As a country, we are still grappling with the impacts of mining, industrial development, and large-scale commercial agriculture and forestry on our wetlands, but we should in essence now be moving into an era of‘ wise use’, or at least people-centred wetland management. South Africa has already lost an estimated 50 % of its wetlands, to mining, agriculture and industrial development, urbanisation and pollution. A large body of research exists on our wetlands, much of which has been funded by the Water Research Commission( WRC).
One of the Commission’ s most popular products, used widely by environmental practitioners nationally and internationally, is an informative‘ Wet-Series’ – a set of integrated tools for assisting
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users to achieve well-informed and effective wetland management and rehabilitation.
According to Mr Bonani Madikizela, Research Manager for Water-Linked Ecosystems at the WRC, the Commission has spent over R60 million in wetlandrelated research over the past 15 years. Another WRC publication,‘ Easy Identification of Wetland Plants’( Report No TT 479 / 10) has proved especially popular among practitioners and others who need to document the variety of wetland plants they encounter in the field.
Support system
Additionally, the WRC has developed a handbook and decision support system on wetlands for practitioners, policy makers and stakeholders.
Building on previous work funded by the WRC, the decision-support
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system assists with, among others, the assessment of the supply of ecosystem services by a particular wetland; exploring how different use-scenarios might affect the suite of ecosystem services supplied by a particular wetland; assessing the current demand for and use of the services supplied by a wetland, and identifying opportunities and risks to the provision of ecosystem services by a wetland.
An increasing water scarcity challenge shows that our wetlands are under increasing pressure. It has become clear that in future there will be more people wanting more water so that they can survive and prosper. It has often been said that we cannot live without water and we cannot establish our livelihoods without it. If we want our wetlands to continue to perform for us and deliver the benefits that we require then we need to increasingly appreciate
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the relationship that exists between ourselves and wetlands.
It is, however, difficult to appreciate the nature of this relationship if we don’ t have a full understanding and appreciation gained from the existing collective knowledge.
The Convention on Wetlands, an intergovernmental treaty that was adopted on 2 February 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar, compels us to restore the dignity our wetlands deserve.
“ A wetland is described as an area of land where the soil is permanently or seasonally saturated with water, which can be salt, fresh or brackish. Swamps, marshes, vlei’ s and bogs are all examples of wetlands.”
WRC reports on wetlands can be downloaded free of charge from the Knowledge Hub www. wrc. org. za
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