The tipping point
Exploring what turns an unrealistic environmental dream into a financially viable project, ready for execution on the ground.
At a recent meeting of sugar cane industry players, we learnt how bio-control can be an effective and very cost effective strategy to counter eldana worm. It also became apparent, however, that to convert to biological methods, one has to stop the traditional chemical solution, and then wait until the population of “good bugs” recovers from all the years of spraying, before they can be effective.
It’s that “wait” that’s the problem!
During the wait, the pests could wipe out a crop, or diminish income to the point where the farmer won’t survive the change-over. What businessman would take that risk!
This seems to be a common thread. There is a cost or a risk to converting to more environmentally friendly practices that simply isn’t worth it to the individual farmer, or community who would have to bear that cost or risk.
But what if the beneficiaries of the environmental gains, were to partially back the farmer, or share the risk, in return for the gain that they (and often the farmer) are after?
Let me give you a practical example of a beef farmer on the highland sourveld of KZN. He has a veld farm, and on it he has groves of wattle trees that were there before he was born. If he felled them and converted that land back to veld, he would gain, lets say 60 ha of grazing. But the felling, erosion control, replacement of the woodlot (with one of a more desirable tree species…for storm cover for cattle) , grass planting and five to ten years of weed control, will cost him about R10,000 per hectare.
A farmer recently told me that he had done the sums, and that in the lifetime of him and his son, they will never generate enough beef farming income to cover that. Sixty hectares at R10,000 per hectare: that’s a R600,000 loan from the bank, plus interest. And what NGO would invest R600,000 on a private farm for extra water, the extent of which can’t immediately be measured? The result is that nothing gets done, and the wattle groves stay there. The farmer still wants to get rid of them, and the city below still wants more water, but a generation goes by, wattle seed keeps spreading, and nothing changes.
Maybe we need a catalyst who asks:
How much would company X invest in creating employment opportunities for its CSI score?
How much would municipality Y invest to generate more water to fill the municipal dam?
Is there a risk that can be insured?
How much would the farmer invest to get that land back into beef production?
How much would the local farm-stay put in, to be able to market their venue as part of an environmental project?
How much would the seed company put in as part of an advertisement for their grass seed?
The chances are, that if each of the entities in the above example stretched their budget, right to the brink of what they are comfortable with, and if there was a protagonist with enough passion to get them to the point where they all said “OK, let’s do this!” , that might just be the tipping point that gets the job done and changes the landscape for the better, forever.
At Upland River Conservation we are always searching for the environmental wins that will benefit a catchment (Examples: fencing off river banks, protecting springs, putting in contour belts, planting row crops further from the stream, blocking drains that dried up wet areas, managing for better veld condition……)
We are also thinking about what the costs and risks would be to achieve those wins.
Then we consider who would gain from the work, and in what ways, and how much investment might it justify from them.
We believe that society cannot expect the landowner (farmer or rural community alike) to shoulder the burden of this work. We are passionate about getting the work done. We are looking at building project concepts that reach the tipping point. Call us the passionate protagonist.
What are the problems caused by wattle
Wattle trees are more problematic than you think. They don’t only sap valuable water….
The common and simple message about wattle, is that it sucks more water out of the catchment than indigenous vegetation. If that were the only problem with wattle, we would march out there and poison the lot and walk away. Until now several agencies have done just that. Doing that is a problem! It is an issue because in doing only that, one has not solved the problem at all. The need to understand the difficulties about wattle is therefore important when planning the removal of a wattle grove, including the timeline, resources and budget you may need.
Wattle does indeed sap a lot of water. I have heard figures of 1300 to 1600mm per annum. Rainfall in the area where we work is between 800 and 1200mm per annum.
Other important effects of wattle relate to the allelopathic effect, in which the plant prevents other species from growing in its leaf zone. I explore that on a real site outdoors in this video here:
Apart from how much water they draw, consider these aspects: Andrew takes us through a grove of wattle trees and shows real examples of the harm that they can do.
Another aspect to consider, is that wattle seed remains viable (i.e. they can germinate) for a whopping 60 years after they land on the ground! Wattle seeds are also triggered to germinate by fire.
As a legume, wattle puts some nitrogen into the soil. In addition, it causes the wash away of topsoil. Take a look at this explanatory video: wattle problems explained It also acidifies the soil. If you add all these factors together, it means that a patch of felled wattle will only be suitable habitat to a particular suite of species. Those species are pioneer species, and most are alien and themselves invasive. This is very evident in the field. One cannot wish grassland back! It is really hard work, and no one has nailed the formula of what to do, when the patch becomes a jungle of blackjack, wattle saplings, khaki bos, and bug weed. It is certainly easier if you patch is on flat land, accessible by tractor, and if the area has been de-stumped. I say this because continual mowing works really well in getting grasses back in there. But in the steep and sometimes remote valleys, this is not possible.
This business of wattle removal is therefore maturing into a more holistic field of “grassland re-establishment”, of which the initial felling, and even the first year or two of follow up, are very clearly just the beginning.
From a paper by Yapi, O’Farrell, Dziba and Esler, we learn:
“ active restoration is required to enhance ecosystem recovery (Beater et al. 2008; Gaertner et al. 2011; Le Maitre et al. 2011). In some cases, elevated levels of soil nutrients (Yelenik et al. 2007; Gaertner et al. 2011; Witkowski 2012) derived from nutrient rich litter, and N fixation in the case of legumes, can lead to the undesirable situation of reinvasion by the same and or other species after clearing”
So in summary, wattle causes erosion and sucks water, and its other, and equally significant problems manifest when you cut it down.
Further reading: