617 hectares of breathing room: restoring the Waterberg so grass, water and wildlife can return

In South Africa's Waterberg Biosphere Reserve in Limpopo — a landscape of about 662,059 hectares recognised by UNESCO since 2001 — thick bush has been swallowing the open grazing land that people and wildlife depend on, holding less water in the soil as it spreads. A restoration programme backed by UNESCO, UNDP and South Africa's environment department is now taking on 617 hectares of that degraded land, with bush clearing, firebreaks and ponding — shallow basins that slow rain down and let it soak in. The cleared biomass is not waste: it is being explored for biochar, compost, charcoal and fuelwood. The work sits inside ReLISA, a four-year effort to restore landscapes across South Africa, and 18 people — mainly young people and women — will be trained in restoration work as the next phase begins at Moepel Farms, Moepel communal land and Masebe Nature Reserve. Some 11,156 hectares of former grazing land in the wider Waterberg have been identified as bush-encroached, so 617 hectares is a start, not a finish — a first stretch of land given back its grass and its water.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program