Volume 17 • July 2021 Editorial 2020 By Suvarna Parbhoo-Mohan (CREW Programme manager) and Domitilla Raimondo (SANBI Threatened Species Programme manager) May there be peace in the heavenly virtual platforms that have marched, uninvited, into region and the atmosphere; may peace our homes and kept us connected with each other reign on the earth; let there be coolness and our network of volunteers. in the water; may the medicinal herbs be healing; the plants be peace-giving; may The Custodians of Rare and Endangered there be harmony in the celestial objects Wildflowers (CREW), is a programme that and perfection in eternal knowledge; may involves volunteers from the public in the everything in the universe be peaceful; let monitoring and conservation of South peace pervade everywhere. May peace abide Africa’s threatened plants. CREW aims to in me. May there be peace, peace, peace! capacitate a network of volunteers from a range of socio-economic backgrounds – Hymn of peace adopted to monitor and conserve South Africa’s from Yajur Veda 36:17 threatened plant species. The programme links volunteers with their local conservation e are all aware that our lives changed from the Wend of March 2020 with a range of emotions, agencies and particularly with local land from being anxious of not knowing what to expect, stewardship initiatives to ensure the to being distressed upon hearing about friends and conservation of key sites for threatened plant family being ill, and sometimes their passing. De- species. Funded jointly by the Botanical spite the incredible hardships, we have somehow Society of South Africa (BotSoc), the Mapula adapted to the so-called new normal of living during Trust and the South African National a pandemic and are grateful for the commitment of the CREW network to continue conserving and pro- Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), CREW is an tecting our plant taxa of conservation concern. This integral part of the work on monitoring extraordinary year has been a huge adjustment for threatened species for South Africa. the three CREW nodes, and we are grateful for the www.sanbi.org 2 CREW newsletter July 2021 Over the past year, the CREW network has showed where threatened plants occur, creating awareness that – together – we can face anything. Where safety about threatened plants, implementing the National permitted, your efforts facilitated a surge in citizen Plant Conservation Strategy and growing our network science participation. Where there were challenges, of CREW citizen scientists across the country. However, we came together to share leadership, ideas and in- as an integral component of the Botanical Society’s novation. Despite all that this past year has brought, conservation intervention, we have also agreed to there were bright lights in 2020 with incredible dis- support the society with piloting of restoration initi- coveries of new species or long lost populations of atives and encourage CREW citizen scientists to get extremely rare and threatened species. The year involved in restoration work, which includes reintro- also brought opportunities to showcase the work of ductions of threatened and restricted range plants. CREW, including exposure on national television! We were obliged to increase our social media engage- Moving into this new decade, the global plant con- ment and we encourage our network to share your servation community has collaborated to develop a activities and interesting finds by tagging the CREW new Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), Programme #CREWCitSciZA whenever you share which is currently being presented to all the world’s your CREW stories on social media platforms (Face- countries that have signed the Convention on Biolog- book, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube). ical Diversity for their endorsement. The new GSPC also brings a strong focus to restoration efforts using South African citizen scientists have really caught appropriate local indigenous species and has a new onto the powerful iNaturalist platform. The amount focus on upscaling emergency recovery actions for of data streaming in, and the level of engagement in plants on the brink of extinction. the plethora of projects from across South Africa, is re- markable. We provide insight to the City Nature Chal- Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic has also allowed for leng hosted across four cities and the Garden Route the proliferation of illegal activities that are rapidly on page 69. The CREW Programme has taken a deci- driving many of our unique endemic succulents sion to streamline our data collection process into a towards extinction. During 2020 there was a dramatic more efficient system, thus, iNaturalist is our primary increase in illegal harvesting of succulent plant species data collection portal going forward. Ismail Ebrahim in the Succulent Karoo Biome. The CREW Programme’s details the CREW data collection and various iNatu- CFR node has been actively engaging with a range of ralist projects on page 68. We are planning to host a conservation partners to mitigate the impacts of this variety of live iNaturalist demonstrations and create illicit trade. For more on this refer to page 5. short tutorial videos. Watch this space. We would like to end by introducing you all to the The pandemic unlocked limited funding via the CREW slogan: Citizens monitoring and conserving our Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme plants. whereby SANBI recruited research assistants to support the variety of work undertaken by the insti- The words of the slogan are symbolic of what the tute. The CREW Programme was fortunate to upskill six CREW Programme stands for: individuals – four based in the Northern and Eastern Cape rural landscape to collect data on threatened z Citizens were chosen to keep in theme of the pro- plants – see articles by Maria Kotze (page 28), Danwill gramme being citizen science focussed. Beukes (page 29), Tutani Mpunga (page 33) and Am- z Monitoring and conserving is the key objective kelani Bester (page 37). The two research assistants of the CREW Programme. based in KwaZulu-Natal, Simone Chetty and Buyisiwe z Our shows ownership of South Africa’s plants. Dlwati, assisted with digitising collector books at the z Plants in particular our restricted range and Bews Herbarium and initiated the desktop analysis for threatened endemic plants are central to the focus the medicinal plant project we hope to pilot within of the CREW Programme. eThekwini municipality (page 66) respectively. In the pages of this newsletter you will find many The year 2020, marked the start of a new decade, highlights from our work over the past year that speak declared by the United Nations as the Decade of Eco- to the CREW citizen scientists’ resilience and the power logical Restoration. The CREW team has strategised of our network for which we are extremely grateful. during lockdown on how we evolve, while meeting The articles enclosed in this newsletter provides a mix our objectives. We remain committed to training our of personal and field orientated perspectives. Let’s citizen scientists on plant identification, engaging with continue to carry the power of connection throughout conservation agencies to conserve and protect areas 2021, no matter what the year throws at us. CREW newsletter July 2021 3 CREW Cape Floristic Region overview By Ismail Ebrahim OVID-19, coronavirus and lockdown became era of ecosystem restoration which opens a great op- Cwords entrenched in our vocabulary, and I think portunity for CREW to contribute to conservation in that every single conversation I have had over the last additional ways. year has included one or two of these words. The in- We have been working with partners like the credible challenges that the world faced in 2020 was Stellenbosch University Botanical Gardens (SUBG) mind-boggling. This has certainly been the hardest to develop a model to involve citizen scientists in year in my living memory, but, in my opinion, it set habitat restoration and species reintroduction. Our the scene for the next decade and how important aim will be to develop projects where citizen scien- building environmental resilience will be. The United tists can get involved in restoration work and to link Nations (UN) has put out a call to the world to focus on amateur plant growers to certain species so that we ecosystem restoration in this decade. The UN’s gener- can develop ex situ collections for priority threatened al assembly proclaimed the UN Decade of Ecosystem plant species. We are currently working on prioritising Restoration after a proposal for action by 70 countries species that are in need of restoration and hopefully from around the world. This call aims to mobilise the will be initiating projects to work on them. We are in- global community to protect, revive and prevent the volved in a pilot restoration project to re-establish loss of natural ecosystems around the world. During Marasmodes undulata at the Orleans Campsite in the challenging lockdown period in South Africa, I Paarl. We received funding from the Mohammed think many people got a renewed appreciation for Bin Zayd Species Conservation Fund to restore the our wonderful natural areas and realised that our fu- habitat at the site and re-establish the population ture wellbeing, including food security and quality of of M. undulata at the site. Our first attempt at germi- life, is dependent on healthy, functioning ecosystems. nating seeds of M. undulata was unsuccessful, but Our work in monitoring threatened plant species has we assumed that the seeds we received from the also shown that there is still a decline in populations. South African seed bank was not stored in optimal Habitats and ecosystems are still being lost. This initi- conditions, so their viability were compromised. We ative, driven by the UN, will hopefully usher in a new applied to draw seeds of M. undulata from the main Millennium Seed Bank in the UK and we received the batch of seeds in January 2020.