Job creation in the Cape Floral Kingdom (Western Cape)

From left to right: Xolile ‘Pro’ Zulani (AVP facilitator) and Anna De Wee (Project Beneficiary)

Location

Walker Bay Conservancy, Western Cape

Brownie Points has been working in partnership with the Grootbos Foundation to implement a biodiversity stewardship project to benefit conservation and community members through the creation of employment opportunities.

Partnering with the Social Employment Fund

The Social Employment Fund in partnership with Brownie Points provides funding for eight days’ worth of work each month for a team of ten women working to clear invasive plant species from the fynbos landscape.

Introduction

The Grootbos Foundation launched the Biodiversity Stewardship project in 2021 to implement habitat restoration and rehabilitation projects within the Walker Bay Protected Environment, which provides statutory protection to eight properties within the Walker Bay Fynbos Conservancy and a conservation buffer to the Private Nature Reserves locatedwithin the conservation area.

Princess Kutuka

The team is led by Princess Kutuka who has worked with the Grootbos Foundation and Walker Bay Conservancy since 2013 to clear alien invasive plants that threaten the biodiversity of the rare and endangered fynbos vegetation types that occur within the Western Cape Province of South Africa.

Princess Kutuka, an independent and entrepreneurial team leader, has shown incredible growth within her team and business, and has learnt to use the available technology to track her team’s attendance, providing a more professional service to her clients.

Tough, physical work has included the removal of invasive plant species within critically endangered fynbos habitats, maintaining fire breaks ahead of the fire season and maintaining hiking trails. The team has also participated in active habitat restoration by harvesting and smoking fynbos seeds, propagating rare and endangered species and transplanting baby trees from the natural milkwood forests to rehabilitate degraded areas of the forests. Private landowners of the Protected Environment are so pleased with the work that Princess and her team have delivered, that they have begun to employ the team to implement ad hoc projects at their own expense.

The change
The value derived from this project allows the women who are employed to take care of their children and send them to registered Early Childhood Development centre’s and schools. They have also developed an appreciation for the landscape they are actively restoring and have learnt to respect natural areas, seeing them as a source of sustainable income.

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