 The Project's objective is to arrest the rapid spread of invasive alien plants in 4 watersheds;  the Kraalstroom, Elandspad (Elands), Krom Rivers and section of the Molenaars River above its confluence with the Elands River of the Dutoitskloof mountains in the Western Cape, South Africa.
South Africa is a water scarce country and water supply has to be secured through multiple initiatives. In the Western Cape, where this Initiative originates, over "two-thirds of the sub-catchments provisioning the Western Cape Water Supply System are affected by alien plant invasions. Today many of the various sub-catchments feeding the WCWSS are in an alarmingly unnatural state. Invasive alien plants such as pines, Australian acacias, and eucalyptus cover large areas of the landscape. despite significant efforts by government to address the problem invasives are still spreading faster than they are being controlled, and particularly in the more inaccessible areas like our mountain catchments." (The Greater Cape Town Water Fund, Business Case Nov 2018)
The objective is to expand significantly on the micro-scale clearing we have undertaken on a section of the Kraalstroom River over the past 18 years. This demonstrates our commitment, and we hope will secure us partners to scale it up.
These rivers lie within, not only a water scarce region, but also the vulnerable Southwestern Fynbos bio-region of the Fynbos biome where the dominant vegetation type should be Hawequas Sandstone Fynbos (SA National Ecosystem Classification FFs1)
WWF describe South Africa’s Western Cape as more botanically diverse than the richest tropical rainforest in South America, including the Amazon.
Protecting this strikingly unique and beautiful plant kingdom is a WWF conservation priority
Inevitably though there is a persistent problem with Invasive Alien Plants (IAPs); on the high steep slopes pines dominate. In others, stands of hakea run from ridge-line to watercourse.
There has been a surge of growth of IAPs from the confluence of the Elands and Molenaars rivers, that are making their way alarmingly fast up the various tributaries. This includes various pines, gums, hakeas, wattles & acacias as well as Stink Bean. All of which are spreading, growing it girth, altering the florist character of this iconic area and negatively impacting the delivery of valuable Ecosystem Services (ES) to the community and the region.
Much of the land falls within the Hawequas Nature Reserve which is managed by Cape Nature. They, along with various local and national government departments, working with organisations like WWF, have over the years worked hard in addressed the problem. However resources are limited and priorities shift. Currently, it seems that the area is not receiving as much attention as it needs, probably for lack of capacity and other priority catchments drawing resources.
Site 1 is the Kraalstroom River catchment, where we will begin Phase 1 and hope to scale through stakeholder engagements with other actors, to other catchments: Site 2- Elandspad River, Site 3-Krom River, Site 4-upper Molenaars.
We will need collaboration and forms of funding: Knowledge Funding, Credibility Funding and at some point, Financial Funding.
Most needed at this stage is credibility; an organization or institution to recognize the project as valid and credible, this will help with approaching public entities as we test the feasibility of scaling.
If this proves successful and we can get the support of key stakeholders such as Cape Nature, we hope to self-fund initially will then seek refunding for past effort and funding for future efforts.
While the scale of phase 1 is modest it can serve as a prototype to learn. We will use approaches that apply to much larger landscapes and Ecosystem Restoration (ER) interventions but are still useful, as this provides us with a chance to familiarize ourselves with the approaches and for us and partners to learn practically.

These frameworks/approaches/tools include, in no particular order:
>WWF guide to IAPs
 >SDG6-In particular 6.6- protect and restore water-related ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes.
> The 4 Returns Framework developed by Commonland. probably most significantly recognizing that projects like these are long term, so think 20 years.
>Society for Ecosystem Restoration's International Principles & Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration.
>United Nations: 10 Principles that underpin Ecosystem Restoration.
>The UN Decade of ER: Approaches outlined in the Short term Action Plan for Ecosystem Restoration.
>Theory U as a framework /tool for multi-stakeholder systems change and stakeholder engagement e.g. Sensing Journeys, Stakeholder Interviews, including most marginalised.

