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Durbanville Hills is a joint venture between Distell and eight leading Durbanville vineyard owners, established to promote the regional individuality of this prime wine growing area.
 


Spinning wine on the back of extinction
22 March 2005  by Leonie Joubert
Anyone in the Cape with something to peddle seems to have jumped on the biodiversity bandwagon. Even the imminent Nederburg Auction celebrates biodiversity as its theme this year. This link between wine and biodiversity is ironic as ever-expanding vineyards are in part responsible for destroying the very vegetation the industry is supposedly celebrating. Leonie Joubert reveals her own hypocrisy as she considers the wine versus conservation debate.
Ethical vegetarians shouldn?t wear leather. Sure. But they should also remember that the bread they eat is usually made from wheat grown in the Swartland where the geometric tortoise is now endangered because of agriculture carving up the renosterveld vegetation in which it lives. In fact almost anything urbanites eat, no matter how humanely handled and packaged for its journey to your local supermarket, comes from a farm where biodiversity has in some way or other been lost to monocropping and large-scale agriculture.

In the same vein, it?s hypocritical of me to love wine and yet make my living from writing about the biodiversity (think: total food chain) that is being lost in the making of said wine - a little fact that should not be forgotten by the wine industry's spin doctors in churning out a recent flurry of communications in an attempt to secure editorial space on the back of the biodiversity angle.

Forgive the rather crude analogy, but that?s a bit like the US textile industry creating a marketing hullabaloo around a romanticised version of pre-Civil War cotton pickers (and I?m not referring to the hired help). We done bad, now let?s be politically correct and make up for it. Better late than never, I suppose.

Having said that, there is a way to smooth over some of the rougher tensions between wine farming and conservation.

Any landowner with natural vegetation on the property can get a tidy little reduction in municipal property rates if the land is registered with local government and conserved according to national conservation laws. Under the Property Rates Act (2004), any land declared as a national park or nature reserve is excluded from rates payment. The national treasury may also guide municipalities in how rates on other land are imposed to favour conservation-friendly management.

Mark Botha of the Botanical Society interprets it thus: municipalities can cut farmers a bit of slack if they are attempting to 'appropriately conserve a threatened ecosystem on their farm'; they can offer 'rebates to property owners who invest in sound land management activities such as clearing alien vegetation or implementing fire control measures'; or allow the value of a farm to 'reflect reduction in property value, in terms of rates, if the land is encumbered by conservation restrictions'.

Basically this translates to a farmer paying less tax on property if any natural vegetation is being conserved through a collaboration with Western Cape Nature Conservation Board. It?s mutual back scratching which seeks to give cash incentives to farmers while encouraging them to pause before planting another row of Sauvignon Blanc.

The other way of doing so is punitive: the National Environmental Management Act of 1998 states that no-one may turn natural vegetation over to cultivation in the Cape, even on their own properties, without a permit from the relevant authority. Under the law, virgin ground (land not cultivated during the preceding 10 years) may not be altered or cultivated without a permit from the regional department of environmental affairs. If a farmer is found to have done so, a fine of R100 000 can be charged and the farmer may be required to rehabilitate the land at his or her own cost.

Botha says there are additional incentives in the pipeline but that these will involve the national treasury and national department of environmental affairs and tourism (DEAT) both agreeing that it is in everyone?s best interest to conserve the natural environment while possibly taking a slight hit to the tax coffers.

While these delicate negotiations go on in the background, it?s safe to say this at least: every time a plough-shear cuts another row into natural vegetation, it is shaving away the remnants of some of the most unique vegetation on the planet.

Ponder a little on that next time you nose a glass of wine. If nothing else, let?s hope the Nederburg Auction reminds the industry to do just that this April.

Leonie Joubert is a freelance science journalist with a special interest in climate and environment related issues.

Related articles:

Biodynamic expert is guest speaker at Nederburg Auction

Auction debutante wines showcase Cape's biodiversity

World Bank steps in to aid Cape Biodiversity and Wine Intiative

Protecting the Western Cape's biodiversity

The Biodiversity and Wine Initiative

Conservation bodies and wine industry join forces to protect Cape Ecology
 
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