South Africa faces serious water issues. Drought is a threat to our water security, but so are floods – they cause damage to water infrastructure and increase the pollution of existing water sources. Our national water infrastructure is also under strain, and all these challenges are much harder to overcome in rural areas. To succeed, we need collaboration between government and business in public–private partnerships.

Nedbank’s 5-year core support of a partnership between World Wildlife Fund (WWF) South Africa and Environmental and Rural Solutions (ERS) to protect the Umzimvubu catchment is a prime example of this collaboration. It serves as a meaningful example of how these partnerships can encourage positive change in rural land and water management.
 

The Umzimvubu Catchment Partnership Programme

Matatiele is a small town that lies on the Umzimvubu River in the foothills of the Drakensberg, nestled in a remote corner of Eastern Cape. The surrounding mountains, valleys, and streams make up the river’s upper catchment area on its journey to the Indian Ocean at Port St Johns. In this deeply rural landscape, people have long relied on natural resources for their livelihoods. However, the absence of effective governance and essential services has led to a troubling spiral of landscape degradation and economic hardship.

WWF South Africa and ERS joined forces to start an innovative conservation project in 2016 – supported by the WWF Nedbank Green Trust – driven by a shared vision to rejuvenate landscapes and uplift communities through collaborative efforts. Although it started small, ERS showed remarkable potential and leadership from the start. Its inclusive approach, focused on improving people’s ability to build a livelihood from the land, offered a beacon of hope, providing solutions to community-based conservation challenges that had not been considered previously.

The Umzimvubu Catchment Partnership (UCP) is at the heart of this project – a multi-stakeholder alliance of local communities, traditional authorities, non-governmental organisations, government agencies, academia, and the private sector in the area. This partnership demonstrates that collective dialogue breeds collaboration, innovation, and sustainable solutions. It helps to improve landscape management, unlock funding opportunities, and enhance overall governance.

The project has sparked a number of complementary activities, each addressing the root causes of environmental degradation, while improving livelihoods and fostering positive behavioural change at the same time. Nedbank recognised the transformative power of partnerships made evident by the tangible impact of the initial Green Trust project, and as a result, in 2019 we invested even more in the project and ERS through the WWF–Nedbank partnership.

Transforming land use management

In collaboration with Conservation South Africa (CSA) and Meat Naturally, the project identified the transformation of rangeland management as a major objective. It’s essential to maintain natural rangelands if we are to improve South African livestock management and production.

The UCP uses predicted vegetation growth to promote the optimum use of rangelands, and fodder flow planning to encourage competitive livestock production. Communities set sustainable grazing capacity limits to ensure the sustainability of livestock on the land, and they improve grazing sustainability by understanding the global and local drivers of problem plants in rangelands. Problem plants include any that encroach on grazing lands, invasive aliens that replace indigenous species, and poisonous plants.

This approach helps rural pastoralists take care of their ancestral lands, which in Umzimvubu resulted in more than 17,000 hectares under better management, generating millions of rand in income for local farmers. Efforts to combat invasive alien plants, which disrupt water availability and biodiversity, include clearing the invasive species and developing business models to use the cleared biomass for industrial applications. This restores productive grasslands, releases billions of litres of water back into the system, and stimulates economic activity and job creation.

Natural springs are a vitally important water source, particularly for marginalised communities, so project teams have worked to protect and enhance 44 springs in the area – 64% of villagers now have access to a spring less than 1 km away. These interventions not only improve water quality, but also reduce the burden on women and children, who don’t have to travel as far to collect water from uncontaminated sources as they did previously. The protected springs are maintained by local villages, assisted by technicians from the Alfred Nzo District. Technical artisan work is sourced from participating villages – no contractors are used.

The Ecochamps model

The empowerment of local youth is integral to the partnership’s approach. The Ecochamps programme offers internships for young rural people with no tertiary qualifications through intensive engagement, work experience, and mentoring. Altogether, 95 young people are actively engaged. They are the new generation of conservation leaders who will continue to drive positive change in their communities. The model has multiple positive outputs, including increased investment returns for donor funds, and feedback from the interns on vital perspectives from residents and leadership.

The Ecochamps reached 13,000 people in 2023 and met regularly with the rangeland associations, providing para-veterinary services and helping with veld monitoring using a citizen-science-based method. They also facilitated auctions and shearing events. Through their efforts, the rangeland association membership base has broadened to include non-livestock owners and a growing number of young people.

The Ecochamps also help protect springs, raise awareness about water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and waste management issues, conduct research and surveys, and initiate outreach activities at schools.

Washable nappies and solid waste removal

Disposable nappies make up 60% of solid waste in Matatiele Local Municipality (MLM). They pose an enormous threat to water security and rangeland integrity, so they need their own specific waste management plan. To reduce nappy waste, ERS is partnering with washable nappy producer BiddyKins to provide online training for promoter-distributors identified through ERS and SaveAct. MLM has also secured a fleet of trucks and skips to remove solid waste from remote villages. This will reduce the negative effects on freshwater quality.

Nedbank’s support provides an operational hub for ERS, from which ERS can optimise its effective engagement in the upper catchment, convene partners and role players, foster better monitoring and learning, and implement waste management more effectively.

Future partnerships

The UCP collective meets every quarter for a strategic review and to plot the next few years ahead. ERS has developed its own strategic plan for the next 5 years, based on 3 key pillars:

• Conservation
• Conversation
• Livelihoods

Under the World Economic Forum’s Nexus project, the UCP participates in highly productive research partnerships with global and local universities. The UCP knowledge hub task team promotes the concept of participatory research and learning through co-creating approaches and themes. Visitors to the project have so far have included a group of traditional leaders, and the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON), a long-term environmental observation and research facility of the National Research Foundation.

WWF South Africa has stood shoulder to shoulder with the ERS team, providing support, guidance, and access to influential networks. The remarkable achievements of the UCP are the result of R30 million invested in the landscape in a collaboration on strategic initiatives. Nedbank’s investment in this project is driven by our commitment to long-term sustainability, something that we maintain through our WWF Nedbank Green Trust initiative.