Freshwater
South Africa’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan indicates that 82% of our rivers are threatened, while 44% are considered critically endangered. However, for the most part our freshwater ecosystems are not yet showing the wide spread systemic loss of ecosystem functioning that is typical of rivers in many other rapidly developing countries. Groundbreaking legislation and policies put in place since 1994 are starting to have positive effects, and South Africa can become a model for sustainable development for poor and developing nations.
However, demographic changes, urbanisation and a growing middle class society, with higher water, food and electricity demands, create a whole new set of challenges for the country. Climate change poses a further level of complexity, with projections of up to 10% reductions in river flows in the Western Cape by 2015, gradually moving eastwards. Changes in rainfall patterns, with shorter more intense rainfall events, will also influence both water quantity and quality, as well as risks of flood events. These challenges place all of us at risk, and we must act together to address them.
We can only prevent collapse of our threatened freshwater ecosystems, and sustain use of our limited water resources with concerted, coordinated and proactive action on a number of fronts. This requires intervention from all three spheres of government, the private sector – including agriculture and industry, as well as the involvement of civil society. The time for this action is now.
WWF, through its three key freshwater programmes namely, Water Balance, the Integrated Catchment Management and the WWF Mondi Wetlands Programme works to conserve and ensure the healthy functioning of South Africa’s important freshwater ecosystems through various interventions and thus contribute towards the country’s water security.
Read the WWF Blueprint Report (prepared with assistance from Pegasys Strategy and Development) for more info.
WWF, through its three key freshwater programmes namely, Water Balance, the Integrated Catchment Management and the WWF Mondi Wetlands Programme works to conserve and ensure the healthy functioning of South Africa’s important freshwater ecosystems through various interventions and thus contribute towards the country’s water security.
Read the WWF Blueprint Report (prepared with assistance from Pegasys Strategy and Development) for more info.
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WWF Sanlam Living Waters Partnership
Download the latest WWF Sanlam Living Waters Partnership Annual Review
To meet the country’s growing water requirements, water resources are highly stressed in large parts of the country
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