HISTORY OF ALIEN INVASIVE PLANT PROGRAMME
The alien invasive plant programme of the Mtunzini Conservancy had its roots in the Arboretum Committee, established in 1993, whose initial focus was clearing the town of extensive alien invasive infestations, including gum trees (Eucalyptus grandis), which had been planted in the 1940s by the Mtunzini Civic Association in the area below the current golf course in order to generate funds to develop the town. With the gum trees cleared, the money from the timber sale was intended for the rehabilitation of the cleared areas and to rid the town of invasive species.
The most prominent invasives included: syringa (Melia azedarach), Indian Laurel tree (Litsea glutinosa), Barbados gooseberry (Pereskia aculeata), triffid weed (Chromolaena odorata), lantana or tickberry (Lantana camara), bugweed (Solanum mauritianum), inkberry (Cestrum laevigatum) and red sesbania (Sesbania punicea).
It was an uphill battle so Mike Butler proposed a 5-year plan of initial clearance and follow-ups based on the town being divided into management blocks with a regular monitoring and maintenance plan, with the Conservancy training and supervising two municipal staff in ongoing clearance, monitoring and maintenance.
The success achieved by the programme was remarkable, with an estimated 98% clearance of invasives due to the constant monitoring and follow-ups.
However, in the late 2000’s, the municipality said that the Conservancy could no longer supervise the municipal staff who were assigned other tasks. Since then, because there have not been regular follow-ups, alien invasives began to creep back in, through both natural propagation from old seed and plant material, birds and through garden escapes from garden refuse being illegally dumped in our natural areas.
In 2015-16, the municipality commissioned a consulting firm in association with the Conservancy to produce an Alien Invasive Control Plan for the towns of Eshowe, Gingindlovu and Mtunzini.
Unfortunately, while the municipality does have an annual budget for alien invasive control, the funds are spent mostly on short term contractors who are not given the time or budget to follow the plan (initial clearing plus follow-ups). The result is the continued spread of AIPs.
In 2017-18, with funds from the settlement with Tronox over appealing against the mine, the Conservancy employed and trained a team of four people to work primarily on ridding the town of Pereskia. (After the earlier efforts of the Arboretum/Conservancy Committees, only 2-3 sites of Pereskia remained. With the withdrawal of municipal support, 58 sites of Pereskia were identified in 2017) Pereskia hotspots were identified, and clearing of those areas began, taking with them any other AIPS found in the vicinity. An example is one seriously infested area in Cycad Road, with Pereskia already climbed up into the tree canopy, took over a month of work to clear.
We applied to the Department of Environment Affairs in 2017 to become an agent for the Working for Water programme, hoping for the three year funding cycle for AIP control. However, we were not successful.
Currently, private funds donated to the Conservancy have helped to re-employ two people trained during the 2017-18 project to clear the Park Run trail of alien invasive plants.
So, we are working with what funds we have been able to raise, but intend to liaise with the municipality, the Department of Environment Affairs and KZN Conservancies to look at ways in which we can secure longer term funding for AIP control. Short-term contracts are a waste of resources. Consistency of funding and on-the-ground effort is essential if we are to get back to the previous 98% + free of AIPs in Mtunzini
More to Follow
There have been notices sent to residents on a couple of occasions in the last few years regarding the proposed burning of the grassland near the backpackers at the bottom end of Valley Drive. This patch of grassland has quite a history – and we would like to tell you about it.
Way back, over 26 years ago, this area, plus the area taken up by the sewerage plant and cable station, was under sugar cane, leased from the municipality by the Lawrie brothers. Mike Butler, from the then Arboretum Committee (which morphed into the Mtunzini Conservancy), suggested to the Lawrie’s that this land be left to go back to grassland and trees as the quality of the sugar was poor and harvesting was difficult given the small patch and having to go through town to get to it. The sugar cane farming stopped in 1994 and the Arboretum Committee with Mike, Keith, Ian Garland and others were involved in planting some fig trees in the area, with the intention that part of that land would be left to regenerate to grassland with the other part growing into a fig forest.
MTUNZINI PRIMARY SCHOOL
The Mtunzini Primary School expressed an interest in getting their students involved and taking it on as a Grassland Project. Mary Jane Dallas recalls that this was the time when there was a transition to Outcomes Based Education, so the teachers had a lot of latitude to take on interesting, hands-on projects like this. Jenny Nel, one of the teachers at the time, took on the management of the project. In 1998, the Mtunzini Primary School Project Team was chosen to represent KwaZulu-Natal in the National round of the Enviro Competition. In 2002, the Mtunzini Primary School Project was chosen as one of the KwaZulu-Natal’s finalists in the Greencor Environmental Competition and was placed 3rd overall.
GRASSLANDS - IMPORTANCE
Coastal grasslands in KZN are critically endangered; apart from the enormous pressure for urban development and the agriculture (sugar cane, timber), which has replaced so much grassland, natural forest encroachment has also greatly diminished our grasslands. This is evident even on our Mtunzini golf course where there used to be patches of natural grassland in between and on the fairways, now totally taken over by tree and shrub encroachment.