ADU travels, expeditions and events

SPEECH BY MR PW SAAIMAN, MEC FOR TOURISM, ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION (NORTHERN CAPE) AT THE LAUNCH OF THE BOOK: BIRDS OF THE ORANGE RIVER ESTUARY AND SURROUNDING AREA AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN, TUESDAY 9 MAY 2006

Programme Director,
Ladies and Gentlemen

It is indeed a pleasure and an honour to be here today and to represent the Northern Cape Government and Province. This province which occupies up to a third of South Africa's land mass is often under-estimated by non-residents - many times I might add by Capetonians who contend that "there's nothing out there".

Nothing could be further from the truth, for the Northern Cape Province has a tremendously rich biodiversity, a wealth which is not surpassed by many other regions of the world. We have six of the seven biomes and with the addition of the coastal reserve all seven biomes will be represented in the Northern Cape.

The Succulent Karoo Biome in particular is one of the earth's biodiversity hotspots with an unmatched number of succulent plants. In fact, it is the most biodiverse desert region in the world. Situated in the north-western corner of this Biome is another natural gem, the Orange River estuary.

The Orange River, the lifeblood of the Northern Cape, after its confluence with the Vaal River at Douglas, flows into the sea at this western corner of our country. Its shallow waters and adjacent habitats provide important feeding, roosting and breeding habitat for a variety of waterbirds, especially considering that there are virtually no estuaries or river mouths along literally hundreds of kilometres of coastline on either side of the estuary.

The importance of the Orange River Estuary was identified several years ago and the wetland was consequently designated as a Ramsar Site, the only such wetland in the Northern Cape. Mining operations and general neglect saw this status threatened and the Department of Tourism, Environment and Conservation in the Northern Cape took the lead with the national Minister and the Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism, the Namibian government and Working for Wetlands to have this site restored to its rightful place and is actively involved in research, monitoring and conservation projects at the estuary. The wetland will one day receive formal protection status, thus ensuring the conservation of this precious and important resource, so that it can be enjoyed by future generations.

As with several other conservation initiatives in the area, this protected area will probably straddle the international boundary. Initiatives at the estuary are therefore conducted in partnership with our colleagues in Namibia, especially the Ministry of Environment & Tourism.

I welcome the production of this booklet, as it will be an important resource for bird-watchers who visit the area. Moreover, it could serve to attract more eco-tourists to the region, with numerous benefits and spin-offs accruing to the Province's people and especially the residents of the Richtersveldt and greater-Namaqualand area.

I'd like to express my appreciation to the various people and organizations who were involved in the production of this booklet. In particular I would like to thank the two organizations who sponsored the costs of the illustrations and the printing, namely BENEFIT and Working for Wetlands. Then I would also like to thank the Avian Demography Unit for publishing the booklet, and for making it part of their very useful and attractive Bright Continent Guide Series. I am also pleased to hear that any profits from the sale of the booklet will be invested in bird research and conservation in the Northern Cape.

I have heard from the officials in my Department about the excellent work that is conducted by the Avian Demography Unit, especially the Coordinated Waterbird Counts Project, the Coordinated Avifaunal Roadcounts Project, the Birds in Reserves Project, and the South African Reptile Conservation Assessment Project. I understand that my Department's ornithologist, Mark Anderson, collaborates with the Avian Demography Unit on many of these projerts.

Our Coordinated Avifaunal Roadcount Project, which we call the Karoo Large Terrestrial Bird Survey, has been underway since 1995 and since then, without fail, during mid-summer and mid-winter, up to 25 participants count the Blue Cranes, Ludwig's Bustards and other large terrestrial birds along up to 1500 km of roads.

This work is very important, as it monitors the status of several threatened and endemic birds. The Blue Crane, our national bird, is listed in the South African Red Data Book and its population of about 21,000 is confined to South Africa, with a large proportion occurring in the Northern Cape.

Since the cessation of brown locust control with harmful poisons, and the negative effect on other organisms, including the Blue Crane, the population of large terrestrial birds is expected to improve. The Karoo Large Terrestrial Bird Survey will provide these answers and also alert us to any possible negative environmental factors in the eastern Karoo.

The Coordinated Waterbird Counts project, which I believe has an interesting acronym, CWAC, is also one of the more important ornithological projects In the Northern Cape.

For more than 15 years we have been monitoring the populations of waterbirds at more than 50 wetlands, including the Orange River estuary, our only Ramsar site.

The information derived from this project is important, as it provides trends of the populations of threatened species, provides information for the determination of hunting seasons and bag limits, and much more. Importantly, this project also allows us to fulfil some of our national and international obligations, including those under the Ramsar Convention and the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (and agreement under the Bonn Convention).

At one wetland locality, Kamfers Dam, which is located just north of Kimberley, we have been monitoring the flamingo population on a monthly basis for more than 10 years.

This Dam supports the largest permanent population of flamingos in southern Africa and, as such, has enormous ecotourism potential. It is of course also of immense conservation value and I am pleased to say that, in collaboration with the landowner and Ekapa Mining, we will soon be building an artificial flamingo breeding island at Kamfers Dam, only the second such island in the world.

There are two ornithological issues which I believe currently need urgent scientific attention in South Africa.

Firstly, avian influenza. The previous bird flu pandemic, called Spanish Flu, resulted in the death worldwide of an estimated 40 million people. The current strain of avian influenza, H5N1, has the potential to cause significantly more loss of life. Now that the virus is in Africa, having been recently recorded in North Africa and West Africa, one wonders how long before it reaches the southern part of the continent?

I understand that the Avian Demography Unit is involved in avian influenza monitoring, and that assistance is given to avian influenza training in various African countries, including Malawi and Ethiopia. In the Northern Cape, the Department of Tourism, Environment and Conservation is working in close collaboration with veterinarians from the Northern Cape Department of Agriculture and Land Reform and the University of Pretoria's Department of Virology.

A migratory bird capture operation recently took place at Spitskop Dam, and about 50 waterbird faecal samples were sent to the Departrrtent of Virology at Onderstepoort. All of these samples fortunately tested negative for H5N1. I suppose that it is inevitable that avian influenza will eventually be detected in southern Africa.

My question to you, the ornithological scientific community, is what can we then do about it? Once the virus arrives, is there anything that we can do, besides perhaps improving the husbandry of poultry.

I am concerned that wild birds will receive the blame for the spread of the virus. Furthermore, there is always the possibility that such a pandemic will have massive negative implications for the conservation cause, especially where human lives and the economy are at stake. Bird flu will almost certainly be one of our challenges in the next few years.

The other important issue concerns global climate change. The current predictions, mainly based on work done by the South African National Biodiversity Institute at Kirstenbosch, are that a few degrees celcius rise in ambient temperature will have major consequences for the Northern Cape's biodiversity.

Most plants and animals have relatively narrow thermal limits, so it will then be up to them to move to areas with a different climatic regime. This may mean moving up mountains, or moving to the cooler and wetter eastern and southern parts of the country.

However, the temperature change may be too rapid for these movements to take place, and it is therefore likely that there will be a massive loss of biodiversity. Most of the work to date has focused on the effects of climatic change on plants, and it seems to me as if little is known about how our fauna will be affected.

There are often very complex relationships between plants and animals, be it pollination or seed dispersal, and removing one link in the chain could have considerable negative repercussions for a whole suite of organisms. My question to you is "Do we know what effects climate change will have on other living organisms, including birds?"

Climate change has implications for the conservation planning work that we are undertaking in the Northern Cape. The internationally-funded Succulent Karoo Ecosystem Plan (SKEP) project is currently determining the location of the most biodiversity-rich areas in this succulent desert.

The next step will then be to conserve these hotspots, whether as formal conservation areas, or possibly by some agreement with the landowners. My concern is that the hotspots of today may not necessarily be the hotspots of tomorrow.

How does one accommodate climate change and rapidly shifting distributions of plants and animals during conservation planning exercises?

The Northern Cape is a magnificent Province, the largest province by far, and the province with the smallest population. What the population lacks in people numbers is however certainly made up by the numbers of other organisms especially plants.

From the vast rolling dunes of the Kalahari, the dolerite koppies of the Karoo, the inselbergs and endless plains of Bushmanland, to the succulent wonderland of the Knersvlakte, Richtersveld, and other areas of Namaqualand, the Northern Cape has much to offer.

I would like to encourage scientists, and especially those at the Avian Demography Unit, to continue with their collaborative work with my Department. Furthermore, I would like to encourage you to initiate new projects in the Northern Cape. There is still so much to learn especially in how we will deal with the world's new anthropogenic threats. My Department will gladly offer support and assistance to scientists working in the Northern Cape.

To Mark Anderson, on behalf of the Northern Cape Provincial Government, the Ministry and the Department of Tourism, Environment and Conservation - We are proud of your work. Mark Anderson is one of those rare diamonds which you find in the Northern Cape. He has already made his mark in his field, with more than 150 published articles. This is his first published book and took all of 18 months to put together. At present he is busy with his Ph D and we wish him well with his endeavours in his chosen field.

Ladies and Gentlemen it has been a pleasure sharing these few thoughts with you.