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Good practice Imported

Working for Wetlands (South Africa)

South Africa · Pretoria · See the South Africa profile · See the Pretoria profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 47% 47/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

South Africa's national public works programme paying community workers to rehabilitate degraded wetlands through invasive alien plant removal, bio-engineering and re-vegetation; 1,300+ wetlands treated since 2002, 22,500 ha and 12,513 jobs created in five years.

1,300+ wetlands
Wetlands rehabilitated since inception (2002–present)
22,500 ha
Area restored (most recent five-year period)
12,513 jobs
Jobs created (most recent five-year period)
12,000+ ha
Plantation area removed from wetland buffer zones (since 1998)
725 ZAR million
Cumulative investment (since 2004)
Working for Wetlands (South Africa)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE)
Period
2002–present
Keywords
government, wetlands, public works, invasive species, restoration, employment

Context

Working for Wetlands (WoW) is South Africa's national wetland rehabilitation programme, established in 2002 under the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). It is a joint initiative of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), the Department of Water and Sanitation, and the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development.

Objectives

The programme rehabilitates degraded wetlands while creating jobs for community workers, prioritising women, youth and people with disabilities, and improving the hydrological health of wetland catchments.

Activities

Community workers carry out invasive alien plant removal, bio-engineering, re-vegetation and erosion control. Commercial timber plantations have been removed from wetland buffer zones since 1998 to improve catchment hydrology.

Results

Since inception, more than 1,300 wetlands across all provinces have been rehabilitated. Over the most recent five-year period, 634 wetlands covering approximately 22,500 hectares were restored and 12,513 full-time and part-time jobs were created. More than 12,000 hectares of commercial timber plantations have been removed from wetland buffer zones since 1998, and over R725 million has been invested since formal inception in 2004.

Conclusions

Working for Wetlands is distinct from the related Working for Water programme (which targets upland catchments for water yield rather than wetland rehabilitation). It reports annually to the Department of Public Works under EPWP norms; no programme-wide biodiversity or carbon metric has been independently published.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M) — Over R725 million invested since formal inception in 2004, funded through the Expanded Public Works Programme budget.
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Running continuously since 2002; individual wetland rehabilitation projects are multi-year.
Staffing & skills
community workers (prioritising women, youth and people with disabilities), technical/bio-engineering specialists, DFFE / EPWP programme management

Conditions for success

  • sustained EPWP public funding
  • partnerships between landowners, communities, civil society and the private sector
  • technical expertise for wetland rehabilitation design

Common failure modes

  • dependence on continued government public-works budget
  • no programme-wide biodiversity or carbon metric published, limiting outcome verification

Where it fits

Governance type
national multi-department public works programme
Scale
national
Income level
upper-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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