Albany crew gets going
At last, the time has come! For years, local members of the Botanical Society of South Africa have been reading in the society’s Veld & Flora magazine of the successes of Crew groups all over the country and have been longing for a local group to get started in our area, which is a hotspot of plant diversity.
Albany crew gets going
At last, the time has come! For years, local members of the Botanical Society of South Africa have been reading in the society’s Veld & Flora magazine of the successes of Crew groups all over the country and have been longing for a local group to get started in our area, which is a hotspot of plant diversity.
A couple of weeks ago, Makana’s first Crew outing took place. Crew, the Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers, is an exciting programme that involves volunteers from the public in the monitoring and conservation of South Africa’s threatened plants.
The launch last year of the green jobs fund opportunity, widely known as Groen Sebenza, by SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute) has enabled the piloting of a Crew programme in the Albany region under the leadership of Vathiswa Zikishe.
This project is laying the foundation for a network of local volunteers from a range of socio-economic backgrounds to ensure conservation of key sites for threatened plant species. Last month’s outing took place on Botha’s Ridge, just north of Grahamstown.
A small group of enthusiasts went looking for the endangered Albany buchu (Agathosma bicornuta).
The group did not manage to locate the elusive buchu and will broaden their search to neighbouring ridges.
The outing whet their appetite to find out more about our wonderfully diverse flora, and we wish the Albany Crew group many successes in the conservation of our local plant species.
For more info, contact Vathiswa Zikishe at v.zikishe@sanbi.org.za.
MAKANA ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM NEWS
The MEF met on 2 October for the first time this year. The meeting was held to provide the opportunity for Rob O’Donoghue of the Environmental Learning Research Centre (ELRC) at Rhodes to discuss the way forward for Makana’s Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE).
Our local RCE was established in 2011 and is part of a worldwide network of 85 such centres connected through the United Nations University.
RCEs aim to promote environmental sustainable development in their regions through partnering with local and regional stakeholders.
To date, Makana’s RCE has been hosted by the ELRC.
It was agreed that going forward the Institute for Water Research, RU Business School, the ELRC and the Muni will jointly take responsibility for the secretariat and will support the RCE to develop its potential.
The MEF also bid farewell to Kevin Bates, director of Parks and Recreation, who has been a staunch supporter of the MEF since its launch in April 2002.
The remainder of the meeting was disappointing.
The chair of the meeting, Councillor Matyumza, did not arrive, the minutes from the previous meeting were not made available and an opportunity to discuss environmental issues of concern was missed when an agenda item to discuss the way forward for the MEF was overlooked.
Local environmental groups have loyally supported the MEF through the years but recently the forum has lost momentum. We would like to see Makana’s Environmental Manager Ndumiso Nongwe make sure that this trend is reversed in 2015.
SAVE OUR STATION PETITION HANDED IN
On 10 October, the Grahamstown Residents’ Association submitted its petition to save our station with 3 334 signatures to Transnet CEO Brian Molefe.
The purpose of the petition was to bring to government’s attention the state of the station which has been heavily vandalized. One of the problems to date has been that no one has taken responsibility for the building.
The Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown, has recently confirmed that Transnet owns the building but that the Passenger Rail Association of SA (Prasa) is responsible for its maintenance.
The GRA will continue its efforts to alert government to the sorry state of the building. On the plus side, the news that plans for the restoration of the building and revitalization of the local rail service are under discussion between Izenzo Strategic Outsourcing, Transnet and Prasa offers hope for the future.
For more info on the petition, contact Philip Machanick at p.machanick@ru.ac.za.
Find us Online: www.grocotts.co.za/environews
Contacts for Makana Enviro-News: Nikki Köhly: n.kohly@ru.ac.za, 046 603 7205 | Jenny Gon: j-gon@intekom.co.za, 046 622 5822 | Trisha Nathoo: nathootrisha83@gmail.com, 078 584 9496 | Nick James: nickjames@intekom.co.za, 082 575 9781 | Philip Machanick: p.machanick@ru.ac.za, 046 603 8635 | Strato Copteros: strato@iafrica.com, 082 785 6403
