The Kangnas Wind Farm, in the Northern Cape, has signed an ecological agreement with the Department of Agriculture, Environmental Affairs, Rural Development and Land Reform, to compensate for any biodiversity impact from the project.

The long-term agreement improves the viability of biodiversity and its associated habitats by creating an expansive protected area, which far exceeds the wind farm’s footprint, and delivers a range of benefits.

Kangnas plant manager Brenda Sidaki says these benefits are the conservation of a target environmental gradient, and a contribution to the ecological viability and increased ecosystem resilience of the existing Greater Goegap Nature Reserve.  

Additionally, the agreement allows for the provision of educational resources, the creation of indigenous and heritage values and an improved quality of life, health and wellbeing for the people of the area.

This protected area of Oranjefontein, which is managed as part of the Greater Goegap Nature Reserve and the Kaip and Inselberg properties, is about 5 000 ha in size and lies to the east of the nature reserve.

This area falls within the ecotone between the ‘Succulent’ and ‘Nama Karoo Biomes’, and encompasses the Namaqualand Klipkoppe Shrubland, Namaqualand Blomveld, Bushmanland Arid Grassland and Platbakkies Succulent Shrubland vegetation types.

The agreement between Kangnas and the department is aimed at achieving the requirements of minimising and remedying the loss of biological diversity occasioned by the wind farm and is underpinned by cooperation between the two parties, which ensures the implementation and execution of the biodiversity offset agreement and the ongoing protection and maintenance of the areas of land.

The specific focus of management activities is on the conversion of stock farm infrastructure and practices to a more natural ecosystem. 

This entails the removal of internal fencing and the camp system, as well as the upgrading of perimeter fencing to enable the incorporation of Oranjefontein in the Greater Goegap Nature Reserve. 

The activities will also upgrade the water provision systems; involve alien and invasive species management; rehabilitation and mitigation of all un-natural eroded areas; and the consolidation of the road network of the area to close and rehabilitate all unused, extraneous tracks.

ECONOMIC BENEFIT

This agreement has the added benefit of an economic development programme, which delivers positive value to the local community. Through the establishment of small, medium-sized and microenterprise development and capacity building, along with economic development initiatives, the programme is linked to real and viable business opportunities.

To this end, Kangnas appointed a local enterprise, JLK Business Consulting, to undertake ecological rehabilitation and protected area management activities, in the area.

The focus is on undertaking and managing activities that will relate but are not limited to ecological rehabilitation and protected area management.

JLK is responsible for implementing projects in relation to education, training and skills development of persons engaged in ecological rehabilitation and protected area management activities.

“From an economic development perspective, the objective is to achieve positive, meaningful and long-lasting socioeconomic and economic change in the beneficiary communities, and to implement projects based on sustainability and developmental merit, not on short-term benefits or appearances,” explains Sidaki.

The wind farm is committed to contributing towards the maintenance and operational costs of the Protected Areas, which effectively supports the conservation of the Provincial Goegap Nature Reserve through the appointment of a black-owned enterprise to drive the effective conservation and support the development of local enterprises.

The programme has already appointed 12 general workers and eight field rangers from the local beneficiary communities, fourteen of whom are male and six female.

“We are very proud that this collaborative programme delivers skills, training and employment, in addition to delivering funding with respect to operational and maintenance costs, whilst also ensuring the viability of the conservation efforts and contributing directly to local, regional and national economies through tourism,” Sidaki states.