Kloof Conservancy partners with local schools

THE Kloof Conservancy summer testing of the Molweni Catchment took place recently with four local high schools participating. This is a project aimed at creating awareness about the importance of rivers at schools and in the broader community.

This year, the participating schools were: Hillcrest High, Curro Hillcrest, Tholulwazi Secondary School and Kloof High.

The project uses the miniSASS system. Explaining how it works, Paolo Candotti of the Kloof Conservancy, said, “In essence, the learners go to a designated point in the river catchment and follow a set procedure to catch all the invertebrates that they can find using a net. They then identify the bugs, and each type of bug has a ‘score’.

Also read: Nature lovers donate trees to Embo home

“So, for example, a Bloodworm gets a very low score because it can live in very polluted water. A Mayfly will score very high because it will only survive in very clean water. They complete a score sheet showing what bugs they find which gives a score for the health of the river,” he explained.

Teams from each school go onto sites in the catchment and use the miniSASS system to get an indication of the health of the river at each site. After the testing was completed, the teams then gathered at the Kloof Scout Hall to give feedback on what they had observed/recorded.

The project started in 2013, and in 2014, it was rewarded with the Mayor’s Award in the Biodiversity Category. “The results have been very useful to also record the problems we are currently experiencing in Hillcrest with sewage entering the Molweni from blockages in the sewer network. The project has also highlighted the importance of ‘green areas’ because our test results at our Point 6 – this is in Lower Molweni where the Molweni River exits Krantzkloof NR (Nature Reserve) – are always good, and this demonstrates the ‘cleaning power’ of a green area. The test results at Point 1 (Springside Nature Reserve in Hillcrest – the source of the Molweni) are usually very bad, but by the time the river has gone through Krantzkloof NR, it has improved,” said Candotti.

Also read: Show support for Kloof SPCA’s Adoption Day

Another important feature of the project is that each team is accompanied by a highly qualified water scientist provided for free by environmental consulting companies. The scientists explain the testing procedure to the learners and then help them to identify the bugs they catch and help them score the river correctly.

The Kloof Conservancy thanked the organisations that provided technical support by sending water scientists to accompany each team – the supporting organisations were: Groundtruth, eThekweni Municipality – Biodiversity Management Department, Community Insight Group, Skyside and SLR Consulting.

For more from the Highway Mail, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also check out our videos on our YouTube channel or follow us on TikTok.