the GoodEater Collaborative

Author: Cathy Burton (3 Articles)

Cathy Burton is a member of the strategic development team at the Red Espresso tea company in South Africa. She manages the firm's corporate social responsibility initiatives. She spent five years developing many local and international beverage brands before joining the Red Espresso team in 2006, where she launched the brand across numerous international markets as Red Espresso’s Global Brand Manager. She resides in Cape Town.

Biodiversity, the natural balance of living things, the way Nature intended life to be. .  . Biodiversity can be compared to a beautiful, harmonious symphony, where all the musical notes from the strings, brass, percussion and wind instruments fall into place, complementing each other, working together to create a whole that is a delightful and pleasurable piece to listen to!

Just like music, all the elements of Nature are designed to complement each other and have mutually beneficial effects.  From the birds and the tiniest insects living underground, to the towering trees and the most lumbering of animals, Nature has created a musical symphony composed of millions of parts, each part playing a small but significant role in the harmony of the overall piece.

Sadly as a result of man’s relentless capitalistic pursuit, the music has been interrupted, and is not sounding as harmonious as it should.  Taking just one or a few elements out of the equation means that the natural system cannot function optimally the way it always has, leading to an unstable state of disequilibrium.  A move towards focusing on biodiversity at the source of a food product is a good way of bringing back the harmony.

A fragile biodiversity hotspot

In the Western Cape of South Africa, there is a unique and fragile floral kingdom – one of 6 in the world – which is called Fynbos (meaning “fine bush” in native Afrikaans language).

A Protea tree, part of the Fynbos found in the Cape Floral Kingdom

These plants have adapted over millennia to withstand the unique weather conditions that exist at the tip of Africa –including harsh, windy and dry summers; very wet, cold and icy winters — so much so that these plant species are so well adapted to this microclimate that they are not found anywhere else in the world.  Without a focus on biodiversity, this unique and beautiful ecosystem will most likely vanish in a few generations to come.

Industry certification

One of these Fynbos plants is Rooibos (meaning red bush in native Afrikaans).  Rooibos is used to make the Rooibos / red tea, and Red Espresso® (my company’s espresso-style beverage made from Rooibos tea), and is gaining popularity around the world for its taste and excellent benefits.  Rooibos grows only in the Cedarberg region of the Western Cape, about 400km north of Cape Town, and nowhere else.

A big drive in the Rooibos industry is towards biodiversity certification at source, as the impact of Rooibos farming on the fragile Fynbos, left unchecked, can be irreparably damaging to the area as a whole: not good for the long term future of the industry.

Part of the biodiversity criteria for attaining certification is to ensure open tracts of land in-between farms, where endemic fauna and flora of the area are allowed to flourish.

Biodiversity in action

Here’s a sweet – and unique – example of biodiversity in action from this part of the world!

A certain species of moth lays a single egg in the stem of a Rooibos plant, which matures into a grub that sucks all the nutrients out of the plant, causing it to die.

Baboons (local monkey-like primates), uninhibited by fences and farmed tracts of land on Certified farms, can roam freely along the mountain ranges, and wander around the Rooibos crops to eat the pesky grub that wreaks havoc on a farmer’s crop.

Baboons: an important link in controlling pests in Rooibos fields

Peacefully and freely, the baboons sniff out the infected Rooibos plants and pull out the long tap root from the ground.  The grub makes a tasty, protein-rich snack.  Naturally curbing the spread of these grubs and moths, the biodiversity conscious Rooibos farmers hail the baboons as heroes – no pesticides or other intervention required!  I just love how Nature can solve our problems on her own.

Restoration initiatives to enhance biodiversity

A number of endemic Fynbos plant species in the Cedarberg find themselves on the endangered species list due to generations of relentless and careless farming, harvesting and fires (which are part of the natural regeneration process of the Fynbos species).  One of these is the Clanwilliam Cedar Tree – ironically, this is the tree after which the Cedarberg area was once named, due to their proliferation a few hundred years ago!

The majestic, highly endangered Clanwilliam Cedar Tree

The evening silhouette of the Cedarberg Mountains now shows little sign of these majestic Cedar trees, which once proudly towered over the mountains and plains, each supporting their own tiny ecosystem of animals and insects, and providing a resting place for the beautiful and endangered Cape Leopard.

Every year, in conjunction with businesses and local communities, our nature conservation organisation Cape Nature organizes an official planting day of Cedar Tree saplings back into their habitat.  To co-inside with World Environment Day on 5 June, we headed up North of Cape Town to the Cedarberg to plant the saplings we’ve been nurturing for months from seed, just a little bit to help restore the area back to the way Nature intended it to be.

This is just a small step to ensuring the biodiversity of the area and preserving the diversity and balance of one of the most fragile Floral Kingdoms of the world.

Biodiversity for sustainability.

Encouraging and preserving a biodiverse source, and rehabilitating the source with fauna and flora to allow natural ecosystems to work in harmony.  Perhaps allowing Nature to help us with our commercial pursuits, by encouraging the Natural balance of life to exist alongside our farming activities, will lead us to a cleaner, more sustainable future?