Avenue Vine

The wheat fields of the Swartland are slowly giving way to vineyards and this changing "matrix" of agriculture is proving fatal for the remnants of the natural environment there. But it could also be fatal for a farmer's bank balance. Leonie Joubert thinks the industry should pause for thought before putting another vineyard into the West Coast.

What a strange illusion it is, Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy once said, to assume that beauty is goodness. When it comes to renosterveld - that scrubby, bland vegetation so typical of the lower reaches of the Western Cape - nothing truer could have been said, for renosterveld truly is the ugly stepsister to the far more glorious fynbos. Well, it looks that, anyway. But in truth it is no less special than fynbos and probably even more in need of conservation.

The glory of renosterveld is about what lies beneath. Hidden away below the scruffy "renosterbos" (literally "rhinoceros bush", or Elytropappus rhinocerotis) which dominates this landscape, is a host of some of the most rare and beautiful orchids the world has to offer. It is a connoisseur's garden, packed with lilies, irises, orchids and amaryllis bulbs, many of which don't occur anywhere else in the world.

The problem with renosterveld - indeed, the reason for its continued demise - is that it grows in the more nutrient-rich soils of the Cape. When early settlers arrived here, first the Khoi-Khoi with their cattle and later the Europeans with their domesticated crops, they saw expansive herds of game feeding long the foothills of the Cape Fold mountains for this is where the nutritious veld grew.

Today only 3 to 4% of West Coast renosterveld remains. Most of it is lost to the spreading tide of wheat and cattle pastures. In fact wherever you see wheat in the Western Cape, whether in the Swartland or the Overberg, you can be sure that renosterveld once grew there.

However, renosterveld experts say that even though this intensive agriculture has carved up the vegetation into remnant patches, pastures still allow a greater number of the original plants and animals to cohabit in these areas. Comparing the biological diversity around Darling area with remnant patches of renosterveld in urbanised areas such as the Tygerberg, and the body count is very different indeed. This is described as the "matrix" in which renosterveld now struggles to survive and up the West Coast it is changing.

More and more vineyards are going onto what were formerly cattle pastures of the West Coast, if not directly into the natural veld, and when it comes to cohabiting with renosterveld, vineyards are as unforgiving as wheat. The body count is expected to drop - and not because there are fewer fatalities, but because there are fewer species left to count once vineyards move in.

The question remains, though, why put any money into such a risky investment. Why risky? Well, we know the Cape is getting hotter and drier. We know that the West Coast is going to feel it more than the South Coast. We know that higher altitude vineyards will remain potentially more viable than low lying ones.

The reason people are still doing it is because they're either in denial about global climate change, or they just don't read the papers. Either way, hot summers such as this one are not going to go away and by the time this season's infant vineyards are maturing nicely, the next generation's worth of climate change predictions will probably be upon us.

Leonie Joubert is a science journalist with a special interest in climate change and biodiversity.

Thanks, Leonie!

Source: “Stop! Stop with the plough!,” Leonie Joubert, Wine, February 27, 2006