Land users of the western Baviaanskloof have taken significant and commendable steps in making progress towards a sustainable and resilient Baviaanskloof. Thanks to multi-stakeholder collaborations, diverse information disseminated by PRESENCE partners and, in particular, the knowledge exchange between land users of the Agulhas Plain and land users in the Baviaanskloof (facilitated by Living Lands and ECPTA), new understandings are driving actions and alternatives for ecologically and economically sustainable land management.
To continue with this momentum, Living Lands organized a workshop on the 17th of November 2011. This workshop, which took place on the Zandvlakte farm, invited the land users, experts from the PRESENCE network, the Department of Agriculture, ECPTA, and Living Lands to vision and plot a sustainable course for the future of the western Baviaanskloof.
In addition to the workshop achieving this goal, it was also somewhat of a closure of four years’ worth of research conducted in the western Baviaanskloof by the various partners of the PRESENCE network. It was also signaled the official closure of the Water for Food and Ecosystems programme (funded by the Government of The Netherlands) which supported PRESENCE in the Baviaanskloof and which concluded in 2011. For Jordy Stokhof de Jong (a student of landscape architecture at Wageningen University), this workshop was the end of his year-long thesis research and dedicated internship in the Baviaanskloof. So the event marked a number of “endings.”
But the day also opened up exciting new “beginnings.” Prior to the workshop, the land users had met independently, involving themselves in various discussions were well prepared for the decisions which lay ahead. The discussions were continued during the workshop and the time had come to make decisions – not all of which were easy. Firstly, the land users needed to agree on forming an organization; they subsequently chose to adopt the constitution of the Angulas Plain land users.
The land users also made a decision between various scenarios proposed by Jordy’s landscape scenario development. The land users favoured a scenario in which a large part of the western Baviaanskloof will be transformed into a private nature reserve. This scenario will be a combination of agricultural farming, wildlife farming, and thicket restoration. The agricultural fields and the farmsteads will be fenced in and the rest of the land will be the domain of free-roaming wild animals. Quite an exciting scenario for some! The land users signed this scenario off as a positive way forward, with a desire to explore possibilities further, and with a willingness to take the process forward on their own.
After the workshop, the land users agreed to continue exploring the possibilities of the feasibility of a private nature reserve. Many people involved hope that the scenario can be a reality one day soon and that next year, even without the same level of direct involvement from PRESENCE partners, that the land users of the Baviaanskloof will continue to feel inspired and empowered to work towards living landscapes.
More information: livinglands@earthcollective.net
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