What to do about this was the focus on 2 July of the Extreme Weather Reflection Summit, convened by the Garden Route Environmental Forum (GREF) in partnership with Nelson Mandela University, hosted on the University’s George Campus.
Mid-May 2026 Olifantsrivier flooding over the Rooiheuwel Road near Oudtshoorn (Photograph Herman Pieters)
“The severe flooding across the Garden Route and large parts of South Africa in mid-May this year was not a once-off; we have to accept the climate is in a period of change, and extreme weather events are the new normal,” said Cobus Meiring, Programme Director for GREF – a climate change think tank and platform for engagement on environmental issues facing the region.
The Summit brought together government departments, disaster management officials, academics, environmental specialists, researchers, business leaders, civil society organisations and community representatives.
They discussed lessons learned and how to strengthen collaborative approaches to disaster preparedness, climate adaptation and resilience, focusing on the Garden Route but relevant countrywide.
“We have to be on the cutting edge of what science tells us, and to prioritise environmental management as a key socio-economic initiative with concerted collaboration between the government, private sector and civil society,” Meiring emphasised.
“Without question we have to focus efforts on the conservation of our water sources, including our rivers, wetlands and estuaries. In a healthy state they provide critical ecosystem services, including streamflow regulation during both drought and flood events.”
Meiring said: “We have to protect the 40% remaining wetlands, and we have to do what we can to clear our river courses of alien vegetation, and restore indigenous vegetation which stabilises the topsoil and, like wetlands, serves as a water sponge and slows down the water flow.”
He explained that 60% of the wetlands along the Garden Route have been destroyed through development and agriculture, and most of the river catchments are choked with alien invasive trees and vegetation, including wattle, pine, eucalypts and lantana.
Knysna fire 2017
In addition to absorbing substantial amounts of water, the alien invasives destabilise the topsoil which washes away during floods, as do the invasives causing major damage to bridges and other infrastructure downstream, and rerouting river courses.
Alien invasive trees are also highly flammable, burning with intensity and escalating wildfires.
Operational approaches need to change. Road engineers, for example, need to build roads with ecosystem conservation and flooding in mind, including optimal drainage systems.
Regular removal of vegetation and refuse from culverts, stormwater drains and underneath the bridges is imperative. When they are blocked, the water has nowhere to go but to flood and destroy bridges, roads and other infrastructure.
Professor Josua Louw
“Training students from all faculties, including engineering, science and business to name a few - to be knowledgeable about natural resource management and socio-ecological systems has become essential, and needs to be part of a transdisciplinary approach to the curriculum at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels,” said Prof Josua Louw, Director of the School of Natural Resource Science and Management at Nelson Mandela University’s George Campus.
“The global green economy is growing by an average of 8%. Highly sought after skills include those in sustainability science, renewable energy, ecology and natural resource management to address increasingly complex challenges, and appropriate solutions need to be developed.”
With this in mind, Nelson Mandela University initiated a multi-national project that was launched in January this year, aimed at reshaping how universities prepare students across faculties to tackle complex socio-ecological and environmental challenges.
Titled ‘Future21: Multidisciplinary Socio-Ecological Education in South Africa for Sustainability’, it is housed within the Natural Resource Science and Management Cluster on the George Campus, and brings together seven institutions from South Africa, Finland and Norway.
“Like this summit, it contributes to multi-sectoral collaboration between academia, industry, society, government and policy makers, towards achieving unity in our understanding and approach to addressing the environmental damage and associated challenges we are facing locally and globally on planet Earth,” said Louw.
He added that people are aware of climate change and the increasing regularity of extreme weather events but there is “a behavioural gap in people’s response to contributing to a more sustainable socio-ecological system. We have to get all sectors working together for change.”
Regrettably, one of the key multi-sectoral, extended public works initiatives, ‘Working for Water’, is no longer operating in the Garden Route to clear alien invasive vegetation from the catchments.
The responsibility falls on municipalities, the private sector, conservation organisations, NGOs and parastatals. Eskom, for example, needs to clear invasive trees that are too close to power lines.
Communication is key during disasters and the cellphone companies need to assess where they put their towers and make sure they clear the area of alien invasive vegetation. Alien invasive trees are a major fuel load during a fire event.
Municipalities need to make sure there is a large enough buffer zone around towns and settlements as wildfires in the Garden Route are a regular occurrence. The appropriate management of vegetation can provide permanent solutions to the increasing fire hazard, and reduce huge costs incurred both during and after extreme events.
Cobus Meiring in the Garden Route's Karatera River area where there are still critically endangered redfin fish
The Garden Route is blessed with a very active citizenry, with many conservancies, NGO’s, volunteers and private landowners taking it upon themselves to clear alien invasives with the intention to restore ecosystem services.
One example is the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve extending over 3.2 million hectares. The extension officer of the reserve, Dr Wilhelm de Beer, explained: “It was declared a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) biosphere reserve in 2015 but we don’t receive funding from them. We are an NGO and we raise funds through donors. This biosphere includes 3 global biodiversity hotspots, 5000+ indigenous plant species and 670 endemic species.”
“Conservancies, citizens and volunteers play a vital role in managing the landscape, and assisting during disasters,” added Meiring. “We would like to see this increase with civil society playing an ever more important role.” Most are active participants in the GREF.
Delegates at the summit spoke about a disaster management volunteer corps that would be trained to assist local government disaster management teams. The summit also spoke about the need for municipalities to accept a leadership role in environmental management.
The siloed approach to environmental and disaster management that persists between government departments is a problem as cross-sectoral collaboration is essential.
A coordinated alien invasive management plan is essential, and innovative public-private partnerships need to be earnestly investigated.
Dr Ongama Mtimka and Cobus Meiring
“Addressing this starts with human relationships, bringing people together such as at this summit to foster collaborations,” says Dr Ongama Mtimka, the Acting Director of the Raymond Mhlaba Centre for Governance and Leadership at Nelson Mandela University which runs a disaster management course aimed at capacitating government with the requisite skills.
“Failures are not simply capacity gaps but siloed approaches and responses to nonlinear systems.” The environment is the consummate non-linear complex system and interrelatedness between state departments, local government and agencies is critical. “If the state is absent we are all at risk.”
Mtimka added: “There is an imperative to act even when it is not written in the rules or specified whose obligation it is. During the June 2017 runaway fire on the Garden Route, for example, there was a jurisdiction dispute as to what the disaster management law stipulated and which district was responsible for fighting the fire. Between Knysna & Plettenberg Bay, 16,000ha were burnt, with an associated R7bn+ of insured losses
“During emergency situations and disasters response does not follow a fixed sequence of rules,” said Mtimka. “Strong human relations and collaboration between the public and private sector step in and act when rules cannot. Such is the importance of this summit and getting to know each other and adopting best operational practice, legislation and environmental stewardship.”