Estuaries are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, supporting rich biodiversity while delivering essential services such as flood attenuation, water filtration, carbon sequestration and cultural services such as recreation opportunities. They provide critical habitat for waterbirds, including migratory waders, and serve as nurseries for fish and invertebrates that sustain local livelihoods and the broader marine fishing industry. Despite their importance, estuaries are South Africa’s most threatened ecosystems. Â
Estuarine plants (sedges, reeds, and marsh plants) are highly effective at removing carbon from the atmosphere (through photosynthesis) and storing it in the soil. This ‘locking away’ of carbon is called ‘carbon sequestration’ and the process is important in reducing the impacts of atmospheric global warming and climate change. When this process happens in aquatic environments, it is known as ‘blue carbon’.
BirdLife South Africa’s Western Cape Estuary Conservation Project is working to reverse this trend by safeguarding priority estuaries and their catchments, improving management, and restoring degraded, blue carbon habitats, such as saltmarshes. The project focuses on estuarine systems with high biodiversity value, including the Berg River, Olifants River, and Verlorenvlei estuaries on the West Coast. These estuaries are ranked among the most important in the country for conservation yet lack formal protection. By integrating conservation action with research, monitoring, environmental education and landowner stewardship, the project supports both birds and broader biodiversity, as well as the communities that depend on these ecosystems.Â
The project delivers impact through an integrated approach that combines protected area expansion via biodiversity stewardship, habitat restoration, improved policies, advocacy, and scientific monitoring, and strong partnership working. Working closely with CapeNature and other government stakeholders, efforts are underway to secure approximately 10,000 hectares of priority estuarine habitat across privately owned land and Coastal Public Property. This includes the establishment of South Africa’s first estuarine protected environment at the Berg River estuary, safeguarding over 6,000 hectares of intact and threatened floodplain, strandveld, and fynbos habitats. To date, more than 16,000 hectares have been secured within protected areas and Ramsar sites, with a further 30,000 hectares under conservation area and partnership agreements, and additional areas in progress. The team is also a leading implementer of estuarine habitat restoration, with a strong focus on saltmarsh (blue carbon) systems, alongside erosion control and integrated fire and invasive species management. This work is reinforced by active engagement in policy development and long-term monitoring initiatives such as the Coordinated Waterbird Count (CWAC). Education and capacity-building are embedded throughout the programme, from training local community members in monitoring techniques to delivering school-based awareness initiatives, ensuring that conservation outcomes are both scientifically rigorous and socially sustainable.
BirdLife South Africa is driving systemic change to secure one of the country’s most threatened ecosystems: its estuaries. Working with key partners, the programme has identified priority estuaries for conservation in the Western Cape and is advancing their protection through biodiversity stewardship, policy engagement, and active management, supported by strategic partnerships. It plays a leading role in shaping estuarine policy, strengthening legal protections at national and local levels, and exploring innovative tools such as estuarine-based Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs). Currently underway, a dedicated legal review is unlocking pathways to better provide formal protection for estuaries, particularly estuarine Coastal Public Property. By integrating science, advocacy, and on-the-ground action, the program is helping establish a new national benchmark for estuary protection.Â
The West Coast programme focuses on flagship systems including the Berg River estuary, Verlorenvlei, and the Olifants River estuary. Here, innovative approaches to protection and restoration are being piloted at scale, with both established and developing protected and conservation areas in place, and active habitat restoration underway across multiple sites, supported by vegetation and species recovery spatial mapping and scientific monitoring. The programme also invests in local capacity through training, education, and research partnerships. Increasingly, the West Coast is emerging as a model for integrating blue carbon restoration, biodiversity stewardship, and community-driven conservation.Â
Protecting estuaries requires safeguarding their catchments. The programme plays a role in supporting landscapes such as the Moutonshoek Protected Environment (PE), critical for maintaining surface and ground water flows to downstream systems like the Verlorenvlei Ramsar site. It supports the PE’s landowners’ association, particularly around environmental awareness-raising and biodiversity monitoring. In addition, working with legal and policy partners, the team engages in environmental authorisation processes to address threats, including mining, unsustainable water use, and infrastructure development. These interventions help secure freshwater inflows and sediment processes, which are essential to estuarine health. By defending these upstream landscapes, the programme ensures conservation extends beyond estuarine boundaries to the systems in which they are nested and that sustain them.Â
On the South Coast, the programme advances protection and management of key estuaries, including the Klein River estuary near the coastal town of Hermanus. This includes developing Environmental Management Plans and Annual Plans of Operation for emerging protected areas, alongside expanding biodiversity stewardship. Landscape-scale interventions, such as invasive alien plant clearing and integrated fire management planning, are helping to improve ecosystem resilience. Long-term monitoring, including camera trapping and habitat assessments, is generating critical data to guide management. Strong partnerships with landowners and conservation agencies underpin this work, positioning the South Coast as a vital node in a growing network of well-managed estuarine ecosystems.Â
The program is piloting estuarine habitat restoration with a focus on salt-, sedge-, and reed marsh, vital habitats that store carbon (blue carbon), while supporting diverse birdlife and fisheries. Interventions include the revegetation of degraded areas, piloting the stabilisation of eroding banks and using nature-based solutions, such as landscaping and indigenous species planting. The consideration of a Maintenance Management Plan will enable the upscaling of restoration efforts across the entire estuary, demonstrating best practice and providing lessons learned for other estuarine systems. Preliminary research results show encouraging gains in soil health and carbon storage. Robust monitoring, covering water quality, vegetation, soil health, erosion, and birds, ensures adaptive, evidence-based management. By linking climate impact mitigation with biodiversity conservation, this work highlights the critical role estuaries play in addressing both ecological decline and climate change.Â
A key innovation is the partnership with a local nursery on the Berg River, which supports large-scale restoration by propagating estuarine plants. Expanded infrastructure, including greenhouse space and a developing hydroponics system, is boosting both supply and quality of planting material. Key estuarine species being propagated include the following reed and sedge marsh species: Bolboschoenus maritimus, Juncus kraussii, Phragmites australis, Samolus porosus, Schoenoplectus scirpoides; and the following salt marsh species: Bassia diffusa, Cotula coronopifolia, Salicornia pillansii, S. tegetaria, Sporobolus virginicus, Triglochin bulbosa, T. striata. Â
The initiative includes testing the potential for estuarine plants to be used in garden landscaping in coastal gardens. The nursery also serves as a demonstration site, raising awareness of estuarine biodiversity and its value. This collaboration shows how local enterprise and conservation can combine to deliver scalable, nature-based solutions.Â
An additional satellite nursery is being developed to further expand the propagation of estuarine plants. This investment is expected to produce sufficient plant material to support active restoration at pilot restoration sites as well as future landowner efforts to restore degraded estuarine habitats on their property and as part of their biodiversity stewardship activities. Â
Waterbird monitoring is central to tracking estuarine health. The programme contributes to the Coordinated Waterbird Count (CWAC), one of South Africa’s largest citizen science initiatives. Regular counts generate critical data on population trends, habitat use, and species conservation status, informing management and national reporting. New tools, including drone-based surveys, are improving survey accuracy for species such as the endangered roosting Cape Cormorant, Phalacrocorax capensis, at the Berg River estuary. Working with BirdLife South Africa’s Regional Conservation Programme, a new, exciting, migrant wader ringing and tagging project was launched in early 2026 at the Berg, focused on tracking globally threatened, Curlew Sandpiper, Calidris ferruginea and Grey Plover, Pluvialis squatarola along their journey on the African-Eurasian (East Atlantic) Flyway. The programme also builds local capacity through training and volunteer engagement, strengthening long-term stewardship. Together, these efforts ensure conservation is guided by robust, long-term ecological data.Â
