A symbiotic relationship lets tapestry of wildlife work its wonders

SOUTH Africa’s amazing biodiversity stretches across a myriad landscapes. This rich heritage has come about from the interaction between each landscape and its climate.

We recently celebrated the International Day for Biological Diversity on May 22, which had as its motto, “We’re part of the solution”.

South Africa can be proud of the solutions it has developed, where conservation and human welfare have both triumphed.

The Working for Water Programme, which has provided many jobs, has hugely increased the quality of our waterways. It does this by removing the foreign trees infesting watercourses.

These trees are simply too thirsty for our water-wise wildlife. Many rivers are now healthy and clear again, flowing freshly as they have done for thousands of years.

These foreign trees also aggravate fire events. Most are highly flammable, making the fire spread much more quickly and intensely. Yet much of our wildlife is naturally adapted to fire, with many plants actually requiring it to regenerate.

In turn, insects survive the fire by retreating to small, unburned areas. These refuge areas include kloofs and rocky areas, or simply spots missed by the fire, as it changes direction.

Much has been learned in recent years on how people and nature can co-exist to the benefit of both. Timber blocks are separated by wide corridors of natural vegetation, where the smallest to the largest animals can live, as they would naturally.

Insects share homes with large game of all sorts. These plantation mosaics are as good as nature reserves for maintaining the original set of wildlife.

These corridors also help support nature reserves by extending their reach. The corridors are like extended fingers of the reserves, increasing wild coverage of the landscape. This makes the whole area what ecologists call “resilient”.

It is a concept critical in our modern world. The aim is to harmonise nature within human space. By doing this, nature can regenerate and, importantly, overcome the environmental challenges thrown at it.

The more wild nature we have, the better we can survive. We utterly depend on wild nature for so many things we take for granted. Natural well-vegetated ecosystems filter the water, making it clean. All the little animals in the ground make the soil alive.

Only a truly living soil can continue to supply our food needs. Bees and many other insects pollinate wild flowers and crops alike.

Without all these interactions taking place 24/7, the land and water dies, and so will we in the end.

There are other agricultural systems and approaches, where nature and humans can harmonise.

Recent research has clearly shown how vineyards and other long-lasting crops can be managed through an approach known as “land sharing”.

The strips between vine rows are left to regenerate into a carpet of flowers and other plants. It is these strips, known as inter-rows, where wildlife can blossom. Above ground, the vineyard is a buzz of active insects, busy pollinating and moving around nutrients to resupply the soil.

Underground, a seething mass of little creatures are chewing, shredding and breaking down dropped leaves and stems. Then fungi and bacteria take over the process, and supply nutrients, both to the crops and to the wild plants.

If we continue to think that we can dominate nature, it will always defy us and find a way to survive, albeit in a different form. Ecosystems will change, and the land will not be productive enough to produce our food. After all, there is only 30cm between life and death of the planet, and that 30cm is a healthy living soil.

South Africa is paving the way in honouring the above-mentioned motto “We’re part of the solution”. Over much of the country, and across a whole range of ecosystems and farming lands, we technically know what to do.

Now is the time to be wiser and employ new approaches embracing future land harmony.

This embracing is about investment. Expanding our intuitive capabilities, alongside use of all the wonderful new technologies, is the path forward and provides the solutions.

Technologies that generate energy, whether by wind or solar, alongside those that show us what to do, from satellites and drones, to acoustic and thermal measurement of the biological landscape, are enabling effective progress.

Combining technology with biological wisdom is letting the tapestry of wildlife work its wonders.