Farmer Pieter Kruger stands on a wier on his farm that was paid for by the Department of Water Affairs. Wiers like this holds back water which rushes off of the landscape because of bad policies during the 1970s that saw government channelizing the water. Now new wiers like this are holding the water back so it can go into the groundwater table, assuring a full flowing river all year around.
An public and private initiative by NGO Living Lands, the South African government, insurance companies and water users in Port Elizabeth is restoring the main water catchment for the city with indigenous carbon-sequestrating trees and helping to alleviate th problems of climate change.