The most common definition of rehabilitation is “the process of returning the land in a given area to some degree of its former state, after some process (mining, natural disasters, etc.) has resulted in its damage.”
However, it is important when conducting the process to remember that between everything living and non-living thing there are larger patterns and delicate interdependencies that need to be taken into consideration as Gregory Bateson discovered.
Thus, rather than only taking into account rehabilitation, we implement restoration. Restoration is the process of ecological restoration of a site to a natural landscape and habitat. Although on this project the end goal is farming, we are looking to enhance the supply of ecosystem services while also trying to restore biodiversity in the area.
Study Site:
The sand mine has been operational since the 1980’s and a fairly large area has been disturbed throughout the operational lifetime of the mine. However, the company is also involved in the farming industry, and through the years they have ensured some degree of rehabilitation on certain areas of the farm where no mining is taking place. Just to mention, without the client’s efforts to ensure compliance and working with us these results would not have been possible thus far.
The project started in November 2018 and we decided to implement a phased rehabilitation project to ensure that we restore the areas and natural habitats to its desired state.
As illustrated in Figure 1 below, the area had not yet received good summer rainfall at that point in time. Grass species were present, however large patches of open ground were evident. These open areas have been hardened as a result of the lack of vegetation cover. After the initial site visit, a rehabilitation plan was set up which the clients needed to follow.
The phased rehabilitation process was initiated by ripping the soil and spreading manure/compost over these bare soil areas to ensure that there are sufficient nutrients in the ground to supply the new seedlings with nutrients once they started to grow.
Monitoring was conducted during February 2019 and Figure 3 below illustrates that with the assistance of some good summer rains, parts of the area have re-established, and thick grass stands could be seen.
In Figure 4 we can see that some of the areas are still in process, however new vegetation growth is establishing and with time and care this area will also be restored to its natural state.
A follow up article will follow during the coming months as rehabilitation continues.
