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Have you ever wondered what tiny creatures call our rivers home? This month, junior high school students in De Waaville (Heidelberg) and Olyfkrans (Swellendam) explored this fascinating question while learning about freshwater ecosystems. Freshwater ecosystems are vital for sustaining life on Earth, providing drinking water and habitats for countless species, and rivers play a critical role in maintaining this balance. Educating young people about the health of these ecosystems fosters a sense of responsibility and empowers them to take action.  Our team collecting samples from Duiwenhoks river At both schools, we were able to do a mini-SASS using samples collected from Koringlands River in Swellendam and Duiwenhoks in Heidelberg. The samples were collected in upstream and downstream locations to illustrate how human habitation can impact our river health.  Twakkie, nursery manager, transferring them onto white trays for students to analyze. A SASS (South African Scoring System) is a tool used by scientists to monitor river health by identifying benthic macroinvertebrates, small aquatic animals that live in riverbeds. Each species is assigned a score, with more environmentally sensitive species having higher scores. These scores are then averaged, with higher averages signalling a better overall river health. The GVB conservancy does SASS at various river locations twice a year to understand the river ecosystem health in the region. It is important for us at the conservancy to identify ways to work with the community to keep our rivers healthy. This includes doing mini-SASS sessions with students living around many of the rivers we sample. While standard SASS requires specialised training, the simplified mini-SASS makes this process accessible to citizens, especially school-aged children. Much of the methods for sample collection and score production is simplified, while also maintaining a comparable overall standard of assessment. This makes mini-SASS ideal for our environmental education days. Some students from Olyfkrans had the opportunity to watch how samples were collected. A GVB conservancy member went into the river with waders and a net. We placed the net on the bed of the river and began kicking the rocks below. Additionally, we made sure to sample on gravel riverbed and near spots of the river with vegetation. Samples are placed in a white tray containing freshwater from the river, and students are given info sheets to help identify the species within the tray. Although the species within the tray are visible to the naked eye, students were also given a hand lens and magnifying glass to look for distinct features to help with identification. Students from both schools were eager and excited to identify the macroinvertebrate species. Many species look similar, so students also had a poster that illustrated the different species to help draw conclusions. The posters were then donated to the schools with big thanks to Christian Fry, whose incredible book A Field Guide to Freshwater Macroinvertebrates of South Africa is an amazing resource for freshwater macroinvertebrate identification.  Olyfkrans students holding up poster gifted to them :) We love to see our students engage in discussion about what they are seeing! After calculating the scores for river health, students were given an opportunity to brainstorm ways they could help improve river health, including limiting their own pollution. Many of them stated the importance of planting indigenous plant species in their home gardens, especially if they live near a river. Indigenous plant species near a river can help improve water quality, limit erosion, and help reduce the risk of floods. Students from Olyfkrans also had the opportunity to put what they learned into practice by planting indigenous trees on their school grounds. They demonstrated a great deal of care with the trees they planted. Way to go, guys! These environmental education days remind us of the power of young minds to inspire change. We can’t wait to continue fostering this enthusiasm in future projects and encourage everyone to take small steps—like planting a tree or reducing pollution—it all adds up to healthier rivers and ecosystems for all. A big thank you to Table Mountain Fund for funding this work and to the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve who are our project partners.
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Over the last few months, we've been delighted to welcome some exceptional guests, and we're thrilled to share the highlights of their visits along with a plethora of photos! Firstly, we had the honour of hosting the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), led by Dr. Albert Chakona, Chief Scientist and Senior Research Associate from the Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science at Rhodes University. Aileen Anderson, our esteemed General Manager and SASS Guru, joined forces with them for monitoring and DNA sampling of aquatic species in the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Region (GCBR) and partnered with friends in the Elim area to sample fish in the Nuwejaars Wetlands Special Management Area. This collaboration was both enlightening and memorable, enabling us to address various inquiries, document previously unrecorded aquatic species, and forge new partnerships. For more insights into our partnership with GCBR, check out their article on GCBR Fish Monitoring. Additionally, delve into the SAIAB article for a deeper understanding of our discoveries in Unveiling Nature's Jewel: Exploring the Enigmatic World of the Translucent Goukou Galaxias. And be sure to immerse yourself in the captivating pictures from our expedition! Our second visit was from Landcare (Department of Agriculture), during which we had the pleasure of meeting with Rudolph Röscher, District Manager of the Cape Winelands and Hannes Muller District Manager of Eden SRUM. These annual visits entail inspections of our activities, during which Ricardo Januarie (Alien Clearing Manager) and Mzomhle Mtshintshi (Quality Controller) showcased our progress in alien-clearing activities, while Corné Brink (Restoration Manager) talked about our restoration efforts. We also visited our impressive alien clearing project in the Korente Poort Dam area, that we are implementing in partnership with the Korente-Vette Irrigation Board. The Grootbos Foundation marked our fourth visit, allowing us to showcase our valley and its fauna and flora species. It was a rewarding experience, during which we also fine-tuned our camera trap system, providing Jessi Venter (Conservation Officer) with invaluable insights (as demonstrated in the pictures) and capturing the magnificent specimens in the valley. Our fifth visit welcomed students from The Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS), where international honours students engaged in multiple activities within the conservancy. These activities included monitoring the restoration site near the office to track species regrowth and timing processes within the nursery itself. It was quite an experience for our GVB staff members, and we have learned a lot from this visit! And finally, our last visit was from IKI GRANT themselves. Their visit allowed us to present and showcase our project's progress, achievements, and upcoming goals. We extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has visited the GVB valley; it's always a pleasure to host you here!
As we find ourselves well into the swing of 2024, its time to provide an update on the exciting projects keeping us busy. One of our key focuses has been Environmental Education, aimed at fostering a love for nature and a sense of responsibility for our environment among young minds. Here's a glimpse into what we've been up to. Over the past few months, we've had the pleasure of visiting three schools where we reached over 200 children: De Waaville Primary School, Mullersrus Primary School, and Vondeling Primary School. These visits weren't just routine outings; they were immersive experiences where students got hands-on with conservation efforts.  Our environmental education program isn't just an add-on; it's integrated into the Grade 7 Natural Science curriculum. By taking learning outside the classroom, we provide students with practical insights into the importance of preserving natural habitats. From removing invasive species to planting indigenous flora, every activity is designed to instill a sense of stewardship towards our environment.  Beyond teaching theoretical concepts, we emphasised actionable steps that students can take to make a difference. Whether it's river monitoring or simple acts like picking up litter, we empower young minds to become active participants in conservation efforts. After all, small actions can lead to big changes. During these visits, we don't just educate; we also collect valuable data. Mini SASS results gathered from the field are fed into the database, contributing to broader efforts to understand the state of our rivers.  None of this would be possible without the support of our funder #Landcare from the Department of Agriculture who are committed to these projects. We are also grateful to the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve, who assisted with womanpower(!) on the day. We also very grateful to Michelle and Keith Moodie who supplied an amazing packed lunch for 200 children (that's a lot of sandwiches to make!) To the schools that welcomed us with open arms, we extend our heartfelt gratitude. Your enthusiasm fuels our passion for environmental education. As we move forward, we're excited about the prospect of expanding our reach and touching the lives of even more young learners. After all, our motto remains steadfast: "If we can teach another person at least one new thing, then we have done our job."  As we reflect on the busy start to this new year, our commitment to environmental education continues. With each school visit, we sow the seeds of conservation, nurturing a generation of eco-conscious citizens. Thank you to everyone who has supported our endeavours, and here's to many more initiatives. Together, we can make a difference—one student at a time.
Over the last 6 months, the Grootvadersbosch Conservancy Team has been involved in a series of environmental education days that are important to create future environmental leaders. These programmes include educational nature walks where we focus on explaining how unique our environment is, our different vegetation types (fynbos, forest and thicket pockets) and why we need to protect our rivers. On these walks we also talk about why we do alien clearing, how we do it and why it is necessary to remove alien, invasive species. We also focus on the protections of our river systems. We teach children about our unique Barrydale Redfin, which is a critically endangered species only found in the Huis River System. We monitor our river systems by implemented SASS and we share this experience by doing a mini-SASS. This activity lets them experience and observe all the tiny micro-invertebrates up-close and see both the invasive and indigenous fish species in our river systems. The schools that we have done environmental education days with this year include:
At the end of these events our team always appreciates how import and difficult a task it is to be a teacher. We really love these days and know how important they are for our collective futures. We are excited to be doing more of them… but we are also very glad that its not all we do because its hard work!
We salute the teachers out there and hope that you have a lovely Christmas Break! GASPP stands for Grootvadersbosch Aquatic Species Project and is a project that supports long-term monitoring of data (such as river flow, fish sampling, water quality, SASS) of the Grootvadersbosch rivers, which include the Tradouw and other smaller tributaries, Grootvadersbosch rivers, and Buffeljags River. We've been working on this project for three years, and we're grateful to our funder, Table Mountain Fund for supporting this work. CapeNature has also been an important partner as they have offered important assistance through input from aquatic scientists Dr Martine Jordaan and Jeanne Gouws. They have both been very willing to help us with monitoring and training. Freshwater river systems have a high level of biodiversity, and our river systems are truly unique. The Cape Fold Mountains Region (CFR) has clear cool temperate acid water streams in general, and some of our freshwater fish and other residents are highly endemic and distinct. The conservancy is monitoring sites, connected to the Tradouw river and other smaller tributaries, Grootvadersbosch river and Buffeljags river. One of the key goals of the project was to build capacity for long term monitoring. This has been a resounding success as all four of our staff who undertook training for SASS are now accredited. The South African Scoring System (SASS) is a rapid bioassessment technique based on one component of riverine biotas, the benthic macroinvertebrates. Each taxon is assigned a tolerance/sensitivity score, which are summed to provide a Total Score. This allows us to measure the health of our rivers. Well done to Aileen Anderson, Goliath Highburg, Ricardo Januarie and Zaniel April who completed the training and are now SASS accredited. Click here to Read the SASS training blog that we did at sass-5-training.html Read our previous blog about the adventures we had last year with this entire project at busy-times-fun-times-with-gaspp-week.html .  Goliath during one of our GASPP weeks. Picture by Jacques Marais. Human activity has altered our natural environments. In our Valley and surrounding areas, we have committed ourselves to protect endangered wildlife that we cherish. Other factors such as climate change, population growth, alien invasive species, and water abstraction have all had a negative impact on our river systems and the species in them. We are doing all we can to work with partners, as well as other conservation organizations such as CapeNature, to protect our resources and biodiversity. Environmental education is also one of the aspects of GASPP. We work with the communities of Suurbraak, Barrydale, Buffeljagsrivier, and Heidelberg to promote awarness. Donnovan Julius, a local artist, assisted in painting a series of murals in Barrydale at Net vir Pret, Mullersrus Primary School, Klein-pikkewyne preschool in Heidelberg, and at the Suurbraak camping site, involving many children in the community. These murals were painted to raise awareness of our freshwater fishes and to protect them, as well as to emphasise the importance of biodiversity and the harm that pollution causes to our beautiful environments. With such initiative, we hope that our local community will also take on the challenge of protecting and respecting their natural resources. We've done some other activities with the kids, such as miniSASS and talks about freshwater fish. read a blog that we covered on that at environmental-education.html.  A mural being done in Suurbraak Western Cape, by local artist Donovan Julius and the children in the community. SASS 5 SASS 5 provides a means to assess the quality of a river at a specific time. Some of our rivers are impacted by land use changes and abstraction but many are still in a very good condition. Many are home to very sensitive species. The sites in more natural environments house sensitive macroinvertebrates. We have also found many SWC endemic insect families that thrive in the naturally acidic and tannin-stained waters of our rivers. We are now planning to do regular SASS monitoring, especially in sites where we are planning to do alien clearing to see the impacts and to see if there is any change over time. We already have three years of data across over 30 sites so we have a very interesting picture of our river systems.  SASS practice before our accreditation. Freshwater fish Most indigenous fish have had their distribution ranges severely reduced over the years. The indigenous freshwater fish that we usually see in our rivers are mainly the Cape galaxias (Galaxias zebratus), Cape kurper (Sandelia capensis) and the Breede River redfin (Pseudobarbus burchelli). These are just the indigenous fish that we have encountered while doing our river monitoring.  One of the indigenous fish found in our river systems Cape kurper (Sandelia Capensis) Photo by Jacques Marais.  Galaxias zebratus (Galaxids) also one of our indigenous fish we find in our river systems. Photo by Jacques Marais. Habitat destruction and water abstraction are the most serious threats facing freshwater fish. However, alien invasive plant and invasive animal species are also a serious problem for our freshwater habitats. Alien fish invasion is a massive threat that is difficult to reverse. The invasive fish that we see in our rivers systems include the Banded tilapia (Tilapia sparmanni), The Sharptooth catfish (Clarias gariepinus). We also see the Bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus Rafinesque) as well as our Longfin eel (Anguilla mossambica) these are the invasive fish that we have encountered while doing monitoring at our sites.  Clarias gariepinus (Catfish) is one of the alien fish found at Grootvadersbosch Freshwater scientists from SAIAB (South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity) visited us in April this year, to do a talk in the community of Barrydale to discuss what is found in our rivers as well as the importance of safeguarding the Breede river redfin. We also enjoyed the opportunity to do monitoring with these leading freshwater scientists. We had a wonderful time and it was such an intriguing conversation. We are continuing with our monitoring to better understand the distribution of fish in our systems and the main impacts that they face.  One of our many beautifull sampling sites. FBIS (Freshwater Biodiversity Information system) Reliable information is needed for the management of our freshwater systems. At the conservancy we have adopted FBIS (Freshwater Biodiversity Information System) which we were introduced to by Helen Dallas from the freshwater research centre. FBIS is used to host, visualize, and share freshwater biodiversity for South African Rivers. We have integrated the data we previously collected, such as SASS and freshwater fish data, into FBIS in order to generate graphs, compare, and evaluate the quality of our rivers. It is a very helpful database. We greatly appreciate the assistance from Helen Dallas in using FBIS.  The map on FBIS that is used to select sites that data can be added ( https://freshwaterbiodiversity.org/map/ ) FBIS provides a dashboard that indicates when SASS is complete and includes graphs that demonstrate how the water quality has changed over time. With the fish data there are also graphs which shows the fish that we found throughout the years.
We did not know much about FBIS until Helen showed us where we can store our data and share it on one platform. We found it quite challenging to get used to the platform and to combine all the data from three years of monitoring into one platform. However, we are very pleased that we have been able to integrate all the data so that we know we have one integrated platform to share and analyse data. References Dallas, H. and Rivers-Moore, N., 2022. A protocol and tools for setting environmental water temperature guidelines for perennial rivers in South Africa. African Journal of Aquatic Science, pp.1-16. Ellender, B.R., Wasserman, R.J., Chakona, A., Skelton, P.H. and Weyl, O.L., 2017. A review of the biology and status of Cape Fold Ecoregion freshwater fishes. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 27(4), pp.867-879. Skelton, P.H., 1993. A complete guide to the freshwater fishes of southern Africa. Mural in Barrydale In March, we arranged for Donovan Julius (local Suurbraak artist) to paint a mural at the office of Net vir Pret (an after care centre in Barrydale). We had such a warm welcome from the entire team at Net vir Pret, and they did their best to provide any equipment Donovan needed. The mural project was sponsored by the Table Mountain Fund and the Western Cape Department of Arts and Culture, in collaboration with the Silver Mountain Foundation. When we arrived, we met with Peter Takelo, the Director of Net vir Pret, who is a fascinating man. He always has a lot of stories to tell. We literally hung on to his every word as he displayed the medals that he has received for his community service. He suggested putting a song on the mural and asked Donovan to incorporate the story of where the people came from. He also mentioned the redfin fish and how unique it is in the area. Peter appreciated the interaction and thanked us, and he kept us going throughout the day with stories about the Khoisan. Donovan and team went back the following day to finish the mural. Mural in Suurbraak A second mural project was also completed in Suurbraak. Donovan Julius completed the masterpiece in Suurbraak near the river at the campsite. He used the mural to emphasise the importance of our responsibility to care for our river systems and their inhabitants. He drew our Tradouw redfin, which we must protect, and the catfish, which is an alien invasive species that we do not want in our river systems. Another mural was later painted that highlighted pollution and raised awareness about the harm it causes. What an incredible piece. Mural in Buffeljagsrivier Donovan and his assistant Duran went on to create a mural for Mullersrus Primary School. The drive to raise awareness about environmental protection continued, and he painted a beautiful mural at the school depicting environmental protection. Mural in Heidelberg The next exciting mural is at Kleine Pikkewyne-preschool in Heidelberg. Again, we can only say that Donovan and his assistant, Duran, have outdone themselves. We are confident that the preschool children will enjoy their new mural. While doing these murals, it is truly amazing to interact with the children and the members of various local communities. It's a blessing to be able to be part of projects that combine art and nature. Thank you so much to our funders for making this project possible.
The mural project was sponsored by the Table Mountain Fund and the Western Cape Department of Arts and Culture, in collaboration with the Silver Mountain Foundation. Mullersrus Primary School We value our relationship with the local school in Buffeljags. Every time we go there to interact with the children, we get a warm and welcoming vibe. We recently visited the school and interacted with approximately 70 students in grades 5 and 6. We were debating what to do with the kids, but we decided to incorporate rivers and freshwater systems, as well as art. As usual, we called on Donovan Julius to help us with the art and coordinate the children's drawings. Ricardo, our project manager, and a talented musician, brought the marimbas with him to teach the students a few notes. The night before, we had dropped some fish nets in the Buffeljags River. We went to the river in the morning to see what we could find and discovered some beautiful freshwater shrimp, as well as some small catfish (aliens), and tilapia (alien). We took the fish to the school grounds for a short time to show the children to see what was found in the river. They were ecstatic to see the fish. The students were divided into two groups and rotated so that each group experienced art, music and science (SASS). For the art project, the students created drawings that depicted nature and its protection. The drawings turned out beautifully, and the groups were very proud of their work. They displayed it for photographs to be taken. The marimbas were also well received and sounded beautiful. To educate the children about ecology, Twakkie spoke to the groups of students about the fish found in the area, with a focus on the redfin fish. Twakkie showed them a picture of a redfin fish from his book and told them to keep an eye out for it and to protect it. We later played games with the children and spoke about macroinvertebrates as a follow-up to the miniSASS assessment that we had previously completed. In our discussions, we told the students about four groups of macroinvertebrates, two of which are very tolerant of pollution (worms and leaches) and two of which are more sensitive (stoneflies and mayflies). The group had to pick one group and discuss the importance of keeping the river clean. Following the discussion, each group gave us a presentation on how to keep the river clean and to protect the macro invertebrates. The children enjoyed it and learnt a lot. After all that was said and done, the visit went so well and the students got a special treat at the end. We also had help from a volunteer, Tayla, who had joined us for the day and was a great help. Thank you so much. Thank you also to our funder, the Table Mountain fund. MiniSASS in Barrydale As a follow up from the Mural Project, we planned a miniSASS assessment with the community kids from Net vir Pret After Care Centre. Peter Takelo granted us permission during the April school holidays and assisted us in organizing the miniSASS and logistics. In Barrydale, we met with Peter Takelo at the BF Oosthuizen Primary School, where Net vir Pret puts together a school holiday program. We went down to the river with 26 kids and their supervisors for the miniSASS assessment. We demonstrated the sampling techniques to the students, and they had the opportunity to examine the various macroinvertebrates that we found. We divided the students into two groups and later moved around to see what was collected in each sample. We managed to pick up a small critically endangered Tradouw redfin in the SASS net which was very special, and we carefully returned it safely to the river. We had to calculate the river's score after all the excitement of identifying the samples. They were very interested in learning what the Huis river's score was. We counted along with them and came to a score of 5.2 in a sandy stream, indicating that the river was moderately modified. We went on to explain what they needed to do to safeguard the river system and we also all helped to pick up the litter that we could see in the river.
It was another successful environmental education outing, and we hope that the children learnt a lot GASPP (Grootvadersbosch Aquatic Species Protection Project) is a one-week survey, focusing on freshwater fish and macro invertebrate monitoring. During this week, our team works works with Cape Nature to better understand our river systems. It is also a fun week where we socialize with leading freshwater scientists.  One of the GASPP sites that was being monitored. Fresh water is crucial for most life on earth. According to Vorosmarty.et al (2005) the current water withdrawal per year globally is approximately 3 600 cubic kilometres. Four out of every five people who live downstream of rivers are supplied by renewable freshwater services (Vorosmarty.,et al 2005).  Another GASPP site the team did fish monitoring. The GASPP project started in 2017 and is funded by the Table Mountain Fund. During the week survey, SASS (South African scoring system) is conducted on numerous river sites. In addition, nets are placed to record freshwater fish. We use the time to obtain useful Information on fish and macro invertebrates and explore several river sites in the conservancy. SASS (South African scoring system) SASS is used as a method to determine the health of the river by assessing the biota (Dickens and Graham, 2002). Macroinvertebrates are the basis for doing this. The SASS is completed by Jeanne Gouws who is a Cape Nature freshwater ecologist. She visited several sites per day to do SASS. During the SASS survey, nets are placed strategically along rivers to capture macro invertebrates and note them down. Once captured, they are identified and noted on a scoring sheet. In terms of health and safety regulations, Jeanne always wears waders when going into the river and avoids water that is flowing too quickly. SASS is based on the fact that macro invertebrates have different sensitivities to different levels of pollution. Some species are more sensitive than others. We also looked at the habitat availability of the macroinvertebrates.The more diversity in species you find, the higher the SASS score for that site. The more sub species of the same species you find, the higher the SASS score. For example, if you note more than one mayfly species, such as brushlegged mayflies as well as small minnow mayflies, the score will go up. Jeanne collects samples from different habitats: including rocks or boulders, gravel, vegetation and sand. She samples for set time intervals. “You collect for a set time so that when someone else comes to the same site on the same day, they could easily compare the data as the same periods were used.” explained Jeanne. We noted a range of different macro invertebrates, including worms, stoneflies, damselflies, caddisflies (cased and caseless), dragonflies, mayflies, bugs and beetles, snails, crabs, and other larvae. What amazing diversity! We also measured water quality. The velocity of the of the different streams was measured with a tool called the transparent Velocity Head Rod (TVHR) (WCR,2016). This tool is a transparent plastic board with a measuring ruler to estimate the flow velocity of the stream. Measurements of the width and dept of a particular stream needs to be measured and data can be used in a spreadsheet to calculate the area, discharge and velocity of the river. The pH of the water was also important as well as other aspect and questions such as:
Freshwater fish The two GVB Conservancy teams, with support from Cape Nature, placed nets in set sites in the rivers to note the presence and absence of freshwater fish. Alien fish are the primary threat to indigenous fish. In some river systems, they can have an economic value in terms of angling and aquaculture, but the management thereof is important (Jordaan and Skelton,2001). Without correct management of the Alien fish, the fish might escape from these farms and take over other river systems. Alien fish invasions can cause harm and contribute to indigenous freshwater fish becoming endangered. Alien fish that we found included catfish and blue gill that usually feed on invertebrates and small fish. We found lots of tilapia in the river, especially in the upper Tradouw River. It is possible to control the spread of alien invasive species. We as the public can prevent the spread of Invasive fish species by familiarise ourselves with the relevant legislation and not releasing fish into the rivers and not stocking or transporting fish without a permit (Jordaan and Skelton.,2001). The indigenous freshwater fish that were found included the Cape galaxia, which is a smaller fish. Its adult size is a maximum length of 75mm total length average length (Jordaan and Skelton, 2001). The Cape galaxia is usually widespread in the Cape floristic region and we found quite a lot in the river sites around the conservancy. We also found the Breede River redfin that usually grows up to 135mm in standard length (Jordaan and Skelton, 2001) and prefers rocky pools and is near threatened. The Tradouw redfin or Barrydale redfin is a redfin species that has an extremely small natural distribution range and is only found in the Tradouw river system and is critically endangered. Threats to the redfin fish include loss of habitat as well as predation by exotic fish. The Cape kurper was also found in some sites. The Cape kurper is another fish that can survive in a large variety of habitats. Eels are indigenous predators to redfin fish and the challenge is that they if they are trapped in the nets with the redfin fish, they will predate on the redfin. In order to avoid this, eel fences were placed in the nets which stops them getting into the nets and feeding on the fish. Eels are also fascinating creatures and they give an indication of a healthy, connected system as they show that the river is free flowing as eels breed in the ocean and move upstream. Other small challenges we had was that some sites were tricky to get too and require longer walks, especially the Tradouw river sites. Environmental education. The GASPP team visited Mullersrus primary school in Buffelsjags. Biodiversity was the topic and Dr Jordaan spoke to the class about pollution and protecting our rivers. She discussed how to take care of our rivers and why it is important to do so. She spoke specifically about freshwater fish. The class listened attentively and interacted nicely. After the talk, they were given an art assignment by Donovan Julius, a local Suurbraak artist. Donovan asked them to put their thinking down on paper or in art form. They later showed off their beautiful posters and ideas for the camera. They complied strictly to COVID 19 regulations and received sweets for good behaviour. Klein Pikkewyne preschool also visited the conservancy with little toddlers of four and five years old. They were 38 little ones. Ricardo Januarie spoke to them about fish and forests. Donovan was there and hands on with art and they had to draw and make posters in groups. They got the chance to see fish and then took a short hike through the forest patch near our office and came back for lovely juice and a sweet. As a conservation student, GASPP was a very fruitful and enlightening experience. I have new respect for conservation. It is not simple at all and there are so many aspects to consider. We had long days in the field and visited the most beautiful river sites, waterfalls, and weirs. I appreciated the experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed the interesting people.  Grootvadersbosch Conservancy staff busy with fish monitoring. References
Dickens, C.W. and Graham, P.M., 2002. The South African Scoring System (SASS) version 5 rapid bioassessment method for rivers. African Journal of Aquatic Science, 27(1), pp.1-10. Freshwater fishes of the Cape floristic region (Martine Jordaan and Paul Skelton.Cape Nature).,2001. Matthews, S., 2018. Suite of tools help citizens take control of freshwater management. Water Wheel, 17(5), pp.24-27. Temple, J.L. (2004). The Musk Shrew (Suncus murinus), A Model Species for Studies of Nutritional Regulation of reproduction The Transparent Velocity Head Rod., WRC (Water Research Commission project 2016 No: K5\2350 Vörösmarty, C.J., Léveque, C., Revenga, C., Bos, R., Caudill, C., Chilton, J., Douglas, E.M., Meybeck, M., Prager, D., Balvanera, P. and Barker, S., 2005. Fresh water. Millennium ecosystem assessment, 1, pp.165-207. |
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