It will cost in the region of R300 million to remove alien vegetation from the Berg River that’s drastically affecting the water quality.

The Berg River’s degraded ecosystem is not being managed correctly

Warming waters along the Antarctic peninsula have opened the door to shell-crushing king crabs that threaten a unique ecosystem on the seafloor, according to new research by a U.S.-Sweden team of marine researchers.

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 09 February 2011

Warming waters along the Antarctic peninsula have opened the door to shell-crushing king crabs that threaten a unique ecosystem on the seafloor, according to new research by a U.S.-Sweden team of marine researchers.

Crabs haven't lived in coastal Antarctic waters for the past 40 million years.

On a two-month voyage of the Swedish icebreaker Oden and U.S. research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer, marine biologists collected digital images of hundreds of crabs moving closer to the shallow coastal waters that have been protected from predators with pincers for more than 40 million years. They are the same kind of deep-water crabs with big red claws that you might find at the seafood counter.

“Along the western Antarctica peninsula we have found large populations over like 30 miles of transects. It was quite impressive,” said Sven Thatje, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Southampton in England and chief scientist on the cruise.

Finding crabs on the bottom of the ocean isn’t that big a deal. But here in Antarctica, crabs haven’t lived in coastal waters for the past 40 million years. Until now, it’s been too cold.

Bottom-dwelling creatures like mussels, brittle stars and sea urchins have not developed any defenses. They have thinner shells, for example. For the same reason, filter feeders, like clams and worms, burrow underground in most regions. The lack of predators has led to a thick canopy of sorts, much like a submarine jungle comprised of flowery feather stars, tube worms and squirming sea spiders.

During an interview on board the Oden just after it docked at the main U.S. base in Antarctica, Thatje described how the crabs are moving closer to an ecosystem with no defenses.

“The Antarctic shelf communities are quite unique,” Thatje said. “This is the result of tens of millions of years of evolution in isolation.”

To explore this underwater world, Thatje and his team of U.S. and Swedish scientists towed an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that scanned the seafloor with a digital camera. Along the way, they encountered thick packs of ice, rough seas and lots of feeding whales.

Even though Thatje predicted the crab invasion several years ago in a research paper, he was surprised at seeing so many so quickly.

“The pace of changes that we are observing here in the Antarctic, which is the remotest continent on this planet, is quite frightening,” he said.

What’s happened is that the waters around the Antarctic peninsula have begun to get warmer. The air temperature has jumped 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1950s, while the average ocean temperature has increased by 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) over the same time.

That change in water temperature has lowered a physiological barrier that has kept the crabs in check. Crabs are unable to process magnesium in their blood below a certain temperature, and the result is a narcotic effect on the crabs’ movement. Magnesium is a mineral that they absorb from the surrounding sea water. Scientists say that barrier may soon fall, as global climate change continues to impact wildlife at the polar regions.

The crab research team will spend the next few months analyzing 120,000 images taken of the seafloor by the AUV, which was designed and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. They want to know whether the crabs will invade and leave, or permanently colonize the shallow areas. Will their presence destroy the existing community or simply alter it?

Previous cruises had only spotted one or two crabs, but now scientists are seeing entire populations, according to Rich Aronson, lead investigator in the crab project and a professor of biology at the Florida Institute of Technology. The crabs are moving from the deep ocean, up the continental slope to the shallower shelf areas.

“As the surface waters warm up, that will make it possible to come running over the top and raise hell with the bottom communities,” Aronson said.

Unlike most areas of the world, the shallower waters on the Antarctic continental shelf are actually slightly colder than the deeper waters of the Southern Ocean. That’s because of a clockwise current of water called the Antarctic circumpolar current. That flow of cold water keeps Antarctic marine life — especially the bottom-dwelling creatures — isolated. There are no sharks, rays or fish with bony jaws, for example, Aronson explained, in Antarctica.

“If you look at the warming trends on the peninsula, you would expect that the crabs would come back in 40 or 50 years,” Aronson said from his office in Melbourne, Fla. “But boom, they’re already here. This is the last pristine marine system on Earth and it could get destroyed.”

By: Eric Niiler
Source: Discovery News

South Africa’s organic farming industry is up in arms over international research that claims organic farming harms wildlife and produces less food – and that its produce is no healthier than conventionally farmed foods.

The [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 09 May 2010

South Africa’s organic farming industry is up in arms over international research that claims organic farming harms wildlife and produces less food – and that its produce is no healthier than conventionally farmed foods.

The popularity of organic foods – produced naturally without pesticides and potentially harmful fertilisers – has soared in South Africa in recent years.

But research conducted by the University of Leeds in England found that organic farms produced less than half as much food compared with conventional farming and needed twice as much land to produce the same amount of food.

The study also showed there were 10% fewer small birds, such as yellowhammers, corn buntings, linnets, skylarks and lapwings, in organic fields in the UK. Researchers found that larger birds, which were attracted to dense organic crops, were scaring away the smaller birds, disrupting the ecosystem.

But that was not the worst of it. A recent review commissioned by the UK Food Standards Agency found that organic food was neither more nutritious nor healthier than conventionally farmed food.

Said the agency’s Gill Fine: “This study does not mean that people should not eat organic food. What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference … there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food.”

But local experts have slammed both reports. Durban agricultural scientist Dr Raymond Auberbach said that, contrary to the study’s findings, organic farming was beneficial to birdlife, adding that conventional farming methods were wiping out birds of prey.

“Pesticides and other harmful chemicals are killing these birds. In fact, organic farming would be more beneficial to the birds and the ecosystem,” said Auberbach.

The head of the Biodiversity and Organic Certification Authority in Pretoria, Tim Jackson, said his farm was full of birds and wildlife.

He dismissed the findings on production levels as “hogwash”, saying they didn’t apply to South Africa. “We are producing twice as much maize. The output is now doubled from what we used to get using the conventional system. We never got produce like this … it is the most profitable kind of farming and the productivity is amazing.

“It has been accepted worldwide that organically farmed produce has 15% more nutrients than chemical farming.”

Diana Callear, head of local organic certification body Ecocert, said organic agriculture required good land management. She said in South Africa the labour intensity of organic agriculture was a plus, as well as reduced use of fuel energy and pesticides. “Furthermore, organic agriculture does not add to the already high level of pollution of our water systems,” she said.

She said studies had found there were more micronutrients in organically produced food.

- Subashni Naidoo
Source: Times Live

The Rondevlei Nature Reserve, located about 20 kilometres outside of Cape Town, and learners from Sid G Rule Primary in Grassy Park are engaged in a collaborative conservation education project.

Rondevlei wetland. Photo by [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 28 April 2010

The Rondevlei Nature Reserve, located about 20 kilometres outside of Cape Town, and learners from Sid G Rule Primary in Grassy Park are engaged in a collaborative conservation education project.

Rondevlei wetland. Photo by 'timparkinson' under creative commons licence.

The project’s goal is twofold: the pupils learn about ecosystems, biodiversity and conservation, while helping to collect important environmental data that the City of Cape Town can use to assess water health throughout the municipal area.

It is also part of a bigger vision developed by Dr Mark Graham, aquatic ecologist and director of environmental consultancy Ground Truth, aimed at mobilising communities to better look after their rivers and other water resources.

“Due to increased utilisation of water sources, our rivers are more and more under pressure in terms of pollution. Our water quality shows fairly worrying statistics,” Graham said.

To protect water resources, municipalities usually implement a range of initiatives, such as improving their solid waste management and sewerage systems as well as investing in wetland rehabilitation and conversation. But without community involvement, water conservation schemes will never be completely successful, believes Graham.

He therefore came up with the idea of asking schools to adopt a section of a river that they monitor on a regular basis. The data the pupils collect could be fed to the water affairs department of the municipality in which the school is located.

If all schools would commit to testing a certain stretch of river, an entire river system could be monitored and this information could inform a municipality’s water management strategy, Graham suggests.

“Kids learn something and get directly involved in conserving the environment. It’s a great opportunity for behaviour change, much more effective then just saying ‘don’t litter’,” argued Graham. “The initiative builds up environmental champions at community level. It makes citizens realise what role they can play.”

Bronwen Foster, nature conservation officer at the Rondevlei Nature Reserve, which is managed by the City of Cape Town, agrees: “For the children, the project is an important platform for awareness. Most parents don’t expose their children to nature. But once the kids appreciate the environment, they think twice before they litter.”

Some school groups already practice community river health monitoring using the Mini South African Scoring System, or “Mini SASS”, which is a is a simplified method of measuring water quality and health that can be used by laypeople.

Based on the scientifically tried and tested SASS technique commonly applied by ecologists, Mini SASS doesn’t directly measure the contamination of the river as it is not a water test. Instead, it tests the sensitivity of various animals to water quality.

The children look for invertebrates in different habitats at a river site, collect insects in small nets in the water and rinse mud out of the net to find tiny bugs.

“It’s a low tech tool to test water quality in rural and urban areas that can be used by everyone. Through this simple method, you can get an accurate reading of the river. If the river is in reasonable condition, you should have several hundred individual insects in the sample,” said Graham.

In the Rondevlei Nature Reserve, the cooperation between schools and the City’s scientific department is still in its very early stages. It takes some time to gear the children up for environmental activism, Foster says.

“It would be a great idea for schools to each adopt a section of a river and collect data that could be used by the City,” she reckoned.

For now, the children are handed charts that help them to identify plants, birds, insects and small aquatic creatures. Enthusiastically, they climb up the watchtowers, take position in the viewing sheds and carefully walk among the reeds and along the water’s edge to find the animals they see on their charts.

“Based on these different elements of the ecosystem, they learn to assess its health by recognising the basic indicators that show that something is wrong with the water, mainly by noting what is not there, what is missing, like frogs, for example,” explained Foster.

The positive results of the nature conservation project are noticeable almost immediately. “If there is pollution in the water, what needs to happen?” Foster asks the group of 36 pupils at the end of the day’s expedition. “We have to do something about it!” the children shout without hesitation.

All of them seem keen to tell their friends and family about what they have learnt that day and implement some of this knowledge in their communities.

“We want the children to observe nature and see it in real life, so that they don’t only learn out of textbooks,” the primary school’s Grade 7 teacher Peter Botha said to illustrate the importance of the project. “They grow up to be more aware and pass on this information to their parents and so on. We are amazed at the amount of info they absorb.”

Botha says his pupils are now able to make the link between the pollution they observe in their communities with the impact this has on their immediate environment and nature conservation.

“I know now that when I litter at my home, it’s not good for the environment,” 12-year-old Caryn Adonis proudly shows off her newly acquired knowledge. The excursion has made a lasting impression on her. “I want to work here. It’s so cool,” she quipped.

Source: IPS
Related Article: Adopt a River

“Your department has let South Africa down, and seriously so,” Democratic Alliance MP Annette Lovemore told Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica.

Lovemore, speaking during debate on the water affairs budget vote in the National Assembly, [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 16 April 2010

“Your department has let South Africa down, and seriously so,” Democratic Alliance MP Annette Lovemore told Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica.

Lovemore, speaking during debate on the water affairs budget vote in the National Assembly, called on the minister to show “vital, critical and urgent leadership to address the current shocking level of mismanagement of our water resources”.

Excessive concentrations of nutrients stimulates algal growth resulting in the decrease of water quality and the emergence of harmful algal blooms.

Ground and surface water quality in South Africa was deteriorating fast, and people had died after drinking polluted water, she said.

“Animals in the Kruger National Park and ecosystems across the country are under threat. Tourism is compromised by the eutrophication of rivers and dams. Water treatment costs are escalating due to poor raw water quality.

“Farmers are unable to irrigate with polluted river water. The availability of water to sustain economic development and human and environmental health is diminishing. Opportunities are being seriously undermined,” Lovemore said.

United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa told MPs they were sitting on a time bomb.

“The current budget does not address the need to bring the previously neglected areas of the country onto the same level in terms of water infrastructure.

“We are sitting on a time bomb. This is a water-scarce country with a growing population and outdated infrastructure designed to serve a small portion of citizens who live in the privileged areas.”

Holomisa said government had failed in the past 15 years to bring the infrastructure in underprivileged areas on a par with privileged areas.

A drive through provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape revealed the “apartheid topography” of these regions. Access to clean water was a basic human right, but it did not exist in many rural communities.

“Billions are being spent on expanding or maintaining infrastructure inherited from the old regime. On the other hand, the infrastructure where the majority live is sorely neglected.

“This lies at the root of the violent community protests that we witness across the country. People are not blind to the disparities,” Holomisa said.

Lovemore angered Sonjica, prompting her to rise on a point of order and object to Lovemore’s quoting from the Green Drop Report, a national survey of municipal wastewater treatment plants that— after several delays—is now set to be released on April 28.

“I still have to give authority to release the report,” Sonjica said.

But the minister’s objection was over-ruled, and Lovemore informed the House the document had found sewage treatment plants around the country, with few exceptions, were in dire straits.

According to it, only 7.4 percent of the plants surveyed had actually achieved Green Drop status, while the balance did not comply fully with the requirements for safely and properly treating sewage.

“Alarm bells, minister, are ringing. Regrettably, the competence to respond to these alarm bells simply does not exist,” Lovemore said.

She further told Sonjica she was getting bad advice.

“Your internal advisors, with a few exceptions, are letting you down,” Lovemore warned.

Her DA colleague, Gareth Morgan, called on Sonjica to apply the provisions of the Water Act and get strict with non-compliant municipalities and not merely issue them with non-compliance notices.

“The Act does allow for the provision of notices and directives to allow a transgressor to rectify the non-compliance, but the big stick of criminal charges against municipalities that continually transgress is being avoided by the department,” he said.

Morgan also warned that eutrophication levels in South African dams were among the highest in the world. Eutrophication is an increase in the concentration of chemical nutrients, and the reason many reservoirs around the country often appear bright green.

“Our eutrophication levels are among the highest in the world, and there are at least 19 major dams that are either eutrophic or incipient eutrophic,” he said.

- Sapa

Southeast Asian nations on the Mekong River pledged Monday to step up cooperation over the shrinking waterway amid fears China’s dams are exacerbating a severe regional drought.

Mekong River

Leaders of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 05 April 2010

Southeast Asian nations on the Mekong River pledged Monday to step up cooperation over the shrinking waterway amid fears China’s dams are exacerbating a severe regional drought.

Mekong River

Leaders of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam — the member-states of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) — convened in the Thai coastal town of Hua Hin to discuss management of the river, on which more than 60 million people rely.

“Without good and careful management of the Mekong river as well as its natural resources, this great river will not survive,” Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said as he opened the summit, the first in the MRC’s history.

“The Mekong river is being threatened by serious problems arising from both the unsustainable use of water and the effects of climate change,” he warned.

China — itself suffering the worst drought in a century in its southwest, with more than 24 million people short of drinking water — attended the talks as a dialogue partner of the MRC, as did military-ruled Myanmar.

Vice Foreign Minister Song Tao led the Beijing delegation to the summit, which comes after river levels in northern Thailand and Laos hit five-decade lows, according to the commission.

The situation has alarmed communities along the Mekong, which is the world’s largest inland fishery and vital for the region’s transport, drinking water and irrigation.

The abnormally low levels have raised fears over already endangered species such as the Mekong giant catfish.

The Chinese arrived Sunday and met for talks with MRC countries seeking more information about the economic power’s hydropower dams, seen by activists as being behind the current water shortage.

“Sharing knowledge and data is among the crucial measures to mitigate problems… in each country as well as helping alleviate poverty in the region as a whole,” Abhisit said.

He thanked Beijing, which has eight planned or existing dams on the mainstream river, for recently agreeing to share data from two stations during this dry season.

“I also hope that such genuine effort of cooperation would become more regular,” said Abhisit.

China insists extreme dry conditions have caused the current ebbing flows — a claim backed up by the MRC’s own analysis.

MRC member-states ratified a Hua Hin declaration Monday committing to sustainable development of the river basin.

The MRC has warned that the health of the Mekong Basin and the river’s eco-systems could be threatened by proposed dams and expanding populations.

Thailand has invoked a tough security law and has deployed thousands of troops in Hua Hin to ensure protesters do not disrupt the summit, in light of mass anti-government “Red Shirt” rallies in Bangkok since mid-March.

Abhisit arrived at the summit Sunday from a tense Bangkok, where tens of thousands of red-shirted supporters of fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra have paralysed the capital’s tourist heartland, seeking snap elections.

- AFP

Ministers and officials from ten countries and territories in East Africa yesterday endorsed or signed off on a potentially far-reaching protocol to protect East Africa’s coastal and marine environment from land-based activities and pollution.

The [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 01 April 2010

Ministers and officials from ten countries and territories in East Africa yesterday endorsed or signed off on a potentially far-reaching protocol to protect East Africa’s coastal and marine environment from land-based activities and pollution.

The new protocol – five years in the making – makes the western Indian Ocean the third marine area of the world to achieve a multilateral agreement to limit and control land-based impacts on the marine environment, after the Mediterranean (1980) and Wider Caribbean (1999).

The parties to the agreement are Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles, Reunion, Mauritius, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa, which will be signing the protocol in the near future.

Durban Beach. Burgeoning cities such as Durban are threatening the very resource base that sustains them.

“This agreement comes at an opportune time, and will be assisting us with our initiatives in coast East Africa to save one of the few remaining areas of the world that are still unspoilt,” said Dr Amani Ngusaru, head of WWF’s Coastal East Africa Marine Programme.

“Over 60 million people in eastern and southern Africa live and depend on the goods and services provided by the coastal and marine ecosystems of coastal east Africa.”

A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Study, Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis of land-based sources and activities in the Western Indian Ocean Region estimates the economic value in the form of goods and services provided by marine habitats such as coastal and mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass beds to be more than US$25 billion per year.

“However, the resources of coastal East Africa are coming more and more under threat from rapid population growth, increased resource exploitation, unplanned development and climate change,” Dr Ngusaru said. “Burgeoning cities such as Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Durban are threatening the very resource base that sustains them.

“Countering these trends is complicated by a lack of capacity and effective legal instruments that governments can use to champion the protection of the marine environment.”

The signing of the protocol followed nine demonstration projects focusing on dissemination of technologies and approaches for the sustainable management and protection of the marine ecosystems. These included wastewater management using advanced constructed wetlands in Kenya, Seychelles and Tanzania and community-based resource management and eco-tourism demonstration projects in Comoros and Madagascar.

A waste management demonstration project and a soil erosion control, both using indigenous vegetation, were implemented in Mauritius.

The meeting of parties to the Nairobi Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region also endorsed a first ever Strategic Action Programme for marine protection in the area.

Source: WWF

The statistics are stark: Globally, two million tons of sewage, industrial and agricultural waste is discharged into the world’s waterways and at least 1.8 million children under five years-old die every year from water related [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 22 March 2010

The statistics are stark: Globally, two million tons of sewage, industrial and agricultural waste is discharged into the world’s waterways and at least 1.8 million children under five years-old die every year from water related disease, or one every 20 seconds.

Transforming wastewater from a major health and environmental hazard into a clean, safe and economically-attractive resource is emerging as a key challenge in the 21st century.

It is a challenge that will continue to intensify as the world undergoes rapid urbanization, industrialization and increasing demand for meat and other foods unless decisive action is taken says a new United Nations report released today.

Urban populations are projected to nearly double in 40 years, from current 3.4 billion to over six billion people – but already most cities lack adequate wastewater management due to aging, absent or inadequate sewage infrastructure.

The new report, called Sick Water?, says some two million tons of waste, estimated to equal two or more billion tons of wastewater is being discharged daily into rivers and seas spreading disease to humans and damaging key ecosystems such as coral reefs and fisheries.

Wastewater is a cocktail of fertilizer run-off and sewage disposal alongside animal, industrial, agricultural and other wastes.

The report says that the sheer scale of dirty water means more people now die from contaminated and polluted water than from all forms of violence including wars. Dirty water is also a key factor in the rise of de-oxygenated dead zones that have been emerging in seas and oceans across the globe.

Read the UNEP News Release
Read the full report (PDF 6mb)

In a joint statement issued today at the XIth Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council, Indonesia’s Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Dr. Fadel Muhammad and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner have emphasized the [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 25 February 2010

In a joint statement issued today at the XIth Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council, Indonesia’s Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Dr. Fadel Muhammad and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner have emphasized the important role of marine and coastal ecosystems in the fight against climate change.

coral reef ecosystem

The concept of Blue Carbon, which emphasizes the ability of marine and coastal ecosystems to sequester carbon, was introduced by UNEP in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Education and Science Organization (UNESCO).

Blue Carbon emphasizes the key role of marine and coastal ecosystems, which are dominated by marine vegetation such as mangrove forests, seagrass, brackish marshes and salt marshes. Coastal and marine ecosystems are believed to be able to complement the role of forests (Green Carbon) in taking up carbon emissions through sequestration.

Mr. Steiner said: ‘We already know that marine and coastal ecosystems are multi-trillion dollar assets linked to sectors such as tourism, shipping and fisheries – now it is emerging that they are natural allies against climate change.’

Mr. Steiner and Dr. Fadel jointly emphasized that the basis of their joint statement is the mandate of the Manado Ocean Declaration (MOD) declared last year, as well as efforts to control the adverse effects of climate change.

‘We appeal to all countries to preserve these abilities of coastal and marine ecosystems as important variables in global climate change dynamic’, said Dr. Fadel and Mr. Steiner.

Source: UNEP

Desalination plants are not the answer to water supply problems in South Africa and many other parts of the world, and should not be seen as some kind of silver bullet.

Salt is piled [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 16 February 2010

Desalination plants are not the answer to water supply problems in South Africa and many other parts of the world, and should not be seen as some kind of silver bullet.

Salt is piled up in stacks on a desalination plant in Sicily, Italy (Photo: Shutterstock)

The Department of Water Affairs spokes person Linda Page, who was quoted in Eleanor Momberg’s article ‘Sea may be solution to the water crisis” (Sunday Independent 31 January 2010), mentioned some of the advantages of desalinating water, but she had failed to mention any of the many negative impacts associated with this practice.

In 2007, WWF International released the report Making water: Desalination – option or distraction for a thirsty world? The report showed that some of the driest and thirstiest places in the world with large populations were turning to desalination. These include countries such as Australia, the Middle-East, Spain, India and China which have already made investments in this infrastructure and are using it to diversify their water supplies.

According to the report, desalinating sea water is an expensive, energy-intensive and greenhouse gas emitting way of accessing water. This practice has many negative impacts on the environment, some of which include brine build-up, the destruction of prized coastal areas and a resultant reduction of emphasis on the conservation of rivers and wetlands. Many of the areas of most intensive desalination activity also have a history of damaging natural water resources, particularly groundwater.

In a time where climate change is starting to cause notable effects on South Africa’s fresh water supply it seems ironic, at best, to address this symptom of climate change by adding to the cause (through a process which contributes large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions). Such “vicious circle” approaches make little sense.

Desalination, at best, is a short-term solution and nothing can replace the need for proper management of our freshwater ecosystems; through inter alia, the removal of alien plants, which are sucking up 3,300 million cubic metres of our precious water supply each year.

WWF believes that ensuring sustainable water sources begins with protecting natural assets such as rivers, floodplains, and wetlands. These natural systems purify and provide water as well as protecting against extreme or catastrophic events. Resource planning needs to come before large infrastructure planning.

Source: WWF