Landscape through the lens: lessons from social-ecological research in renosterveld
If you head out from Cape Town up the N7 northwards, you will drive through a patchwork landscape of extensive golden cereal fields and green vineyards shimmering in the heat. In the distance to the east is a wall of mountains. To the west lies the Atlantic ocean. Every so often you pass a fragment of scrubby bushes, or a steep hillslope with dark, often dense vegetation. These are the remnants of renosterveld, a fire-prone shrubland and one of the most extensively transformed habitats in South Africa.
The Western Cape region of South Africa has been inhabited for tens of thousands of years, but began to undergo serious conversion from native ecosystems towards agriculture when European settlers arrived in the area. This land-use change was intensified during the 20th century, particularly in the Swartland region, which is in close proximity to Cape Town and has fertile soils. The dark grey-black appearance of renosterveld from a distance gives the Swartland its name; the “black land”. However, when you walk through the veld itself, especially in spring, these patches are a riot of colour. Countless flowering plants of all shapes and sizes bloom among the bushes, many of which are only found here and nowhere else in the world. These flowers are one of many special things about the region, and can be counted as an important nature’s contribution to people derived from renosterveld.
A Social-Ecological Lens
Understanding these nature’s contributions to people has been one of the features of my doctoral research here in the Swartland. Through extensive conversations with cereal farmers, conservationists, wine producers and other land managers, I have documented some of the ways in which people interact with and value this ecosystem. This landscape is one of the starkest examples I have seen of our human ability to transform the surface of the Earth. What interests me are the ways in which people’s connection to natural habitats exist alongside this land-use change. This makes the Cape Floristic Region an immensely exciting place to do social-ecological research.
This research involved studying the landscape through both a social and an ecological lens. Whichever lens we choose to look through, we understand different facets of the landscape, and then we can understand more about our own place in the world. In our case, the ecological lens was butterflies, but this could also be birds, or plants, or funghi, or soils, and so on. As I surveyed many patches of veld on farmland for butterflies, I came to understand in simple terms how the landscape provides in many ways. We encountered not only beautiful insects, but also light-footed bat-eared foxes, shuffling porcupines and stern eagle owls subsisting in the agricultural-renosterveld landscape.
Shifting perspectives on the landscape
Many of the farmers in the region told me that within the scope of the fertile soils and productive fields of the Swartland, the scraps of renosterveld on non-tillable land are mostly left or ignored. Scanning the veld for Silver Arrowhead or Boland Brown butterflies, and looking out across the agricultural landscape, I thought about how this picture of the Swartland could be flipped. Rather than seeing the scrubby hillslopes as remnants best left forgotten, from a different perspective, they could be seen as centres of goods and benefits flowing into the surrounding landscape.
These shifting perspectives can be tied to the unique relational values which were expressed by everyone I spoke to. Farmers who spoke of land which was wasted also spoke of the peace they found walking through the veld with their dogs, or of their family tradition of picking flowers for agricultural shows. Other potential benefits of the veld include spillover of pollinators and prevention of soil erosion. Many people spoke of the fact that the veld is a defining characteristic of the Swartland. By seeing these multiple values, we see a rich, multifunctional landscape.
The question is, how do we manage our land to reflect and strengthen these values?
Connecting to concepts, initiatives & landscapes
In undertaking this multi-faceted research, I have been able to delve into many interesting concepts and global initiatives which are emerging in landscape science. Examples include relational values, landscape stewardship, knowledge networks and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). I have also come to learn of many researchers working on deeply exciting work that integrates our human capacity for value and connection to landscape with evidence-led decision-making. Principally, by understanding human values and organization, we can better manage our landscapes. For example, by understanding the knowledge flow among stakeholders in the Swartland, we may see how to better link up different forms of knowledge and protect the exceptional diversity of this region.
This knowledge flow continues. Just this morning, I received a set of photos on my smartphone. They are of a parched, spiny bush with bright yellow berries, and of a young girl with a chameleon on her arm. My friend in South Africa wants to know if I know what the bush is, and I gladly look it up in my plant ID book. It’s a bitterapfel, a plant in the nightshade family. We exchange scientific and experiential knowledge, and in doing so foster our connection to the veld further.
The girl in the photo is my friend’s granddaughter. She was so thrilled at finding the chameleon, that she was upset when it came to putting it back into the tree. I know how she feels! When I first visited South Africa, I was transfixed by the sight of a chameleon sitting in the low branches of a beautiful tree. I watched it move slowly, its eyes rotating, its incredible coloured scales shimmering. I didn’t want to leave my position under the branches.
Social-ecological inspiration
Now, as I sit in snowy Germany, dreaming of climbing Table Mountain again, or camping in the Tulbagh Valley under the stars of the southern hemisphere, or walking up the Paardeberg to check on a colony of Boland Skolly butterflies, I recognize the connection I have fostered to a social-ecological system, both the human and non-human elements. I have been inspired not just by the incredible biological diversity and tough beauty of the veld, but also by the people who work the landscape and who care fiercely for its native plants and animals.
I have learned of the importance of different types of knowledge, and both informal and formal institutions, in caring for landscapes, both empirically and through personal experience. I have also learned that ecological diversity and productivity of a landscape are only part of its meaning for people, and that native ecosystems are woven into the cultural fabric of place. These are lessons to take forward into future landscape research.
I conducted my PhD at the University of Göttingen Agroecology group and the Institute of Ecology and Social-Ecological Systems Institute, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany. For more information on these research groups and projects please see: https://www.leuphana.de/institute/institut-fuer-oekologie/professuren/nachhaltige-nutzung-natuerlicher-ressourcen.html and https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/74726.html
For my current project with SEIAS, please see: https://www.conserveterra.org/
Further reading: Cousins, S. (2017). Renosterveld remnants of the Swartland: a rainbow of colour and rarity veiled in black. Veld & Flora Dec 2017, 158–162.
Allsop, N., Colville, J.F. & Verboom, G.A. (eds.) (2014). Fynbos: Ecology, Evolution and Conservation of a Megadiverse Region. Oxford University Press.
