South Africa's deep-rooted problem: unwelcome trees

Jerry Chabalala spends his days, machete in hand, felling many of the trees and shrubs that spot this high, dry plateau in South Africa's heartland.

No lumberjack, Mr. Chabalala is a foot soldier in a 22,000-strong army of poor, uneducated, and unemployed South Africans hired by the government to wage war on the foreign plants choking off the landscape here and threatening South Africa's natural ecosystem.

In a land of water scarcity and unparalleled plant diversity, foreign plants are particularly devastating here. A single alien tree can guzzle up to 13 gallons of water a day. With forests of eucalyptus and poplar taking over the landscape, the invasive plants are already siphoning off an estimated 7 percent of South Africa's limited water supply.

This eradication program - modeled after the United States' depression-era Works Progress Administration - has Chabalala and his comrades combing the entire country - an area roughly three times the size of California - searching for, and removing, invasive alien plants. The goal: to reduce the number of water-guzzling transplants ill-suited for South Africa's dry climate, conserve water, and create jobs. So far, more than 3 million acres have been freed of foreign invaders.

Invasive species are not unique to South Africa. Kudzu is marching across the US, and China's roads are lined with towering eucalyptus trees. But the extent to which the government here is willing to go sets it apart.

"South Africa is quite at the leading edge of plant and water conservation," says John Briscoe, a senior water adviser in the World Bank and a native South African. "Nothing like this is going on elsewhere. No one else is scouring the landscape, pulling invasive species."

Despite this country's poverty, crime, and AIDS problems, South Africa is considered one of the world's leaders in preservation causes. It boasts some of the strictest poaching laws in Africa. It has one of the most developed national-park programs on the continent. It has gone further than many developed countries in protecting its environment; for example, it's in the process of outlawing the single-use plastic bags used at supermarkets and driving on beaches.

The government acknowledges that the Herculean task of completely eliminating alien plants is impossible. Nevertheless, it intends to root out as much as possible of the wild tobacco in the Northern Cape's riverbeds, the water hyacinth clogging the Western Cape's rivers, and the Monterrey pines claiming South Africa's tallest peaks.

"The plants are here to stay," says Guy Preston, the project's manager. "But we have to get it to a level of control. We know this battle will go on forever."

Nowhere is that more obvious than in South Africa's capital city, Pretoria, also known as the "Jacaranda City." Thousands of jacaranda trees, far from their native Brazil, turn this city a brilliant purple each October.

Acknowledging the tree's popularity with locals, the government has announced that it will not remove the trees, but has banned the planting of new jacarandas.

Meanwhile, some 200 other less fortunate and less popular foreign plants are getting the ax.

Water scarcity has been taxing on the farmers, forcing them to go to extraordinary measures to keep their fields irrigated. Poor villagers increasingly have to travel far from home for water.

"My father told me that our village used to have a stream that people used to irrigate and to drink," Chabalala said while resting in the shade of a Syringa tree, a native of Asia now found throughout South Africa's grasslands. "But now there is no stream at all." Chabalala aims to bring the stream back.

That's not an unrealistic goal, environmentalists say.

"There is evidence that the program is working," says Geoff Lockwood, the manager of Delta Environmental Center, a private environmental-education company in South Africa. "There is increased water flow in streams and rivers."

The cost of the plant-eradication program has been minimal. Chabalala and the other workers are paid 30 rand a day (about $3.75). It's not much - but in a country where 1 in 3 adults is unemployed, it makes Chabalala grateful.

"Before this, I was just sitting at home, just looking at my garden," said Chabalala. "There are no jobs."

The program has done more than keep him busy. It has turned this green thumb into an avid environmentalist. The high-school graduate now spends his days off felling invasive species near his village. He squirrels away $25 of his earnings each month for college tuition.

"I want to study more about the environment," said Chabalala. "My aim is to save South Africa's water."