By Dr Tony Swemmer, Manager, SAEON Ndlovu Node

On the slopes of Mariepskop Mountain (Mpumalanga Province), a new SAEON project is investigating the role of land management and vegetation change on the provision of freshwater in north-eastern South Africa. 

The slopes of the South African Escarpment mountains were extensively afforested with exotic pine and gum trees over the past century, and while many of these remain as active and productive plantations, others have been abandoned or reclaimed for other uses.

A large area of former plantations on the eastern slopes of the escarpment near the Mpumalanga-Limpopo boundary has recently been restituted to a number of communal property owners who have chosen to incorporate the land into the neighbouring Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve.

This will ultimately bring a range of societal benefits, from income generated through ecotourism, to restoration of the exceptionally high biodiversity of the area, to increased water flows of the rivers that rise on the mountain slopes and support agriculture and ecotourism industries downstream. However, these benefits will only be realised if the abandoned forestry plantations can be restored to the montane grasslands and savannas that once covered the mountain slopes.