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Afrikaanse Inligting
Global Warming: A Significant Threat
According to Ian Macdonald
of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the three biggest threats to our fauna and flora are, in
order of importance: human population numbers, alien plants and global warming.
An assessment of global warming has yielded frightening results. Unless we drastically bring down carbon emissions very soon, we may expect:
Succulent Karoo will disappear from its range and only survive in the Southern Cape. Fynbos will be confined to a small area in the Southern Cape Mountains. Nama Karoo will be displaced to the extreme east Northern Cape and Free State. There is no known vegetation type that will replace these – presumably a type of desert scrub will fill the gap. Similarly, patterns based on distribution ranges of species show similar results. Thus Pr repens will be confined to the Langeberg, Outeniqua and Agulhas areas.
The models yielding these results are quite simplistic. They do not adequately incorporate geology and soils into the models. However, atlassers have recently recorded deaths of mature proteas – something that no one seems to remember every happening before. These are presumably the result of the exceptionally dry and long summers over the past two years. Is this the start of global warming wiping out the Fynbos? Large areas of Fynbos have burned over the last two years as well. Assessing deaths in seedlings will be very difficult – it will be years before we notice them! And only because we have a good database – for proteas anyway.
Could it be premature to get too alarmed? We are at the peak of the sunspot cycle, during which the sun burns hotter than normal. Perhaps we should wait a year or two before we jump onto the bandwagon. But, if global warming is partly to blame for higher global temperatures and erratic weather patterns, delaying action may be critical. If climate over the next 5 years of the sunspot cycle cools down, then a concerted awareness campaign started now may be seen as scare-mongering and thwart any action. Conversely, given the seriousness of global warming, it may be worthwhile to ride the solar wave to highlight this major problem, and credit politicians if any cooling phase were to occur.
Please keep noting any unusual deaths in proteas on your SRS. If any of your favourite rare species have recently burned, keep an eye on them and note if there are any large declines in population. Remember not to trample in the area or pick any plants.
Tony Rebelo
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