Sappi and the World Wide Fund for Nature South Africa (WWF-SA) are working together to improve water security in the uMkhomazi catchment area, in KwaZulu-Natal.

Under a two-year water stewardship agreement, the two parties will engage local communities, civil organisations and regulatory authorities in dialogue and cooperation focused on water stewardship.

The multistakeholder engagement will provide a platform for open dialogue regarding water resources in the catchment area and will concentrate on four main focus areas to improve water security in uMkhomazi.

These include improved water governance through multistakeholder engagement; water-use efficiency; removal of alien invasive plants and wetland rehabilitation; and capacity development of local communities in natural resource management.

“With its significant manufacturing and forestry footprint in this catchment area, which forms part of the Southern Drakensberg Strategic Water Source Area in KwaZulu-Natal, it makes sense for Sappi to focus its collaborative efforts here, where its Saiccor Mill and 42 000 ha of its forestry land is situated,” the company says.

The catchment, which serves commercial farmers, subsistence farmers and domestic users in dispersed settlements across the area, is underdeveloped and faces extensive development changes and to meet the future needs of all users, sufficient water at an acceptable level of assurance and quality must be secured.

Sappi believes that this can only be achieved through multistakeholder collaboration across the landscape.

This collaborative approach is an extension of an innovative structure, known as the Integrated Community Forum, which Sappi introduced and uses to engage with adjacent communities.

“The growth in population and production leads to a greater demand for water. In South Africa, the availability of clean and safe water continues to decline, owing to the effects of climate change, the pollution of our freshwater bodies and inadequate management of water supplies,” says Sappi sustainability dissolving pulp GM Krelyne Andrew.

“The partnership responds to the Climate+ strategy of the Textile Exchange and their call to action to collectively improve the water footprint of the global textile industry. This partnership aims to not only improve access to water for all, both at a catchment and landscape level, but also to positively impact on the ecology and biodiversity in the area and ultimately to boost resilience to the impacts of the changing climate.”

With water use having grown at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century and with South Africa being a water-scarce country, WWF-SA focuses many of its portfolio of projects on securing South Africa’s strategic water source areas, be they projects on freshwater, protected areas, agriculture or climate change.

“These are the areas of the landscape that deliver over 50% of South Africa’s freshwater to downstream economies, while only making up 10% of the country’s land cover. Therefore, WWF-SA is working towards mobilising water stewardship partnerships throughout the country to bring together communities, corporations, government and nonprofit organisations to tackle the water challenges in these strategic water source areas,” WWF-SA says.

“It is only through collaborative partnerships with corporates such as Sappi, that are also large landowners, that we can begin to support a social change process for improved governance and management of our water resources at a landscape and catchment level such as in the uMkhomazi. This will ensure that in the future we will have some water, for everybody, forever,” says WWF-SA Sappi partnership manager David Lindley.