South Africa has spent R7 billion combating invasive plants

Posted by David Henning on 15 November 2022

South Africa spent R7 billion between 1998 and 2020 trying to control invasive plant species, but are still struggling to get them under control.

Working for Water is the country’s largest intervention for managing invasive plants.

This is according to a review conducted by Stellenbosch’s Centre for Invasion Biology, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and the South African National Biodiversity Institute.

The researchers reviewed the cost and effectiveness of South Africa’s largest intervention for managing invasive species, Working for Water, between 1998 and 20020.

They found that not only did invasions continue to grow in range and abundance and found that it struggles to effectively control the 76 000 sites covering 2.7 million hectares.

Around 14% of the programme’s area has been tackled, and more than a quarter of control operations were not priority areas for biodiversity or water conservation.

‘This shows that the problem is too large to expect that invasive species can be effectively controlled everywhere in the country,’ the researchers state.

‘Although R310 million has been spent annually since 1998 to clear invasive plants, and progress has been made in places, we still haven’t won the battle. Several estimates show that to reduce alien plant invasions to manageable levels everywhere, we will need three to seven times more money.’

They suggest that South Africa needs a national strategy to focus on clearly defined areas and priority sites to stop the progress of invasive plant species.

‘This mismatch between the dream and reality is partly because sufficient funds were never available, but also because clear goals have not been set,’ they add.

For this to happen, they suggest that the level of funding needs to be increased and the current suite of projects needs to be narrowed down to a manageable set within priority areas.

Picture: Getaway Gallery

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