flower power

With Spring, the remote plains of Namaqualand come alive, bringing a spectacular display of wildflowers that offer a vital boost to one of South Africa's poorest areas.

As fears over climate change grow, this region has seen an influx of tourists wishing to witness the spectacle before changing rainfall patterns could one day kill off the flowers in this delicate environment.

Local flower expert Hendrik Van Zijl says"We are talking about trillions and trillions and trillions of flowers. We are not sitting on a national treasure but an international treasure!"

With the slightest breeze fields of wildflowers dance in unison, an spring array of colour which turns the usually stark landscape into a carpet of what Van Zijl terms the world's "finest area for flowers."

Tourism has become the lifeblood of the country's largest and most sparsely populated region. Dominated by the semi-desert Karoo, where five distinct ecological zones lie within striking distance of one another, a drive through this area goes from hot to cold, from lush to dusty, over just a few kilometres and is seen as a significant and threatened global centre of plant diversity, according to a provincial environmental report.

Climate change has created a growing awareness of conservation and has brought in new kinds of tourists who ask more sophisticated questions. This has done much to turn this entire area into an international destination.

The area, once populated only by wild game and San Bushmen, followed by some of the first European settlers in the country, through its wild flower tourism is able to provide vital employment for locals with few other options.

"I was born here on a farm, I never thought flowers could make such a difference," said 57-year-old Ann Basson, who works at a local guesthouse, and remembers being sent to pick flowers for the dinner table, never dreaming they would one day support her.

The growing tourism industry has also made locals more aware of the changes in their environment, as the shifting rains affect the flower season. With decreasing numbers of game, sheep farmers have begun to play a vital role by using their animals to graze on invasive grasses which would otherwise overtake the flowers.

Using intelligent farm managment and grazing, farmers in the West Coast have learned to nurture and expand the areas with most prolific wild flowers hoping the unique flower extravaganza will attract foreigners keen to venture off the beaten track.
tourism has become one of the biggest contributors to the West Coast economy and a very omportant part of people's lives.