Reserve Project Day

With each group of students, we try and get involved in some sort of reserve or conservation project. With the January 2011 group we decided that we are going to fix up Big Dam. Big Dam, the imaginatively named dam situated about 500 meters from the Garonga farmhouse is a short and convenient drive from base and we therefore visit it regularly. As with most of the old farm dams on the reserve, it is an ecological disaster, with heavily eroded banks and little or no aquatic vegetation.

Our plan was firstly to try and slow down the flow of water on its edges, thereby halting the erosion process, allowing vegetation to re-establish, and secondly to plant reeds along the edges which one day would slow down the flow of water out of the dam and would provide habitat for birds, amphibians and insects.

The day started early at 6 as we knew that by 10 we would be frying!

The group was divided into 2 teams, one digging the holes and planting the reeds, and the other collecting trees that would serve as brush-packing for the reeds (prevent elephants from up-rooting our hard work) and brush-packing for the eroded site.

We had harvested reeds from the river the day before, and after a couple of hours of back-breaking work, they were planted in the outlet section along the edge of the dam.

The team collecting trees with the help of a chainsaw cut down medium-sized knobthorns from a dense, almost encroached woodland area and dragged them to the site with the landrover. These were packed around the newly reeded section, making sure there were no gaps for elephants to push through. The rest of the cut trees were then placed on the eroded bank at 90 degrees to the flow of water. Rocks were collected and stuffed into the small rills and gullies that were formed from the erosion, with the function of stopping the flow of water allowing the water to deposit whatever sand that it was carrying, thereby forming new soil which can be colonized by plants that would establish and bind and secure the soil.

It was a day of hard, physical work that everyone enjoyed and will hopefully make the old, boring Big Dam a little more interesting in the future.

Unfortunately the results of such projects take a few seasons to become evident, hopefully enticing this group of students to return in a few years to view the fruits of their labour.

The Bushwise Team

Reserve Project Day