Page 36 - Thola Issue 17

34 CREW Programme
THE CONSERVATION
CREW
South Africa is at the forefront of initiatives to assess the status of its plants, being the first mega-diverse country (countries that together house 70% of the world’s animal and plant species) to publish a comprehensive Red List for over
20 000 plants, 60% of which cannot be found anywhere else on earth. As a result of the human impact
on natural areas, the spread of invasive
alien plants and
illegal harvesting of plants for the
horticultural and medicinal trade, 2 553 plant species
are currently threatened with extinction.
The monitoring and protection
Suvarna Parbhoo outlines the passion and dedication of a home-grown conservation network to monitor and protect threatened plant species in South Africa.
of these threatened plant species is a major conservation challenge and clearly requires both extensive manpower and funding. South Africans are passionate about nature and its diversity; many are ordinary citizens with no scientific training who wish to dedicate their personal
time to conserving plants; others are professionals employed in conservation or botanical research. Over the past decade, the Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildplants (CREW) programme has united these individuals to create a powerful plant conservation network.
The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and the Botanical Society of South Africa have partnered to co- finance the implementation of the CREW Programme. Twenty-six CREW groups (based in the Northern Cape, Western
Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces) survey remaining pieces of natural vegetation for plant species of conservation concern and identify critical fragments of land with high numbers
of threatened plants that are in need of conservation. Their surveys of the plant species present in these fragments allow for a thorough understanding of the distribution of populations of restricted range or endemic species. Data collected in these ongoing field surveys is invaluable for the annual updating of the Red List
of South African plants, biodiversity conservation plans, protected area expansion strategies, as well as reporting on the state of biodiversity nationally and internationally. CREW volunteers work with landowners, local municipalities
TOP: Pondoland CREW at Ntsikeni Nature Reserve. LEFT: Moraea atropunctata, Critically Endangered thola: VOLUME 17. 2014/15 species from the Overberg, Western Cape (Photo credit: Ismail Ebrahim).
Photo credit: Graham Grieve