{"id":3141,"date":"2019-06-17T11:56:59","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T11:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=3141"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:21","slug":"big-potential-benefits-from-restoring-spekboom-thicket-ecosystems-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/06\/17\/big-potential-benefits-from-restoring-spekboom-thicket-ecosystems-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Potential Benefits From Restoring Spekboom Thicket Ecosystems In South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By UNEP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In mountainous areas, spekboom trees can grow\neven on steep slopes. They suck up the moisture quickly and can store it for\nmonths. Spekboom forests can serve as grazing and browsing areas of last resort\nfor wildlife and livestock, even when all else has withered in a drought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spekboom, which absorbs carbon dioxide from the\natmosphere faster than most other trees in dry conditions, is the dominant tree\nof the thicket ecosystem that used to cover up to 5 million hectares across the\ndry areas of the Eastern Cape, until about 200 years ago, when massive\novergrazing by goats and sheep started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The South African Government sees thicket\nrestoration as one of the low-hanging fruits for the achievement of national\nclimate and biodiversity goals and recognizes that private investments are key.\nIn 2007 it started what is arguably the largest ecological experiment in the\nworld\u2026<a href=\"https:\/\/www.unenvironment.org\/news-and-stories\/story\/big-potential-benefits-restoring-spekboom-thicket-ecosystems-south-africa\">Read more&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By UNEP In mountainous areas, spekboom trees can grow even on steep slopes. They suck up the moisture quickly and can store it for months. Spekboom forests can serve as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}