Jou Ma se fynbos
What is biodiversity, and why is it
important? Biodiversity is nothing more than the measure of
natural living wealth. Biodiversity looks at all the
different ways that plants, animals, fungi and other living
things have colonized the planet, turning bare rock into
soil and vegetation, turning sterile seas into living
oceans, and turning the atmosphere into air that we can
breathe.
Biodiversity measures the numbers of species
that live in an area, e.g. how many different species of
plant, as well has how many distinct ecosystems or
communities of plant occur (e.g. dune fynbos, mountain
fynbos, forest, etc).
Hout Bay is situated in the Cape Floristic
Region (CFR), one of the smallest and richest plant kingdoms
on the planet. On the Cape Peninsula we have:
-
more biodiversity (in the form of
different naturally occurring plant and animal species)
than the entire continent of Europe
-
more plant species per square km than in
many tropical rainforests!
-
3% of the worlds plants on only 0.05% of
the land surface.
-
more than 70% of the plant species being
endemic, i.e. they are unique to the CFR.
For these reasons the Cape Floristic Region
has been declared a global biodiversity hotspot (www.capeaction.org.za),
as much of our natural wealth is under threat by
development, agriculture and poor land management (e.g.
unplanned fires, invasive alien plants).
Fire in particular has reduced the
biodiversity of our fynbos areas due to:
-
Frequency
of burning: When fynbos burns too often because of
people causing fires, the indigenous vegetation does not
have enough time to produce seed or grow back. This
gives faster-growing alien vegetation the chance to
occupy the area, crowding out the fynbos or even leads
to vegetation cover being lost. This can be seen on the
lower slopes of Table Mountain, which has been exposed
to man-made fires for the longest, and thus has little
of its original biodiversity left.
-
When
alien vegetation such as Eucalyptus, Port Jackson or
rooikrans burns in a wildfire, it burns hotter than a
fire in undisturbed fynbos. This make the fire more
damaging to the fynbos. So get that alien vegetation off
your land, it is a fire hazard!
See
www.capefires.com for details of how volunteer
firefighters are protecting biodiversity on the Cape
Peninsula.
Why care about bio-diversity?
Most attempts to answer this question talk
about why we should preserve species because one day we
might find a cure for cancer (or some other medical use) in
a particular plant or animal. This is true, more than half
of medicines in pharmacies are plant based, or have been
copied from chemical compounds found in plants.
Or, we talk about how biodiversity has
economic value, such as tourists who come to see the unique
fynbos and scenery of the Western Cape. This is also true,
and our natural biodiversity is undeniably part of what
creates a sense of “place”, a feeling of the specialness of
a place.
However there is a growing consciousness that
perhaps biodiversity has value in itself, quite apart from
its usefulness to humans. The right of other living things
(such as species or ecosystems) to exist is starting to be
recognized, e.g. in Ecuador’s New Constitution. It is
significant that this recognition that natural ecosystems
such as forests have a right to exist comes from countries
like Ecuador, where indigenous people are starting to assert
their right to exist, and to have a place in the political
landscape. For a long time indigenous people on all
continents were hunted like animals, displaced from their
land, and had the resources that they depended on (like
forests, game and fish) stolen to make profit for newcomers
to the land. Now that indigenous people’s right to exist is
being recognized, they are also asking that the places that
they depend on for life to be protected.
There is a spirit in all living things, an
energy field that connects all life. To lose biodiversity,
to lose a single species, is to lose a part of our soul.
