Blaauwkrantz Nature Reserve
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Blaauwkrantz Nature Reserve
The Blaauwkrantz Nature Reserve is a small protected area near Makhanda (Grahamstown) designated for the purpose of conserving the endangered Eastern Province rocky. Nearby are the Waters Meeting Nature Reserve and Buffalo Kloof Protected Environment. The Blaauwkrantz Pass (R67) runs along the length of the reserve, while the Bloukrans River bisects it horizontally. History In 1985, 198.31 ha of land was proclaimed for the conservation of the endangered Eastern Province rocky. Biodiversity The reserve, consisting of veld vegetation, has over 200 plant species including aloe and tree euphorbia. The Blaauwkrantz Pool in the reserve is one of the last refuges of the endemic Eastern Province rocky (rocky kurper). Birds found on the reserve are fish eagle and kingfisher. Otters can also be found in the reserve. Threats The Blaauwkrantz Pool, containing the rocky kurper, faces a number of threats from sewage treatment to agricultural practises like the leaching of fertil ...
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Makhanda, South Africa
Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana Local Municipality, and the seat of the municipal council. It also hosts Rhodes University, the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court, the South African Library for the Blind (SALB), a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and 6 South African Infantry Battalion. Furthermore, located approximately 3 km south-east of the town lies the world renowned Waterloo Farm, the only estuarine fossil site in the world from 360 million years ago with exceptional soft-tissue preservation. The town's name-change from Grahamstown to Makhanda was officially gazetted on 29 June 2018. The town was officially renamed to Makhanda in memory of Xhosa warrior and prophet Makhanda ka Nxele. History Founding Makhanda was founded as Grahamsto ...
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Veld
Veld ( or ), also spelled veldt, is a type of wide open rural landscape in :Southern Africa. Particularly, it is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswana. A certain sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa has been officially defined as the Bushveld by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Trees are not abundant—frost, fire and grazing animals allow grass to grow but prevent the build-up of dense foliage. Etymology The word ''veld'' () comes from the Afrikaans word for "field". The etymological origin is older modern Dutch ''veldt'', a spelling that the Dutch abandoned in favour of ''veld'' during the 19th century, decades before the first Afrikaans dictionary.Eric Anderson Walker (ed). The Cambridge History of the British Empire, Volume 4. Cambridge University Press 1963 (Afrikaans: pp. 890–894) A cognate to the English ''field'', it was spelt ''velt'' in Middle Dutch and ' ...
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List Of Protected Areas Of South Africa
The protected areas of South Africa include national parks and marine protected areas managed by the national government, public nature reserves managed by provincial and local governments, and private nature reserves managed by private landowners. Most protected areas are intended for the conservation of flora and fauna. National parks are maintained by South African National Parks (''SANParks''). A number of national parks have been incorporated in transfrontier conservation areas. Protected areas may also be protected for their value and importance as historical, cultural heritage or scientific sites. More information on these can be found in the list of heritage sites in South Africa. Special Nature Reserves Special nature reserves are highly protected areas from which all people and human activities are excluded, except for conservation and scientific research. The Prince Edward Islands, which are South African territories in the Southern Ocean, have been declared a ...
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Azolla Filiculoides
''Azolla filiculoides'' (water fern) is a species of ''Azolla'', native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Americas which was introduced to Europe, North and sub-Saharan Africa, China, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the Caribbean and Hawaii. It is a floating aquatic fern, with very fast growth, capable of spreading over lake surfaces to give complete coverage of the water in only a few months. Each individual plant is 1–2 cm across, green tinged pink, orange or red at the edges, branching freely, and breaking into smaller sections as it grows. It is not tolerant of cold temperatures and, in temperate regions it largely dies back in winter, surviving by means of submerged buds. It harbors the diazotrophic organism, ''Nostoc azollae'', in specialized leaf pockets. This ancient symbiosis allows ''N. azollae'' to fix nitrogen from the air and contribute to the fern's metabolism. Fossil records from as recent as the last interglacials are known from several location ...
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Sewage Treatment
Sewage treatment (or domestic wastewater treatment, municipal wastewater treatment) is a type of wastewater treatment which aims to remove contaminants from sewage to produce an effluent that is suitable for discharge to the surrounding environment or an intended reuse application, thereby preventing water pollution from raw sewage discharges. Sewage contains wastewater from households and businesses and possibly pre-treated industrial wastewater. There are a high number of sewage treatment processes to choose from. These can range from decentralized systems (including on-site treatment systems) to large centralized systems involving a network of pipes and pump stations (called sewerage) which convey the sewage to a treatment plant. For cities that have a combined sewer, the sewers will also carry urban runoff (stormwater) to the sewage treatment plant. Sewage treatment often involves two main stages, called primary and secondary treatment, while advanced treatment also incor ...
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Kingfisher
Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, but also can be seen in Europe. They can be found in deep forests near calm ponds and small rivers. The family contains 114 species and is divided into three subfamilies and 19 genera. All kingfishers have large heads, long, sharp, pointed bills, short legs, and stubby tails. Most species have bright plumage with only small differences between the sexes. Most species are tropical in distribution, and a slight majority are found only in forests. They consume a wide range of prey usually caught by swooping down from a perch. While kingfishers are usually thought to live near rivers and eat fish, many species live away from water and eat small invertebrates. Like other members of their order, they nest in cavities, usually tunnels dug into ...
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Sea Eagle
A sea eagle or fish eagle (also called erne or ern, mostly in reference to the white-tailed eagle) is any of the birds of prey in the genus ''Haliaeetus'' in the bird of prey family Accipitridae. Taxonomy and evolution The genus ''Haliaeetus'' was introduced in 1809 by French naturalist Marie Jules César Savigny in his chapter on birds in the ''Description de l'Égypte''. The two fish eagles in the genus ''Ichthyophaga'' were found to lie within ''Haliaeetus'' in a genetic study in 2005, they were then moved accordingly. They are very similar to the tropical ''Haliaeetus'' species. A prehistoric (i.e. extinct before 1500) form from Maui in the Hawaiian Islands may represent a species or subspecies in this genus. The relationships to other genera in the family are less clear; they have long been considered closer to the genus ''Milvus'' (kites) than to the true eagles in the genus '' Aquila'' on the basis of their morphology and display behaviour;Brown, L. H, & Amadon, D. (1968) ...
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Euphorbia Ingens
''Euphorbia ingens'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae. It is native to dry areas of southern Africa. It is popularly known as the candelabra tree or naboom. Its milky latex can be extremely poisonous and is a dangerous irritant. Growth This tall succulent tree with green round-like branches resembling a balloon is 6–8 meters tall. Its trunk is thick. Candelabrum stems have 5 ridges each and are 3.5–7.5 centimeters thick. Segmented sprouts are dark-green. Young sprouts have paired spines 0.5–2 millimeters long, often reflected. Small greenish yellow flowers sit on the ridges of the topmost segment. The plant blooms from autumn to winter. A red, round, three-lobed capsule fruit turns purple when ripe. Habitat The plant occurs in Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, South Africa (in the north and east of the country), Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Eswatini. It grows on dry lands and semi-savannas. It prefers warm regions as it ca ...
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Bloukrans River (Grahamstown)
The Bloukrans River (Grahamstown) is a tributary of the Kowie River, and is situated near Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. See also * List of rivers of South Africa This is a list of rivers in South Africa. It is quite common to find the Afrikaans word ''-rivier'' as part of the name. Another common suffix is "''-kamma''", from the Khoisan term for "river" Meiring, Barbara"South African Toponymic Guideline ... Rivers of the Eastern Cape {{SouthAfrica-river-stub ...
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Sandelia Bainsii
The Eastern Province rocky (''Sandelia bainsii''), also known as rocky kurper, is a species of fish in the family Anabantidae. It is endemic to South Africa. The specific name of this species is thought to honour the Scottish geologist, explorer and soldier Andrew Geddes Bain (1797-1864) who also collected zoological specimens. Bain served as a captain in the Cape Frontier Wars and may have fought the tribal chief Sandile, for whom Castelnau named the genus. Distribution It used to be found in small populations dispersed in small areas over a wide distribution throughout the Eastern Cape, such as in the Gulu River, Igoda River, Yellowwoods River ( Buffalo), Nahoon River, Kowie River, Koonap River, Kat River ( Great Fish) and the Tyhume River (Keiskamma). It is doubtful whether those fragmented populations will be viable in the future because they find themselves under a number of threats from agricultural practices, pollution and invasive species An invasive species ...
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R67 (South Africa)
The R67 is a provincial route in Eastern Cape, South Africa that connects Port Alfred with Komani (previously Queenstown) via Grahamstown. Route The R67 begins in Port Alfred, at a junction with the R72 Road. It begins by going north-north-west for 54 kilometres as the Blaauwkrantz Pass to reach an interchange with the N2 National Route south of the Grahamstown town centre (renamed Makhanda in 2018). The R67 joins the N2 and they are one road eastwards for 9 kilometres before the R67 becomes its own road northwards. From the N2 split east of Makhanda, the R67 goes northwards for 70 kilometres as the Ecca Pass, crossing the Great Fish River and following the Kat River, to reach a junction with the R63 Road in the town of Fort Beaufort. The R67 joins the R63 and they are one road eastwards for 650 metres up to a t-junction, where the R63 becomes the road southwards and the R67 becomes the road northwards. From Fort Beaufort, the R67 goes northwards for 97 km as the Nico Mala ...
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Blaauwkrantz Pass
Blaauwkrantz Pass is a mountain pass on the R67, situated across the Blaauwkrantz Nature Reserve in the Eastern Cape, on the road between Grahamstown and Port Alfred A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha .... It traverses the Bloukrans River valley. History Nearby was the site of the Blaauwkrantz Bridge disaster of 1911. External links The Blaauwkrantz bridge disaster References Mountain passes of the Eastern Cape {{EasternCape-geo-stub ...
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