The WWF-Mondi Partnership currently focuses its fieldwork work geographically in the uMhlathuze catchment that falls largely into the Zululand Coastal Plains Aquifers, which is a groundwater strategic water source area). The uMhlathuze catchment flows from Babanango hills near Melmoth and enters the sea at Richards Bay, with key land-uses including forestry, agriculture, business and industry, as well as the domestic sector in both a rural and urban setting. Additionally, the partnership supports freshwater work in three other strategic water source areas: the Southern and Northern Drakensberg SWSAs in KwaZulu-Natal, as well as in the Eastern Cape Drakensberg SWSA. It also plays a critical role in supporting the financial and operational management of WWF’s freshwater portfolio of projects around the country.
With increasing impacts of climate change, the already water-stressed uMhlathuze catchment will be heavily impacted as was evident in 2016 major drought. This next phase will expand the water stewardship work of the partnership to explore working with other WWF portfolios in circular economy, land and biodiversity stewardship, climate resilience, as well as sustainable finance and small enterprise development.
Two flagship projects that will encompass Phase 4 include:
1) Creating a Richards Bay Eco-Industrial Park promoting a circular economy, that integrates Mondi’s Richards Bay Mill.
2) Expanding the existing and new initiatives for improving Water stewardship in the uMhlathuze catchment that supplies Mondi’s Richards Bay Mill with water.
Four other projects supporting the flagship projects as well as WWF’s broader national freshwater work, include:
1) WWF-Mondi Partnership management and enabling SWSA linkages and sharing of lessons, between WWF’s work in the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Drakensberg SWSAs, as well as with the other SWSA’s WWF works in.
2) Financial management of the Partnership and WWFs Freshwater portfolio of projects, and the development of “teaming and convening” skills of Mondi and WWF staff working in SWSAs and priority conservation areas.
3) Partnership communications, promoting the work of the partnership both internally in Mondi and WWF and to an external audience
4) Innovation Hub, for embryonic innovative ideas of value to Mondi and WWF that need to be further explored, better understood, and evaluated whether to include in the partnership work or not.
Candice Webb, Head of Sustainability at Mondi South Africa, explains that historically, the Mondi-WWF partnership focussed on wetland conservation and more recently, water stewardship in priority catchments and supporting securing of South Africa’s Strategic Water Source Areas.
“In 2013, the WWF-Mondi Partnership, broadened its focus to catalysing a variety of water stewardship projects at a landscape and catchment level, and focussed on bringing multiple stakeholders together from government, local communities, NGOs and other private sector organisations to improve management of freshwater resources and governance,” says Webb.
“As an example of a project addressing water security risks at catchment level, the WWF-Mondi partnership works in collaboration with the uMhlathuze Water Stewardship Partnership (UWASP) partners and catchment management forum (CMF). These multi-stakeholder platforms are aimed at strengthening collective action for catchment management and water governance,” says Reuben Thifhulufhelwi, chairperson of uMhlathuze CMF and the uMhlathuze Water Stewardship Project Manager, WWF South Africa.
“One of the examples of water stewardship projects under UWASP is the development of real-time water flow monitoring tools (https://uwasp.award.org.za/). These flow monitoring tools are open source and allow all stakeholder to learn about the state of water in rivers and dams in the uMhlathuze catchment, and this provides additional knowledge and capacity for action towards effective and efficient decision-making processes, especially in responding to climate change crises such as droughts.”
Water is one of Mondi’s most significant material risks, and for WWF securing the functioning of freshwater ecosystems, and the governance and management of freshwater resources is a top conservation priority. Working towards water security is a long-term goal for both organisations, which sits at the heart of the partnership, and the need that gave rise to the partnership in the first place. This need continues today, as South Africa’s water resources, and the catchments that produce most of this water come under increasing land use pressures
