This short movie celebrates the achievements of interventions on Avontuur to restore areas of soil erosion on Avontuur. Rapid erosion of soils probably started in the late 1700’s, when Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman visited the area and observed that the colonists “turned their cattle out constantly into the same fields in a much greater quantity than used to graze there” when the Khoi pastoralists used this veld. He observed that “in consequence of the fields thus being continually grazed off and the great increase of the cattle feeding on them the grasses and herbs which these animals most covet are prevented continually and more and more from thriving and taking root”. Old erosion scars, with the bare subsoil often covered in lichens, probably date to this era.
Following the Second World War, high grain prices stimulated a boom in wheat production and was probably the indirect cause of the second great era of erosion of Avontuur, caused by unwise ploughing of vulnerable soils. An estimated 30,000 tons of soil was washed away from one small catchment.
With support of WWF, in January this year a local team under the leadership of DustinLee Gous renovated the erosion control structures on Avontuur to prepare them for the next rains. Current and predicted changes in the climate indicate that we must prepare for more extreme weather events, including deluges of rain. Our thanks to WWF for making this possible!