Gumboot September 2010

Bateleurs Fly for Wetlands

If they say an ordinary single picture is worth a thousand words, imagine what an aerial perspective is worth to the conservation of wetlands. It is for this reason that the Bateleurs, an environmental organization of pilots using their flying skills and aircraft to support conservation initiatives, has once again provided invaluable support to Working for Wetlands’ rehabilitation planning for 2011/12. Bateleurs pilots successfully completed aerial surveys of catchments earmarked for rehabilitation with Working for Wetlands planning teams. These fly-overs give the programme an aerial perspective of catchment condition and degraded wetlands that may be candidates for rehabilitation. This is the fourth year of the highly successful partnership between the Bateleurs and Working for Wetlands.

Vital Statistics

   
   Below is a summary of some of the aerial surveys that were conducted from April 2010 to date.
    
   

Number of flights	8
Number of catchments surveyed	42
Number of hours flown	22 hours 35 minutes

                   
For more information contact Umesh Bahadur at u.bahadur@sanbi.org.za

Snippets

2010 WETLANDS INDABA REMINDER
The closing date for the 2010 Wetlands Indaba registrations is 24 September 2010. The event is taking place in Kimberley at the Horseshoe Inn Conference Centre from the 26th to the 29th October 2010.
Registration can be done online.
For more information on the 2010 Indaba Wetlands please go to http://wetlands.z2a.co.za

Priority Freshwater EcosystemsIdentified

About ninety freshwater biodiversity experts from around the country came together at the end of July to review draft maps outlining a national network of priority freshwater ecosystems and their supporting catchments. This was the first time that systematic conservation planning methods have been applied to the full range of freshwater ecosystems on a national scale in South Africa, resulting in the production of the maps that were put forward before the workshop participants for review.