has few wetland systems, and mire-forming conditions are limited. Peat resources occur mainly in inter-dune and inter-river valleys. Only sixteen areas in South Africa have so far been identified as having the potential to support peatlands, but only coastal KwaZulu-Natal has been thoroughly researched.
However, with its diversity of species and its important geographical position, South Africa’s wetlands play a critical role in biodiversity conservation. A number of endemic bird species associated with wetlands are found within South Africa’s borders including highly isolated species such as wattled crane and white-winged flufftail. The country’s wetlands host a number of palearctic migrants during the northern winter, some even from the Taimyr Peninsula, and provides the southern limits to a number of tropical species such as the pink backed Pelican, the dwarf bittern, and the openbilled stork.
You will need gumboots/waterboots and normal wetlands field equipment. Elephants, buffalo, hippo and crocodiles are likely to be present in some areas and we will be traveling through a malaria zone for about 3 days.
The fieltrip starts with a dinner at the Rietvlei Nature reserve, a fairly large urban reserve just outside Pretoria that is known for its impressive rehabilitation of old peat mining sites. Peat extraction on the Highveld damaged a considerable area of mires and the negative impact is evident during floods, streams drying out during dry periods and a drastic decrease in water quality.
We spend our first morning exploring the Highveld karst fens in the rolling grasslands of Rietvlei and en route to the eastern escarpment plateu that afternoon, we stop at reed and sedge fens in grassveld biome and visit the Verloren Vallei Ramsar Site.
Verloren Vallei hosts all three crane species occurring in South Africa, blue, wattled and crowned crane, as well as blue and white bellied korhaan, purple gallinule, various snipes and the elusive white-winged flufftail that occurs in only a handful of sites in Africa. Various rare and endemic orchids are found in this area. It was designated a Ramsar Site partly because of its biodiversity and its role in the hydrological functioning of two economically and hydrologically important rivers, the Olifants and the Crocodile. Both of these rivers flow through the recently established Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park and into Mozambique making the Verloren Vallei mire of truly international importance.
We stay overnight in the Dullstroom area which is home to over 50 species of ground orchid, and the next day we head towards Kosi Bay on the eastern seaboard, stopping at a subtropical swampforest and the Kosi Bay Ramsar Site. Please be warned, there are potentially dangerous animals in this region and the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park is a malaria zone.
Hippos, which are common in this area, play an interesting role in wetland ecosystems. When they modify their environment physically by creating paths and grazing lawn for their own benefit, they also benefit other animals by opening up water pathways for fish and trampling the tall, tough grasses that are unpalatable to grazing mammals.
The Kosi Bay tropical swamp forest mires are a rare and unique wetland type in southern Africa. Maputaland has several large-scale conservation areas of the highest ecological value and importance (with a considerable proportion of wetlands) where economic development is prohibited. Here the giant palm Raphia australis, on which the Palmnut Vulture is dependent, finds its natural southern limit. There are many rare and threatened species in the area and eight Red Data fish species have their largest known populations in the Kosi system.
But this region is also one of the worst in terms of poverty and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Adequate nutrition is of critical importance but cultivation in swamp forest is impacting negatively on wetland functioning and biodiversity in addition to the spread of invasive exotic plants and afforestation with exotic Pinus and Eucalyptus varieties. A conservation officer who has been working in this area for decades will give us an insight into his attempts to find the balance between conservation and human needs.
On Day 4, we visit both pristine mires and subsistence farming plots in swampforest interdune fens. We’ll also get some time to enjoy coastal lakes and the warm Indian Ocean. The next day we travel to the heart of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, a Ramsar and World Heritage Site and en route we will visit Vasi Pan, a mire that recovered dramatically from devastation by afforestation.
Deep fissures developed and the potential fire hazard was enormous. The risk posed to the local people and their livestock proved severe. In May 1996, a routine controlled burn ignited the dry surface peat and it continued to burn until late 1997 despite extensive rains.
The rehabilitation of the wetland depended on the re-establishment of the principle hydrological processes without compromising the revenue generated by timber production. The recovery of Vasi Pan showed that dried peat lands can be restored quickly to healthy systems when exotic timber plantations are removed from the catchment area of the wetland.
That evening, we enjoy the mangroves and estuarine wildlife along the St Lucia estuary on a relaxed sunset cruise. If you haven’t encountered hippos by then, this will be your chance to see several, in addition to fish eagles, pied kingfishers and crocodiles.
The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park is an amalgamation of formally protected areas and includes coral reefs, estuaries, a marine reserve, lakes and mires, and leopard, elephant, buffalo, rhino, and hippos. It is one of the most important fish nurseries and adult feeding areas for marine fish, and fresh water flowing from the mires into the lake provides crucial refugia for fish species during periods of high salinity.
The 6th day of our tour takes us into the 45,000 year old active Mfabeni fen and swamp forests. We are spending the whole day on this wonderful mire, a paradise for peat corers and fauna and flora enthusiasts.
Mfabeni is one of the oldest known active peatlands in the world, and the thickest in South Africa. Its basal four layers were deposited during the Late Pleistocene and the top three layers are of Holocene age. It depends on perched aquifers in the coastal sand dunes just to the east of it. Mfabeni is unique in that it is linked to other distinct ecosystems, such as Lake St. Lucia, Lake Bangazi and the hydrophilic grasslands on the Eastern Shores. It contributes richly to the diversity of habitats of the Maputaland region. This mire is a dynamic ecosystem that at present is adapting, as in the past, to a changing environment.
On Day 7 we leave St Lucia in the early morning and head towards the Drakensberg/Ukahlamba-Maloti Mountain Range. We stop in at the Waterval Vley mire on the Great Drakensberg Escarpment, a spectacular active mire with three waterfalls flowing into it! This is the only peatland in southern Africa, and possibly in the world, with these features!
Waterval Vley is a bottom fen dominated by Phragmites australis and a Carex species. Little is known of its origin, development, and the extent of its contribution to the hydrological functions and balance of the area, or its contribution to biodiversity and habitat diversity. It has been a stable environment since the last Ice Age, and contains fossil pollen, fiber and other records of important scientific value concerning such matters as climatic change and ecological development of the Highveld. It supports 30 to 50 white-winged flufftails (about 20% of the estimated national population), crowned cranes and blue cranes in the surrounding grasslands. At one waterfall there is a breeding colony of bald ibis.
Part of this scenic percolation mire is destined to become a dam for a pump storage electricity scheme that will flood the waterfalls. We hope to hear from both the electricity company and activists who are opposed to it. We spend the night at Sterkfontein Dam, a water transfer dam linked to an existing pumped storage electricity generation scheme.
The next morning we have breakfast at the spectacular Golden Gate National Park, and then continue into the Kingdom of Lesotho to explore a mosaic of mires, wetlands, and streams in an ancient oxbow in the Mountain Kingdom. We spend all of the next day at the unique inter-bedded gravel and peat alluvial fan mires on the roof of Africa! Some of this area is pristine but part of it is impacted by the Lesotho Highland Development Water Transfer Scheme to South Africa.
Lesotho is a land-locked country with two distinct landscapes, the western Lowlands and the eastern Highlands. The Highlands are formed by the Drakensberg/Ukahlamba and Maloti mountain ranges, a high dissected plateau on average about 2500m above sea level with peaks rising to nearly 3500m and narrow, steep-sided river valleys. Highland catchments are characterized by high rainfall, temperate summers and long, cold winters.
Grasslands and shrub lands dominate highland vegetation and wetlands (alpine bogs, fens, restio and grass marshes) occur in all drainage lines. Biodiversity has changed through the loss of mires, reed meadows, and marshes, deteriorating rangelands, the loss of mammal and bird species through over-hunting and habitat invasion by humans as well as poor management practices.
From the Highlands we travel to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, where you can choose to spend a day exploring the city or the foothills of the Maloti Mountains.
We spend the 20th of September, Day 11, traveling through a panorama of landscapes via the Karoo to Tsitsikamma on the southern seaboard. The karoo is a dry but fascinating landscape consisting of plains, ridges, and lowstanding koppies (hills). Day 12 takes us into the smallest but richest floral kingdom in the world, the Fynbos Floral Kingdom. Day 13 takes us along the Garden Route through a landscape of coast, forests, and lakes. We visit the Groenvlei Lake and mire and the Vankersvelvlei Sphagnum-dominated floating moor.
Vankersvel vlei is dated at 24 400 (± 450 BP) at a peat depth of 10,2 m. Pollen analysis enabled the reconstruction of the vegetation history and climate of the Southern Coastal Belt Eco-region over the past 24 000 years.
On the last day of our tour we explore the De Hoop Nature Reserve and Ramsar Site and travel to L’Agulhas, the southern-most point of the African continent, stopping briefly at some of the wetlands in the De Mond catchment before settling in at Paarl for the IMCG Symposium on the 24th & 25th and the General Assembly on the 26th.
De Hoop Nature Reserve on the southern Cape coast offers a pristine coastline, limestone hills, extensive dunes, the Potberg mountains and the De Hoop Vlei. For the most part the vlei is a 16km-long lake blocked off from the sea by coastal dunes, but its uniqueness lies in its partial location in a gorge. 50 of its 1500 fynbos plant species are endemic and its animal population includes the endangered bontebok and Cape mountain zebra, as well as baboons, ostriches, eland, grey rhebuck, duiker, and steenbok. It is well-known to ornithologists, attracting a variety of birds throughout the year. This is an excellent whale-watching site and no doubt we’ll have time to look out for the Southern Rights that swim north to calve in South Africa’s warm waters.
If you think you might drag yourself away from the mountains and vineyards, please join us for the 2004 symposium. The theme is Management Challenges for Wetlands, Mires and Peatlands in the 21st Century.
After the IMCG congress on the 26th, you might choose to depart directly from Cape Town International Airport or travel the 16 hours back to Johannesburg by bus.
Field Conditions: Normal wetland field conditions and you will need normal footwear for wetlands. Some areas that we will explore are home to potentially dangerous animals such as elephant, buffalo, hippo and crocodile. Malaria is present in Kosi Bay. Please consult your physician about prophylactics.
Registration: We still have a few places available and it is not too late to register! You are also welcome to still submit an abstract. Late registrations and abstracts will be accepted until the end of July.
Cost: Euro 1100
Transport to and from South Africa is not included. Pick-up from Johannesburg Airport.
Please contact Piet-Louis Grundling for a general invite and detailed programme.
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