The fynbos of the Nuwejaars Wetlands is home to species found nowhere else on Earth. But to protect this extraordinary biodiversity, it’s vital to first understand it – to know which species call it home, where they thrive and what threatens their survival.
Over the past three years, with funding support from the Table Mountain Fund, the Nuwejaars River Nature Reserve embarked on its most ambitious fynbos survey yet.
This has meant walking, recording, identifying and analysing across the full 47,000 hectares of the Nuwejaars Wetlands Special Management Area – building a clearer, more complete picture of this landscape.
And this knowledge doesn’t stay here. What we’ve learned has significance well beyond our borders, offering valuable insights for fynbos lovers, land managers and conservationists everywhere.
Here’s a look at what we discovered – and why it matters for fynbos conservation.
Over the course of the three years, the NWSMA team and botanical experts surveyed the entire NWSMA. The NWSMA’s former Conservation Manager: Game & Veld Management Eugéne Hahndiek, and botanists Geoff Nichols and Doug Euston-Brown undertook the surveys.
Here are the results:
sightings of plants
species identified
threatened & priority species identified
Some of the Species of Conservation Concern found here include:
Species of Conservation Concern
Doug Euston-Brown also assisted the NRNR team to develop a comprehensive list of threatened species and Species of Conservation Concern for the NWSMA. This list sets out the species that require conservation action. It’s based on species distribution and occurrence in the NWSMA, rarity, locality, habitat requirements and the national red list status.
Understanding the threats
To protect fynbos, we also needed to understand what threats they face. With the TMF’s assistance we compiled a threat analysis for our floral communities and populations across the NWSMA. In total nine conservation management interventions were carried out and funded, and these included exclusion fencing, invasive alien clearing and building barriers in order to protect our floral communities from threats.
Here are some of the threats and conservation actions:
Protecting this special Moraea
The NWSMA recently discovered a population of Moraea minima, known as the Mini Galaxy. This species was last seen in 1981 and was therefore considered extinct in the wild. Through this project, two subpopulations of this species were found on the NWSMA. However, one population consisted of a few plants on a road verge that is heavily used by agricultural traffic. As such, we built a rock wall around the plants to protect them.
Addressing aliens
A channelled valley-bottom, non-perennial river linking an Elim Ferricrete Fynbos slope to the Nuwejaars River Flood Plain was identified. The corridor had been compromised due to overgrazing, invasive alien tree invasion, and erosion. To reestablish natural hydrological connections and ecological functions, we had to firstly remove the threats. As such we cut down the dense stands of invasive alien trees, and then fenced off the 20-hectare corridor to prevent livestock from degrading the site further. We are now growing plants in our wetlands nursery and aquaponics system (funded by WWF South Africa), which will be used in an active restoration plan.
Vegetation regeneration
Exclusion fencing was erected to protect fragments and priority floral communities from grazing pressure. To date, we have developed seven exclusion fenced areas, covering an area of 111.2 ha which is under direct better management (a total 8.9km of fencing developed).
For some of our other conservation actions, see: Island hopping for wildlife.
Conservation Manager Erica Brink and former NWSMA Conservation Manager: Game & Veld Management Eugéne Hahndiek explain the significance of this TMF-funded project, and just how much it has helped to protect threatened fynbos. (Note: This video was compiled for the Fynbos Forum held in August 2025, and as such some of the statistics quoted in here do not include the work undertaken in the final three months of the project.)
Some of other deliverables from this project:
- With support from the Fynbos Trust and Bionerds, we created an integrated fire management and invasive alien clearing plan. This database has taken more than three years to develop, as we have fine-tuned our data collection, recording and query builing functions that are an integral result of the mound of data we have cultivated. The Conservation Manager utilises the database for planning and scheduling all priority alien clearing and fire management activities for our annual plan of operation.
- 314 vegetation assessments were completed in the three years – covering around 40 000 ha, giving the management team a phenomenal overview of the health of our natural systems.
What next?
By deepening our understanding of the fynbos and the threats it faces, we’ve laid a stronger foundation to protect and restore these landscapes. And while the project has concluded, the work to protect these fynbos landscapes continues.
This work was made possible through the generous support of the Table Mountain Fund. Thank you, TMF, for three years of partnership that have helped us turn knowledge into meaningful conservation action.
