UCT Sustainability and the SDGs 2022 - Report - Page 41
Wildfires: Anticipating a global
increase of extreme fires
Wildfires disproportionately affect the world’s poorest nations,
increasing social inequality. Impacts persist long after the
flames subside, impeding progress towards the SDGs due
to effects on health, loss of infrastructure, degradation of
watersheds and soil erosion.
Researchers in UCT’s Plant Conservation Unit, part of
the Faculty of Science, contributed significantly to a
report released in 2022 by the United Nations Environment
Programme: Spreading like Wildfire – The Rising Threat of
Extraordinary Landscape Fires. The report finds an elevated risk
of wildfires and calls on governments to adopt a new ‘Fire Ready
Formula’. To prevent wildfires, authors call for a combination of data
and science-based monitoring systems with indigenous knowledge and
for stronger regional and international cooperation.
The contribution of the UCT team included work on the social and ecological
fire dynamics in the African savannas. The research drew on past and
present fire-management practices and perceptions of the Khwe (former
hunter-gatherers) and Mbukushu (agropastoralists) communities as well as
government and non-government stakeholders in combination with satellite
data in Bwabwata National Park in north-east Namibia.
Rediscovering plant species believed
to be extinct
A UCT master’s student rediscovered the longleaf fountain bush
(Psoralea filifolia) in March 2022 on a walk in the Kirstenhof
wetland in Cape Town. This plant was thought to be locally
extinct. The last time the species was recorded in the region
was in the 1830s.
This discovery had important implications for local biodiversity
protection as it raised awareness of the risks of wholesale
vegetation clearing which was ongoing in the area.
Left page & Right: Cameras
on campus installed as part
of the Khusela Ikamva project
have revealed the presence
of caracals, porcupines and
Cape grysbok among others.
Sustainability and the SDGs 2022 – 41
