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By Ron Geatz
Most wine lovers would agree that the best wines are born from grapes grown in the world's small yet extremely biologically rich pockets of Mediterranean habitat — around the Mediterranean Sea, on the coasts of California and Chile and on the southern edges of Africa and Australia.
But for conservation scientists, those same wines symbolize both a potential threat and opportunity for this most imperiled of global habitat types.
Now, South Africa is showing the world that wine growing may be made more compatible with wildlife and wildflower conservation — and that being conservation-minded also gives its wines an edge in a competitive global market.
"Their exemplary project and partnership is something the four other Mediterranean regions might learn from to make conservation there happen faster and at a much grander scale," says Jeffrey Parrish, The Nature Conservancy's director of global Mediterranean habitat conservation.
Pairing Wine with Conservation
The South African push towards sustainability for wine growing is crystallized in the country's Biodiversity and Wine Initiative (BWI).
BWI is a partnership between more than 100 South African vineyards and the country's conservation sector, led by the Botanical Society of South Africa. BWI seeks to:
- Prevent further loss of habitat in critical sites.
- Increase the total area set aside as natural habitat in contractual protected areas.
- Promote changes in farming practices that enhance the suitability of vineyards as habitat for biodiversity and reduce farming practices that have negative impacts on biodiversity — both in the vineyards and in surrounding natural habitat.
- Create marketing opportunities for the wine industry by positioning the region's biodiversity — and the industry's proactive stance on biodiversity — as a unique selling point to differentiate South Africa's wines.
- Promote ecotourism to participating vineyards. For instance, the Green Mountain Eco Route bills itself as "the world's first biodiversity wine route" and is just an hour's drive from Cape Town.
"South Africa is the world's ninth largest producer of wine, but concern is mounting that some of the region's most vulnerable natural habitat might be targeted for vineyard expansion," says Inge Kotzé, BWI project coordinator.
"This region is also under increasing threat from urban expansion, agriculture and invasive alien species," she adds. "It's why we have embarked on this pioneering partnership to conserve the rich natural diversity of the Cape Winelands."
Biodiversity Returns to a Spotlight Vineyard
Vergelegen Wine Estate in South Africa's Stellenbosch region — located just a short drive from Cape Town — is an outstanding example of the influence BWI has had on winemaking in South Africa.
Vergelegen began a massive restoration and fire management regime on 2,000 of the estate's 3,000 hectares in 2005. The removal of alien eucalyptus — a tremendous water consumer — already has brought back streams to the estate that had not flowed in decades.
Native plants are recolonizing, avian variety is expanding and bontebok — one of South Africa's rarest antelope species — now graze on the property.
Vergelegen has hired an independent conservation manager, and its environmental commitment also has produced added benefits for the local community. Fifty new jobs have been created related to restoration activities, and the winery is advising and assisting other vineyards in adapting BWI principles.
"Given how similar the threats and conditions are in each of the Mediterranean regions of the world — yet how isolated they are from one another — there's tremendous value in working together, to share knowledge and exchange expertise," says Parrish.
Parrish and members of Conservancy Mediterranean projects will soon be visiting South Africa to study the BWI model firsthand.
Ron Geatz is director of global content development at The Nature Conservancy.
Nature picture credits (left to right): © Ron Geatz/TNC (Vergelegen Wine Estate, Somerset West, South Africa.); © Ron Geatz/TNC (Bontebok); © Ron Geatz/TNC (landscape); © Ron Geatz/TNC (prescribed burn)
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