Biodiversity

[Lisbeth]

American turtle threatens SA biodiversity – but our tough-cookie snakes could rattle an invasion


A red-eared slider. (Photo: Wikipedia / Greg Hume)

By Shaun Smillie | 08 May 2022

The red-eared slider is already finding a comfy home in South Africa, posing a threat to endemic wildlife. Rattlesnakes and the like, on the other hand, are likely to meet more aggressive resistance.
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In the US, conservation officials are losing the battle against a South African invasion. African rock pythons and Nile monitors have set up home in the Florida Everglades and are preying on indigenous wildlife that has little defence against them.


Nile monitor (Varanus niloticus), Chobe, Botswana. (Photo: Wikipedia)


African rock python. (Photo: Flickr)

But this is not one-way traffic. For in the US and in other countries there are species that, if given a chance, would find South Africa to be a comfortable home.

And one of the most worrying of these alien species is already making a regular appearance in botanical gardens across South Africa: the red-eared slider, a terrapin from the US that has long been a darling of the pet trade.

The red-eared slider is illegal to keep in South Africa without a special permit.

But they are still being traded and kept, as herpetologist Dr Cormac Price of the University of KwaZulu-Natal has discovered.

“We have found them predominantly in either botanic gardens or in city parks. Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria have all had examples of red-eared sliders, and they are either escaped or abandoned pets,” says Price. “So, red-eared sliders are present in South Africa, but they are not really established or invasive yet. So we still have a chance to nip this in the bud.”

However, the recent discovery of two red-eared sliders in the Durban Botanic Gardens did give Price something to worry about. One of them was a female and when he placed her in an aquarium overnight, the following morning he discovered she had laid eggs.

“It has been proven that they are able to out-compete our native terrapin species and both juvenile and adult red-eared sliders will eat tadpoles and adult frogs. And frogs are probably the species most at risk from sliders as some of these species are very endemic.”

The red-eared slider is listed as a Category 1b in terms of the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act Alien and Invasive Species Regulations of 2014, which means the invasive species can’t be sold, bred or transferred. Breaking the law could result in a R5-million fine or jail time.

But this hasn’t stopped local trade.

A trawl through the internet revealed that red-eared sliders are available in South Africa.

“Baby red-eared slider healthy and ready to find its forever home,” reads one advert posted by someone living in Meyersdal, Johannesburg. The asking price is R2,500.

“Baby red-eared sliders turtles, new babies please contact me for pictures,” reads another from someone in Bedfordview.

Slippery escapees

According to an article in the journal Nature Conservation, researchers worked out which exotic animals could establish themselves in South Africa.

“So we can work out areas in South Africa that are similar to their home range, and where they are likely to expand,” explains Professor Colleen Downs, the South African research chair in ecosystem health and biodiversity in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.

Besides the red-eared slider, they found the Western diamondback rattlesnake. Other snake species could also find a ready home in South Africa, particularly along the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast. Recently a large female anaconda was caught in Durban, an escapee that Downs believes would adapt easily to the new climate and find food, while other exotic snakes have popped up too, having escaped their South African owners.

But there is no evidence that they have established themselves yet.

“The problem is when we bring the really poisonous snakes in, we often don’t have all the antivenom for these species,” says Downs, who is also concerned that these species could bring in new diseases.

But there is something that might help in fighting off an exotic snake invasion, believes Price. Unlike in Florida, South African snakes are tough cookies.

“Our snakes are very competitive and very aggressive. The Mozambique spitting cobra is very successful in Durban and there is a large resident population.

Like many cobras, they specialise in eating toads and other snakes, so if they come across an escaped corn snake or a baby boa constrictor they will eat it,” he says. “So, we are actually lucky and privileged to have these native species.” DM/OBP

[Richprins]

What next!

[Lisbeth]

This has probably always existed, only that it never arrived at the knowledge of the public

[Lisbeth]

Cape Town allowing spring wildflowers to bloom in city parks vital for biodiversity


Wildflowers in Lincoln Park, Cape Town. Delaying the mowing season in the city’s parks is a boost for biodiversity, says the author. (Photo: Rupert Koopman)

By Peta Brom | 26 Aug 2022

Decision not to mow in some public spaces until the end of the seed-producing period will allow seeds an additional month to reach maturity.
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With the coming of spring, displays of flowers in parks in Cape Town can easily rival the famous daisies of Namaqualand. This is because the City of Cape Town stops mowing in spring, and mowing will start even later this year.

The announcement by the City of Cape Town that the wildflowers in some of the city’s parks won’t be mowed until the end of November might have escaped most people’s attention. Yet it is a critically important move if the city is to preserve its famed biodiversity.

Cape Town is one of the world’s top cities for biodiversity, and it’s not just because of the Table Mountain National Park. There are 19 different vegetation types across the city, most of which are not protected by Table Mountain National Park. This means that critical biodiversity is dotted in small patches across the city.

Research on how this biodiversity can be better managed to improve both human access and animal movements (and gene flow) has shown the importance of letting the wildflowers grow until the end of the seed-producing period, rather than mowing them down as soon as the flowering peak has ended.

For the third year running, the City has decided not to mow selectively in spring. And in a recent press release, the municipality announced that this year mowing will be suspended in selected parks until the end of November.

This is excellent news as spring mowing must be stopped for two and a half months if urban flowers are to finish producing seeds. After two years of monitoring the spring reproductive season for more than 20 species of indigenous bulbs and daisies that grow wild in the city’s parks and road verges, I found that the City’s previous two-month suspensions had not been long enough to allow the plants to reach maturity.

After the flowers have finished, the wildflower seeds take an additional month to reach maturity. When cut in September, the flowers don’t bloom at all. And if they are cut too soon in October, we lose the following year’s seed bank, along with the food it provides for fledglings and other small animals.

However, the flush of flowers does present problems, which will need to be managed in the years to come. I am most worried about the potential spread of invasive weeds, especially Echium spp (known as Patterson’s curse because it is poisonous to livestock). The peak Echium flowering season is in the second half of November. There are two species of Echium that are noxious and invasive in our region. My observations of the Echium cycles suggest that they go straight to seed almost as soon as the flowers appear. This means that mowing spreads the seeds, so waiting until the very end of November to mow will help the Echium to spread.

Fortunately, researchers in Australia are investigating potential biological solutions to the Echium invasion.

I think we need to be mowing in July to prevent the invasive grasses from becoming too dense during spring. Unfortunately, mowing is not done routinely in July because the municipal budget comes to an end at this time and nothing happens while we wait for approval of new budgets, which usually happens at the beginning of August. The contractors also prefer not to mow during the winter storms.

The City of Cape Town and the Overberg Municipality have both acknowledged that the suspension of mowing means we will have to tolerate long grasses and grass seeds during late spring.

As an example, by the end of October, the wild oat grass on Alphen Common was taller than I am (165 cm). Alphen Common is not currently one of the places where mowing is suspended. I think it should be, and ideally, there would be collaboration with nearby stables to graze horses there and prevent the oats from getting that tall.

Ultimately, the City needs to supplement the mowing suspension by employing contractors to undertake weeding during spring.

For years, conservationists have called for specific areas to be spared the chop where there are plant species of conservation significance. This has resulted in a stalemate between city landscapers, road-safety maintenance managers, and those concerned with biodiversity objectives. Within the urban context, there are (often competing) layers of use and objectives for every square metre of land. This adds complexity to objectives that may seem straightforward on the surface.

If mowing is suspended, additional management is generally recommended. Either burning or grazing prevents overgrowth and makes space for the growth of more sensitive species. In Europe, rewilding projects use animal livestock to maintain open habitat, while in South Africa, Petro Botha has tested the use of eland with similar objectives in the Cape’s local nature reserves.

Long-standing traditional systems of urban grazing exist in many peri-urban and informal areas in South Africa. From a biodiversity perspective, agricultural grazing is too intense and does not allow wild plants to establish themselves, whereas casual and occasional grazing does.

The Namaqualand daisies that people flock to see every spring on the West Coast are the result of disturbance in the renosterveld and strandveld ecosystems. Fallow fields returned to the wild quickly become home to pioneering daisies. Fields that were grazed, rather than ploughed and planted with crops, resprout flowers from bulbs lying dormant in the soil.

Closer to the city, the length of the M5 from Rondebosch East to Ottery is currently awash with the yellow blooms of Senecio and Cotula indigenous daisies.

The area between Vasco and Joostenburg is also a renosterveld ecosystem. Groups such as the Botanical Society and the Weltevreden improvement district are negotiating no-mow areas in their local parks and are implementing projects for wildflower corridors throughout their neighbourhoods.

All over Cape Town, the parks benefiting from the mowing suspension are in flower. The City has asked residents to identify parks and open green spaces with a rich fynbos floral spring to be spared the chop during the spring flowering season.

In the long-term, a mix of solutions could be implemented, but for now, strategically adjusting the mowing schedule is the most accessible tool we have for urban park management and these early steps should be celebrated. DM

Dr Peta Brom is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pretoria. This article is based on her doctoral research which investigated pollinators and flower phenology in Cape Town. Rupert Koopman, of the Botanical Society, contributed content and editing suggestions.

First published by GroundUp.

[Lisbeth]

Conservation science must empower people, socioeconomic development in SA, says Creecy

By Roving Reporters Writer | 06 Oct 2022

The environment minister told the Oppenheimer Research Conference that South Africa was inviting final inputs on draft laws on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of South Africa’s Biodiversity, as well as the nation’s first Game Meat Strategy.
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More cutting-edge research is required into the role and value of indigenous and traditional knowledge in promoting biodiversity conservation.

This was a key message that South Africa’s minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, delivered to more than 380 top African scholars on the first day of the 11th annual Oppenheimer Research Conference.

It was vitally important, said Creecy, that measures to conserve biodiversity empowered rural people and enabled transformative socioeconomic development.

“This audience understands more than others the crisis confronting our natural world and indeed the future of humanity as we know it. Climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution threaten the environment on which we depend and weaken our economic and social systems,” said Creecy.

She said the conference could not have come at a more suitable time given that South Africa was inviting final inputs on draft laws on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of South Africa’s Biodiversity, as well as South Africa’s first Game Meat Strategy.

She said that while the draft White Paper recognised the value of indigenous knowledge systems and practices in protecting natural resources, more research was needed and should be prioritised by academics and research institutions.

Habitat loss and degradation, invasive alien species, overharvesting and illegal harvesting all threatened biodiversity, resulting in negative impacts for livelihoods and the economy, said Creecy.

Equally urgent, said Creecy, was the need to mitigate climate change and support “the adaptation capabilities of communities and regions to build climate resilience”.

Creecy said a recent World Economic Forum survey had identified climate action failure, extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as the top three of the top 10 global risks by severity over the next 10 years.

“The role of scientific research in promoting evidence-based decision-making becomes more important than ever before, added Creecy, especially in finding innovative solutions to the existential challenges facing mankind.”

Creecy said she was “heartened to read in the programme that topics such as biodiversity loss, reintroduction of critically endangered species, landscape ecology, climate change and wildlife economies will be covered during this conference.”

“These are not only central, but also aligned to South Africa’s future vision for a prosperous nation living in harmony with nature,” added Creecy. “The work presented here is not only relevant to providing solutions for South Africa, but its cutting-edge excellence informs African and global approaches, and demonstrates South Africa’s continued leadership in climate change, biodiversity conservation and sustainable use research.”

In his opening address, Mavuso Msimang, a co-founder of the NGO African Parks and former CEO of the South African National Parks, addressed the economic risk of not embracing the power of nature to solve climate change crisis.

He warned that biodiversity loss had significantly contributed to global warming, resulting in climate-related disasters such as the KwaZulu-Natal floods earlier this year.

“Severe droughts had also led to massive crop failures in East Africa while fish stocks off the coast of West Africa were in decline,” said Msimang.

He referred to predictions that a 4°C increase in global temperatures (relative to pre-industrial levels) could cause about a 12% decrease in the African continent’s overall GDP — “a decline we simply cannot afford”.

“But we can stop this trend and safeguard our economy if we embrace nature-based solutions,” said Msimang.

He cited a 2020 World Economic Forum report stating that a transition to a nature-positive economy could generate $10.1-trillion in business value every year and provide about 400 million new jobs.

Aside from investing in renewables, the report offers a range of solutions; from precision agriculture to retrofitting buildings with more efficient technology, reducing municipal water leakage and improving global waste management systems. Reusing automotive parts and even diversifying diets were among many other solutions posed.

Amid such innovation, Msimang believes that Africa’s protected areas have a vital role to play.

“If Africa chooses to unlock the power of nature by expanding and improving management of protected areas, it will create unparalleled business value for the continent,” said Msimang.

Citing figures from a SA National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi) study, Msimang said that South Africa’s tourism sector (closely linked to biodiversity) created more than 418,000 jobs. Mining, on the other hand, sat at 434,000.

“Yes, this is higher than biodiversity, but mining is finite. Nature — if protected — is not,” said Msimang.

He noted that when the Sanbi study was conducted, just 1% of government spending went into biodiversity.

“Imagine if that number was increased by even a fraction, said Msimang.

He applauded international efforts to increase globally protected areas to cover 30% of the world’s land and sea by 2030.

“We must continue to be trailblazers, pioneers, and leaders when it comes to protected areas and community-led preservation of nature. By being bold and supporting goals such as 30 by 30, and investing in nature today, we can reap the rewards, and they are rewards that the many, not the few, will have access to.” DM/OBP

[Lisbeth]

Agreement on historic agreement at COP15 on biodiversity

"The package has been adopted," says the Chinese Environment Minister, Huang Runqiu, after the UN's marathon meeting in Montreal.

Monday 19 December 2022, at 09.53

At the UN's marathon meeting on biodiversity, COP15, in Montreal, the leaders of the meeting have declared on Monday that a historic agreement has been adopted.

"The package has been adopted," says the chairman of the meeting, the Chinese environment minister, Huang Runqiu, after negotiations late into the night on Sunday in Montreal.

His declaration was met with great applause from the hall.

At the summit, the countries committed themselves to reversing decades of decline with the extinction of species and the destruction of habitats and ecosystems.

The agreement is declared adopted despite opposition from DR Congo.

The Chinese chairman declared the agreement adopted, shortly after the representatives of the DR Congo had announced that they could not support the agreement. The agreement is of decisive importance for critical financing of a rescue effort for biological diversity in developing countries.

It is in the world's developing countries that you find the greatest biodiversity on Earth.

The agreement implies that from 2030 USD 30 billion annually (DKK 210 billion) must be used for protection in the developing countries. There is also a call to spend 20 billion dollars annually until 2025 to ensure biodiversity. This corresponds to DKK 140 billion.

At present, about ten billion dollars are spent annually.

The aim of the UN nature summit was to get a framework for global biological diversity adopted - a form of "Paris agreement for nature".

196 countries have gathered for negotiations at the nature summit in Montreal, Canada.

A draft agreement was put forward on Sunday, with a stated goal of protecting at least 30 percent of the world's land, coastal and ocean areas by 2030.

Today, 17 percent of land areas and 10 percent of marine areas are protected.

"There has never been a goal set to preserve so much global nature on this scale," says Brian O'Donnell, who is director of the environmental group Campaign for Nature.

It is also mentioned as a goal that 30 percent of the world's land and coastal areas must be protected by 2030.

In the draft of the agreement, the countries are encouraged to "ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 percent of land areas, inland waterways and coastal and marine areas" are protected and managed.

The text is a compromise that China helped to reach. China was supposed to host the summit, but it had to be postponed due to the corona pandemic. COP15 was then held in Canada, but with China at the end of the table.

There is also a passage about indigenous peoples and their right to look after the lands they have lived on and off for many generations. This has been a demand from several NGOs.

Pollution and destruction of natural areas has led to around one million plant and animal species being threatened with extinction, warn scientists.

When UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened the summit in Montreal last week, he warned that humanity has become a "weapon of mass destruction".

He called on all participants at COP15 to enter into a "pact of peace with nature".

/ritzau/Reuters

[Lisbeth]

Five options for restoring global biodiversity after the UN agreement

Published: December 20, 2022 5.26pm CET - Henrik Svedäng, Researcher, Marine Ecology, Stockholm University

To slow and reverse the fastest loss of Earth’s living things since the dinosaurs, almost 200 countries have signed an agreement in Montreal, Canada, promising to live in harmony with nature by 2050. The Kunming-Montreal agreement is not legally binding but it will require signatories to report their progress towards meeting targets such as the protection of 30% of Earth’s surface by 2030 and the restoration of degraded habitats.

Not everyone is happy with the settlement, or convinced enough has been promised to avert mass extinctions. Thankfully, research has revealed a lot about the best ways to revive and strengthen biodiversity – the variety of life forms, from microbes to whales, found on Earth.

Here are five suggestions:

1. Scrap subsidies
The first thing countries should do is stop paying for the destruction of ecosystems. The Montreal pact calls for reducing incentives for environmentally harmful practices by $US500 billion (£410 billion) each year by 2030.

Research published in 2020 showed that ending fuel and maintenance subsidies would reduce excess fishing. Less fishing means more fish at sea and higher catches for the remaining fleet with less effort. The world’s fisheries could cut emissions and become more profitable.

Scrapping policies which subsidise overexploitation in all sorts of industries – fisheries, agriculture, forestry, and of course, fossil fuels – are in many cases the lowest fruit to be picked in order to save biodiversity.

2. Protect the high seas
Almost half of the surface of the Earth is outside national jurisdiction. The high seas belong to no one.


Most of the world’s oceans are owned by no one. (light blue = exclusive economic zones; dark blue = high seas) B1mbo / wiki (data: VLIZ), CC BY-SA

In the twilight zone of the ocean, between 200 and 1,000 metres down, fish and krill migrate upwards to feed at night and downwards to digest and rest during the day. This is the ocean’s biological pump, which draws carbon from near the ocean’s surface to its depths, storing it far from the atmosphere and so reducing climate change.

The total mass of fish living in the open ocean is much greater than in overfished coastal seas. Though not exploited to any large extent yet, the high seas and the remote ocean around the Antarctic need binding international agreements to protect them and the important planetary function they serve, which ultimately benefits all life by helping maintain a stable climate.

3. Ban clear-cutting and bottom trawling
Certain methods of extracting natural resources, such as clear-cutting forests (chopping down all the trees) and bottom trawling (tugging a big fishing net close to the seafloor) devastate biodiversity and should be phased out.

Clear-cutting removes large quantities of living matter that will not be replenished before the forest has regenerated, which may take hundreds of years, particularly for forests in Earth’s higher latitudes. Many species which are adapted to live in fully grown forests are subsequently doomed by clear-cutting.


Aerial shot of rainforest and deforested land
Bad for biodiversity. Richard Whitcombe / shutterstock

Bottom trawling catches fish and shellfish indiscriminately, disturbing or even eradicating animals which live on the seafloor, such as certain types of coral and oysters. It also throws plumes of sediment into the water above, emitting greenhouse gases which had been locked away. Seafloors that have been trawled continuously for a long time may appear to be devoid of life, or trivialised with fewer species and less complex ecosystems.

4. Empower indigenous land defenders
Indigenous people are the vanguard of many of the best-preserved ecosystems in the world. Their struggle to protect their land and waters and traditional ways of using ecosystems and biodiversity for livelihoods are often the primary reason such important environments still exist.

Such examples are found around the world, for example more primates are found on indigenous land than in surrounding areas.

5. No more production targets
Many management practices will have to change, since they are based on unrealistic assumptions. Fisheries, for instance, target a maximum sustainable yield (MSY), a concept developed in the mid 20th century which means taking the largest catch from a fish stock without diminishing the stock in the future. Something similar is also used in forestry, though it involves more economic considerations.


Fishing for herring near Norway. Alessandro De Maddalena / shutterstock

These models were heavily criticised in the subsequent decades for oversimplifying how nature works. For instance species often contain several local populations which live separately and reproduce only with each other, yet some of these “substocks” could still become overfished if just one production target was applied for all of them. However, the idea of a maximum sustainable yield has come back into fashion this century as a means to curtail overfishing.

Herring is a good example here. The species forms many different substocks across the North Atlantic, yet one maximum yield was adopted over vast areas. In the Baltic Sea for instance, Swedish fishing rights were given to the largest shipowners as a part of a neoliberal economic policy to achieve a more effective fishing fleet. Local stocks of herring are now declining, and with them local adaptations (genetic diversity) could eventually disappear.

Heading for more robust strategies than elusive optimal targets for extracting the most fish or trees while maintaining the stock or the forest may lead to a more resilient pathway regarding biodiversity and climate mitigation. It could involve lower fishing quotas, but also change from industrial fishing to more local fishing with smaller fishing vessels.

[Lisbeth]

COP15 LANDMARK AGREEMENT

Historic moment for nature and humanity as Kunming-Montreal framework adopted at UN biodiversity conference


COP15 President Huang Runqiu strikes the gavel as another article in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework is agreed upon. Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, CBD Executive Secretary, and Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, are pictured right. (Photo: Julia Evans)

By Julia Evans | 21 Dec 2022

At around 3.30am on Monday, 196 countries adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework committing the world to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, a global goal hailed as the equivalent of the totemic 1.5°C climate target.........

Click on the title and you can get a more complete story of the historical agreement.

[Richprins]

Hope it works!

[Lisbeth]

There are almost always countries that for one reason or another do not oblige