The managers of Table Mountain and Garden Route national parks held a landmark meeting with scientists in Cape Town this week to prepare for the hotter, drier conditions approaching with climate change. They are working in partnership with the US and Reunion parks services.
The Kruger and Augrabies Falls national parks will be next as SANParks rolls out its first workshops on how to adapt to climate change and protect biodiversity across its 19 parks, which cover more than 3% of the country.
“We have a short window of opportunity to influence how climate-smart actions can make a difference and how every citizen can contribute,” said SANParks global change scientist Dr Nicola van Wilgen-Bredenkamp. “We need to think about what we most want to preserve.”
The Table Mountain and Garden Route parks are already under relentless pressure, from big stressors — people breaching park borders, illegal harvesting and sewage polluting rivers — to small (in size at least): the polyphagous shot hole borer beetle jumping into fynbos, and the home of the critically endangered Table Mountain ghost frog drying up.
The team of experts in Cape Town started by “gaming out” how four scenarios could affect the people, fire risk, freshwater, biodiversity, invasive aliens and infrastructure at the Cape parks.
We have a short window of opportunity to influence... climate smart actions
— SANParks global change scientist, Dr Nicola van Wilgen-Bredenkamp
The four possible scenarios for Table Mountain — decreased and shifting rainfall are common to all — are:
- Day Zero and beyond: Very little rain, drier and hotter drought conditions, making it likely that Day Zeros, 1, 2 and more will become the new norm;
- Cut-off lows: Hot, dry conditions and heavy, disruptive rains. In this scenario, heatwaves, floods, drought, high fire and sea level rise are possible;
- Summer landscape changer: Hot, dry conditions with the rainfall shifting from winter to summer; and
- Late winter rain: Hot, dry conditions with winter rainfall coming later in the year.
The Garden Route National Park makes for similar scenarios, except that one could have a slight increase in rainfall and a larger increase in temperature.
“The pressures and pace are going to speed up as it gets hotter and drier [with climate change],” said Prof Tony Rebelo, an ecologist at the South African National Biodiversity Institute while expressing support for the timely meeting.
“We can see what we are not doing right now and where we need to improve. Even in the short term — for the day-to-day running of parks — it is useful, and in the long term even more. For example, with fire management, we are putting out fires now rather than deciding when to allow burning and where to burn,” he said, proposing the management of wildfires as integral to a solution.
US National Park Service ecologist Gregor Schuurman, who has worked for its Climate Change Response Programme for the past decade, said: “To do this kind of work I used to think you have to know a lot, but it is really about changing the way you think... it is about streamlining and mainstreaming.”
Parks need climate change champions, who could be the facilities person or the geospatial information systems person, he said.
Controlling invasive aliens — which fuel fires, use water and stifle biodiversity — was identified as central to protecting parks, but novel ideas were also put on the table. For example, Tsitsikamma National Park manager Victor Mokoena raised the possibility of shifting recreational tourist activities out of the core biodiverse areas of the park to less sensitive areas.
SANParks marine biologist Dr Alison Kock said the next step would be to focus on the marine realm and its vulnerable ecosystems. “What happens on the land and in the park is linked to the coastal zone and estuaries, for example, the freshwater streams that run into the ocean.
“If there’s a drought and rivers run dry, and estuary mouths close, this closes off the breeding habitat for threatened marine species,” she said. “It is important to increase the resilience of coastal communities and to ensure the sustainable development of future generations.”
Raising public awareness of climate change is important, said Zipho Shezi, a ranger who is based at Silvermine in the Table Mountain National Park. “Climate change is no longer a myth, it is happening. I’m originally from KwaZulu-Natal, where we saw floods wash away everything, and more extreme weather and changes in temperature are coming.”
Van Wilgen-Bredenkamp, who led the meeting, urged the public to support efforts to protect natural resources. “There is a role for everyone. If we all save one litre of water a day, that’s 5-million litres a day for Cape Town. We can all assist in detecting where new species arrive and flagging species loss with apps like iNaturalist.”
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