Volume 4 • December 2007 News from the CREW hat an incredible year W2007 has been for the REW, the Custodians of CREW programme! Both the C Rare and Endangered summer and winter rainfall Wildflowers, is a programme areas have experienced good that involves volunteers from rains with no shortage of inter- the public in the monitoring esting species flowering during and conservation of South Spring. There has been a palpa- Africa’s threatened plants. ble shift in the way the project CREW aims to capacitate a is operating – it seems to have network of volunteers from gained a momentum that is a range of socio-economic unstoppable. There are a whole backgrounds to monitor Vatiswa Zikishe (CREW CFR as- host of new groups operating and conserve South Afri- sistant), Shela Patrickson (CREW ca’s threatened plant spe- in KZN, in Mpumalanga, in the co-oridnator for spring 2007) and cies. The programme links Fynbos and in Namaqualand. Marvin Wagenaar (new Mamre We are receiving excellent CREW biodiversity facilitator) in the volunteers with their local data from a range of volunteer veld in the Garcia State Forest. conservation agencies and groups with so many exciting particularly with local land discoveries and important mon- stewardship initiatives to en- itoring of critically endangered sistant in Cape Town Vatiswa sure the conservation of key populations many of which are Zikishe, who came highly rec- sites for threatened plant detailed in the groups’ articles ommended from the Outramps species. in this issue. in George. Vatiswa is like a beam of sunshine for our pro- We have a number of new staff gramme, she is highly efficient in the CREW programme. Isabel and has reorganised CREW’s Johnson officially took on the field trip sampling and speci- position of CREW KZN manager men processing system. Rupert in May 2007. She and Desiree Koopman, who volunteered with Marimuthoo (CREW KZN co- CREW for 4 years, has now ordinator) who started with joined our team and he is focus- CREW in March have made a ing specifically on supporting great start to getting CREW Cape Nature with the epic task set–up and working in KZN. We of conserving the Fynbos flora. also have a new CREW as- Rupert has been incredibly busy Over the past 6 months there depend on volunteer participa- have been some significant tion and have web-based virtual changes made to the CREW museums where digital photos programme’s orientation within can be submitted with GPS SANBI. During July Wendy coordinates to contribute to Foden, head of the Threatened knowledge of species distribu- Species Programme, resigned. tions. As CREW volunteers As a result I have taken on the tend to access many unexplored responsibility for all threatened areas while looking for special plant issues for the country. plants we would like to ask if you This means that our team now would consider also contributing consists of both CREW person- to these other programmes. In nel and Red List scientists. this edition there are articles CREW has become a primary from the Butterfly, Reptile and component of a broader threat- Arachnid projects to provide you ened plant programme that with further information.on their focuses on the following areas: activities and how to submit your contributions. Phetole Manyama CREW Red List . Conducting Red list assess- officer standing with Protea comp- ments for all of South Afri- The South African Red List is al- tonii a near threatened species in ca’s indigenous plant species most complete……..you may be Itala Nature Reserve. 2. Monitoring the status of experiencing déjà vu - have I not threatened plant populations been saying this for the past surveying rare plants on the in the wild via the Custodians year? Well the size of the task Cape Nature lowland reserves of Rare and Endangered Wild- was vastly underestimated but and conservation Stewardship flowers civil society volunteer we are really nearly done now sites. Pethole Manyama, who programme with only a few Succulent Karoo comes from Modjadji in Limpopo, and Limpopo species receiv- 3. Providing threatened plant has joined CREW as a red list ing final checks. The statistics locality data to land use officer. Pethole will be helping become ever more alarming, we decision makers to minimise start CREW groups in Limpopo now have over 2087 threatened further loss of threatened next year. species in South Africa up from plant populations 623 in 997 a 235% increase! A big congratulations to Ismail, 4. Informing provincial, national All these species require moni- our CREW CFR manager — he and international policy devel- toring as do the 354 Data has recently been selected opment for the conservation Deficient species. South Africa for the Botanical Society flora of threatened plant species is quite unique in the very high conservation award. This recog- 5. Input into plant recovery numbers of threatened plants nition is well deserved after the programmes conducted by we have – once we submit our 5 years of dedication he has put SANBI’s Botanical Gardens red list to the international into the CREW programme. We and by Provincial conserva- team (based in Cambridge) are all very proud of you, Ismail! tion agencies we will double the number of threatened plants listed glo- CREW’s support to Stew- bally. All of you as volunteers The threatened plant pro- ardship work throughout the are helping us by providing gramme runs in parallel to country has really taken off with much needed information on SANBI’s threatened species both the KZN team and the the status of threatened plant programme that focuses on CFR team each supporting a populations; contributing to set of top priority sites identi- co-ordinating the atlasing and conserving this sizable array of fied for stewardship contracts red listing of animal groups threatened species something by Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and especially those that have not we could most certainly not do Cape Nature. The partnership previously been studied. Cur- without your help! between SANBI’s CREW project rently SANBI is working in and the provincial conservation collaboration with the Animal We hope you all enjoy a well de- agencies stewardship pro- Demography Unit based at the served Christmas break. Many grammes is proving very fruitful University of cape Town as well thanks for all the incredible work with the stewardship projects as with a range of other or- you have done this year! relying heavily on CREW to ganisations and societies on identify high priority conserva- a Reptile atlas, an Arachnid Domitilla Raimondo tion areas where local endemic atlas, a Butterfly atlas and a Threatened Plant Programme 2 threatened species occur. Bird Atlas. All of these projects Manager CREW CFR update for Spring 2007 he CREW CFR team is we would only ever see it flower- Tslowly starting to wind down ing in an ex situ environment. A after an absolutely wonderful week later I got a call from one season in the field. This year of our newest volunteers, Koos our field trips were very suc- Claassens to say that he has cessful, visited some incredibly found Lachenalia mathewsii. We special places and found awe- immediately made arrangements some plants. to go back to Vredenburg to see this elusive species. The first We managed to conduct 22 site we visited was right on the C-team field trips this season edge of town and there were Acrolophia barbata from Natures Valley and I would like to thank the approximately 3000 plants. The CREW CFR team for working so next site was even more incred- hard to ensure that we moni- ible. We made an estimation In June we attended the Society tor as many species as possi- of about 70 000 plants, one for Conservation Biology (SCB) ble. We had an amazing trip to could even see the bright yellow conference in Port Elizabeth. Cederberg to monitor Serruria patches from the road. This This gave us an opportunity to flava. We stayed in Wupperthal gets my vote as the best field present our work to an interna- in wonderful little cottages, trip I have ever been on. tional conservation community one of which was named ‘Love and showcase the incredible and Grace’. The Saturday was Other amazing discoveries this contributions our project and spent sampling the fynbos on year has been Tilla’s discovery the CREW volunteers have made the road to Eselbank. This is the of Cullumia selago (last seen in to conservation. only area where Serruria flava 970, thought possibly to be is known from. We were very extinct) and Metalasia bodkinii CREW led another successful excited to see the first plant (last seen in 932) from the trip at Fynbos Forum this year. in flower. Sadly the rooibos tea Caledon Swartberg. The CREW We visited Rondeberg Private industry is growing rapidly and team also recently went to Nature owned by Mark and Serruria flava is becoming even Natures Valley and found Ac- Carol Duckitt. Rondeberg is a more threatened due to the rolophia barbata. This is one of really amazing site and while expansion of Rooibos tea planta- the rarest of the orchids and making preparations for the field tions. The next day we headed orchid enthusiast, Bill Liltved, trip we did a count of many spe- off to the Citrusdal area to find has been searching for this spe- cials that have been recorded Sparaxis roxburghii and Geis- cies for 5 years. Jan Vlok also from this farm. A staggering 7 sorhiza louisabolusiae. We did confirmed that he has not seen threatened plants occur on this manage to find the Sparaxis but this species for a long time and farm and it really is the treas- it was already in seed.