Transcript Preventing thicket degradation through, monitoring, advocacy and compliance How serious is this Climate Action Partnership? Mike Powell Rhodes Restoration Research Group [email protected] Ecological Restoration Capital Pty.

Preventing thicket degradation through, monitoring, advocacy
and compliance
How serious is this Climate Action Partnership?
Mike Powell
Rhodes Restoration Research Group
[email protected]
Ecological Restoration Capital Pty (Ltd)
Nollen Group South Africa
[email protected]
Kirstenbosch November 11 2010
Pristine subtropical thicket
30% endemism in plants
% endemism in invertebrates?
CAP Talk Oct 2009
112 distinct subtropical thicket types : Vlok et al. (2003)
Degraded Subtropical thicket
“Overgrazed” – Aucamp 1979, Acocks 1988
“Neglected and abused” – Hoffman & Everard 1987
“desertification” – Kerley et al. 1995, Kerley 1996,
“national tragedy” – Aucamp 1979
“unsustainable land-use practices” Kerley et al., 1999
CAP Talk Oct 2009
Restoration Rationale
Establish Carbon
baselines
Capture C
Restore
Establish Carbon
baselines
Mainstream restoration
CAP Talk Oct 2009
Pastoralism – R75-150/ha/year gross - Kirkman (2006)
STEP Corridors and remaining pristine thicket
Data from: Lloyd et al. 2002 and Lombard et al. 2002.
URGENT NEED FOR REDD
Or new policy
Or compliance monitoring
CAP Talk Oct 2009
Carbon Farm No 1 – Somerset East
~ 18% of GHG comes from
land-use change
Data source : unknown
The case of Alexandria Forest
Data from: Lloyd et al. 2002 and Lombard et al. 2002.
The case of Alexandria Forest
Berriman 2010. The effect of herbivory on survivorship
and growth rate of subtropical thicket species following
restoration plantings.
94.3% remaining?
Least threatened?
Data from: Mucina & Rutherford 2006.
The case of Gamtoos Valley Thicket
Forests and Woodlands Symposium
PE 2006
“The full restoration of degraded subtropical thicket is going to
require considerable financial and institutional resources, as well as a
significantly long time line (with no guarantee of full ecosystem
recovery). Society cannot allow the continued mining of natural
capital through overstocking of livestock. The relevant authorities
urgently need to start monitoring and controlling the unsustainable
harvesting of agricultural resources in order to make land users
accountable for their actions.”
The case of Gamtoos Valley Thicket
Forests and Woodlands Symposium
PE 2006
Data from: Lloyd et al. 2002 and Lombard et al. 2002.
The case of Gamtoos Valley Thicket
October 2010
The case of Gamtoos Valley Thicket
Directions:
To remove carbon just add
water
What Ecological Reserve
Determination?
The case of Kowie Valley Thicket
Carbon credits from bulldozing thicket to plant pineapples?
The case of non-valley thickets
read sheep, goats and over-stocked game farms
Carbon leakage
Minimum farm size issues
Natural Capital speculators
Domestic herbivore feeding patterns
The case of non-valley thickets
read sheep, goats and over-stocked game farms
EP Herald October 21 October 2010
General: Businessman gets precedentsetting sentence for destroying
bushveld:
“A businessman has received a precedentsetting two-year suspended prison
sentence and fines totalling R300 000 for
‘causing irreparable damage to the
environment”
Fair trade : natural capital for a mohair scarf?
Intergenerational
Equity and
Natural Capital
“Providence meant to spoil our farmers in placing the spekboom on the
hills of the Karroo” – anonymous in Palmer & Pitman pg 111, (1961).
“If you don’t like what I am doing on my farm why
don’t you buy it from me” Howard Elliot 2010: failed pineapple farmer
Natural capital and inter-generational equity
Replace this with oranges?
Irrigate them with water we don’t have….
Send them to China with the end of oil in sight….
Climate Crime????
THMs
Moratorium on further habitat transforming
Paradigm shift: Intergenerational equity is
inviolate (Dis-my-plaas syndrome has to go)
Agric Sector (e.g. Mohair) demonstrate
sustainability (farm by farm analysis)
Challenge water rights and land-use decisions
SA Annual Soil Conservation Talkshop
You cant trust humans : make rules
Suggestions
Reduce emissions = reduce emissions
Habitat intact>restoration (1ha = ~ 600+CO2e)
Cons NGOs need unity and tackle thorny issues
Capacitate the Green Scorpions
Monitor thicket farm by farm (RS and impimpis)
Employ economic leverage (EU, carbon
footprint)
Spatially explicit stewardship plans (conectivity)
Suggestions
Bundling = carbon equity
VCS REDD
VCS Spekboom restoration
Suggestions
Rhodes. Department of
Environmental Science
Thicket
Monitoring
Group
(TMG)
Information
Collation
Networking
Thicket
Action
Group
(TAG)
Research
Capacity Building
Networking
Advocacy
Awareness
Litigation
Thank you
Only economists and madmen
believe
in unlimited growth
Blignaut undated (and he stole it from some other guy)