This is the story of how the wine trade in South Africa is repositioning itself in a burgeoning world market using an innovative program called the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative (BWI). It is an optimistic story of courage and hope that has become a beacon for grape growers around the world. It is so often said that South Africa is reinventing itself that it is starting to sound trite. And yet, they have, and they are. This is particularly true of their wine industry. They didn’t have any choice; “The wine industry was infamous for the ‘worst working conditions” in apartheid South Africa and so it should not come as a surprise that “the wine industry encapsulates the scale of the challenge of transformation facing South Africa.” The anti-apartheid boycott (1959-1994) had a devastating effect on the South African Wine Industry: markets dried up, plant nurseries became inbred, propagating the same varietals with the same diseases. Compounding that, there was little investment in new technology, vineyard stock, viticultural research, or in oenological education. Meanwhile the rest of the wine world, particularly Australia, but also Argentina, Chili and New Zealand and the USA, stormed ahead. Every sector of the SA wine industry had to be rejuvenated. The post-apartheid wine industry realized immediately that to meet the prodigious challenges it faced, it wasn’t enough to play catch-up over the short term. They understood that to become competitive in a rapidly expanding global market they would need a new context - innovative and unprecedented - that would lead to a more promising future. With the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative (BWI) they have that context with the potential to lead ecologically, ethically and eventually, perhaps sustainably.South Africa took a circuitous path leading to biodiversity. After the national elections in 1994 South Africa moved very quickly to begin the process of rejoining the world community and appointed search teams, both formal and informal, to lobby and advocate for international trade shows, business conventions, art and cultural shows, academic conferences and sporting events to come to the country. They were very successful, hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2011. In 1992 South African representatives attended the earth summit in Rio, out of which came the Convention on Biodiversity. They signed on to the Convention in 1993 and ratified November1995. From then on they lobbied for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg in September 2002. When they initially went to Rio they went for multiple reasons, including, to lobby for the next convention. This out-reach policy started as raw necessity. But over the years the pieces came together providing insight into a possible unifying theme to improve their wine industry and rescue the unique South African Cape Floral Kingdom and its rare Fynbos biome, a brilliant collaboration down Reinvention Rd.BWI is a pioneering partnership, formed in 2004, among the Botanical Society of South Africa, Conservation International and The Green Trust, with the active support of a vanguard in their wine industry. They have adopted as their identifying stamp, found on the bottle capsule of participating wineries, the Cape Sugarbird, standing on a flowering King Proteas, the national flower of South Africa. It symbolizes the hope for a habitat, an industry and a country. The Cape Sugarbird and King Proteas live in The Cape Floral Kingdom (CFK), home of the Renosterveld and lowland Fynbos biomes, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the smallest of the world’s six floral kingdoms with 70% of its plant species found nowhere else on earth. The CFK is much smaller than Vancouver Island, once about the size of Manhattan. It is home to over 9000 species of plants and animals. Compare this to the Boreal forest stretching across Canada, Scandinavia and Russia, which has, not counting the insects or fungi, approximately 4000 to 5000 species. The original size of the CFK was about 78,555 square kilometers, less than 15,711 Km2 remains, of which 10,859 Km2 is now protected. Currently made up of eight designated serial “islands” within the Cape Floristic Region, roughly 6% of the original biome, these protected zones are surrounded by the other 94% no longer in its natural state but taken over by urbanization, invasive species, tree plantations, agriculture, including, for our specific interest, the introduced European, Vitis vinifera, i.e. the vineyards. Among the mandates of the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative is the call to protect existing habitat, rescue what is threatened and try to re-establish at least some of that already lost. Champion BWI wine farms, such as Vergelegen, must commit more than 10% of their land to conservation. In this they have been, to their everlasting credit, very successful. South African vineyards cover approximately 102,000 hectares. BWI grape growers and wine farms, consisting of 27 Champions and 178 members, “collectively representing more than 750 farms”, have conserved over 130,717 hectares. In other words, they have already offset their national viticultural footprint.As for biodiversity, think of it as simply the vast extent of life on earth. Gaston and Spicer, in their book on biodiversity, categorize biodiversity as having direct use values and indirect use values. Direct use values are the more obvious food, medicine and industrial materials. The economic benefits, totaling in the multiple billons per annum, is rather obvious. From a viticultural perspective consider for a moment Gaston and Spicer’s less obvious indirect use values; biogeochemical cycling, soil formation, soil maintenance, nutrient cycling, climatic regulation (Don’t forget to include the micro-climate in a vines canopy), pest control, photosynthesis and pollination. Are these systems not the very essence of terroir? They are the quintessential processes of healthy ecosystems, the very complexity in nature that BWI is striving to recover and protect.The French have always thought of the terroir concept as exclusively their own. After all they did develop it into a world famous system, which is why they are quick to remind foreigners that we don’t even have our own name for it. But along the way they often denied other places of having a terroir. How could you have a terroir outside of France? C’est incroyable! To understand their incredulity we must accept that they include in their understanding of terroir, a cultural entity, which includes a business dimension. The French model of Terroir can be thought of as a three-legged stool, composed of a nature leg, a cultural leg, and a business leg. But until the concept was incorporated into South Africa’s Biodiversity and Wine Initiative (BWI), the French model in the new world was missing a leg or two. The Australians and Californians have been well aware of the business and marketing angle for some time now, and the cultural aspects are being put in place, but these efforts lack a unifying theme. And here we return to the point made earlier of the unifying nature of biodiversity.For the first time anywhere, a wine country has within its grasp a way of talking about grape growing and winemaking without using the T word – Terroir. Just think about that for a moment. A context so new, a place so special, that a new story with a fresh vocabulary can be used to describe what they are doing, how they are doing it, why they are doing it and why it makes their wine and their efforts different from everyone else’s. Your country, your wine, your story; now that is a commanding narrative! Wine-makers who have enthusiastically embraced BWI like Avondale, Ken Forrester, Warwick and Vergelegen, to name four very diverse leaders, can testify to the benefits of such a holistic approach; living soils, soils with things in it that actually move, healthier fruit and the return of native insects, plants, birds and animals. By going back, they have leapt forward. The Fynbos habitat is being reintroduced and the simplicity of the mono-crop offset with cover crops of native grasses, healthier riparian systems, eradication of invasive species such as the Australian Hakea…the work being done is incredible. One focus is to produce, as the past Extension Officer for BWI Sue Winters said, “site specific wines and unique wines”. Now you can boast of the above achievements with honest marketing. And in “the trade”, as we affectionately call it, still overly dependent on puffery and décolletage, what a refreshing change that will be.South Africa is moving forward. Their wine industry not only testifies to this fact, in many ways it is the very measure of it. From worst, in country, to first in eighteen years deserves recognition. Never-the-less, there is some evidence that early initiatives to manage agriculture, both to the advantage of the environment, land owners and all working people, has met with the expected impediments. With such sweeping agricultural change you usually get more than you bargain for. Every single member of BWI has experienced the pain of change; their stories abound. Here is one of them. Ken Forrester raises ducks to forage in the vineyards on snails and grasses. On his property he nursed a stream back to health, which resulted in the return of a family of indigenous otters, which killed the ducks. The otters didn’t eat the birds, they killed them, by taking one bite, and one bite only, out of each breast. Ken admitted thinking of his gun when he found the slaughter. But under the guiding principles of conservation, one compromises with the pests and encourages the rest. Ken Forrester Wines bought more ducks and now they lock them in for the night. On a more serious level, the UK and EU supermarkets have passed their responsibilities down the supply chain putting pressure on South African businesses, labour organizations and environmental groups to meet standards set by northern markets. While these retail corporations have provided some monies and assistance to help build the infrastructure necessary to implement northern standards related to supply chains, shelf-life, fair labour practice and environmental safe guards, all-to-often assistance was inadequate, expectations unrealistic and the time lines too short to implement changes. Little wonder then that the task of bringing the South African wine trade “up to speed”, from their point of view, is proving to be a bumpy road. This is not to suggest that the northern distributors and retail interests in the UK and Europe should back off, but rather they should offer more long term strategies based on genuine assistance, rather the self-serving, disingenuous manipulation of trade and commerce similar to the way they have handled the Fair Trade brand or the horse meat scandal during the winter 2013. There is a risk that some will try to use BWI as a strategy against land reform, that proverbial SA elephant-in-the-room that cannot be ignored. Ninety-five percent (95%) of all the land in SA is still held by a very small minority. We can well imagine how something so new and complicated as BWI could be manipulated to enhance land values. There is some precedent for this scenario. Wildlife parks touted as conservation areas, but really promoted as tourist destinations (where there is serious money to be made) have already led to tensions around KwaZulu/Natal in the northeast. One need only check the Internet to see that World Heritage Sites attract investment, spiking adjacent real-estate values.Directly related to the above, Sue Birch, recently retired CEO of WOSA (Wines of South Africa) has said, “It (BWI) also helps grow our wine tourism industry, taking it into the whole world of wine eco-tourism and protecting the values for future generations.” Like the wine industry in Canada’s Okanagan Valley, the South African Industry is positioning itself to marry into the global tourist industry. They will learn that the values of BWI, already bearing fruit, may soon be compromised by the voracious growth of tourism. Look for more hotels, casinos, golf courses, spas, bigger highways, more use of water, land, etc. How to balance economic growth with conservation is damnably difficult. Add to the mix, competing government agencies and the interests of multinationals and those well intentioned values Sue Birch speaks about might well be high-jacked by marketing departments selling condos overlooking one of those eight islands of former “exotic” Fynbos. Another all too obvious internal domestic restraint is the old guard. It seems a bit of a cliché to state that farmers everywhere are a conservative lot. But to say so of the older generation of grape-growing farmers in South Africa would be an understatement. Resistant to progress, pining for that co-operative KWV teat of old, a minority in this demographic will be holdouts to their end. While the majority of the smaller grape farmers, are yet to get on board, the vanguard, to whom they sell their grapes, clearly do “get it”, and have demonstrated what can be achieved in a surprisingly short period. Imagine what could be achieved if the remaining 3147 growers would join the BWI effort.What exactly is it that they get? When KWV shifted from its role as national Co-op to independent business, away from assured buyer of last resort, the wineries knew very well that they had to reposition themselves to sell their crop in the context of a world market. This meant a shift from price based on yield, or tonnage, to a price determined by the quality of the fruit, which almost always necessitates a reduction in yield. (Dr. Richard Smart not withstanding) Jan Scannell, CEO of Distell, and Tim Hutchinson, managing director of D.G.B. both agreed, in 2006, that the future of the South African wine industry did not lie in the commodity market. This means resisting the downward pressures of the EU grocery chains. Chasing that market would necessitate increased hectares of vineyards, increased irrigation, a heavy dependency on herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, mechanical pruning and harvesting resulting in a reduced farm labour force…in other words the flipside of the Biodiversity and Wine Initiative model. The big three SA producers mentioned above are highly vulnerable to the downward pressures of the EU and UK grocery chains, so don’t expect a shift from commodity cash-flow anytime soon. South Africa is a rich country and one of its riches, and core strengths, is its large labour force. There are government incentives in place to encourage the employment of labour, in part, by encouraging young working people to work on the farms and even to move back to the smaller country towns. This means alternatives to the bulging townships and will require improved transportation, bigger schools and new housing. The Wine and Agricultural Ethical Trade Association (WEITA), is working very hard to mitigate the realities of this social transformation - part of that cultural leg of the stool - and deserve credit for their efforts. BWI cannot survive without the extensive use of manual and skilled labour and therefore, out of necessity, the support of WEITA.There is ample evidence that BWI has the political acumen to work with WEITA. For example they have made The Integrated Production of Wine Certificate (IPW), a SA industry standard, one of the requirements for BWI member status. Rather than compete with the Wine and Spirits Board, the executive arm of The Wines of South Africa (WOSA), they wisely embraced IPW. No single stakeholder can transform the SA wine industry. But if they learn from and apply Sue Winter’s summery of experience, “Lessons Learned by the BWI During the 2004-2006 Pilot Phase” a summation that all NCO’s should read as a golden handrail, they will be successful. South Africa’s strengths far outweigh the difficulties touched on above. After all they started BWI and understood its potential from the start, so it should come as no surprise that they are pursuing BWI at the international level. “In January 2011, the 2nd International Biodiversity and Vines Workshop (Vinecology), was held in Davis, California. The conservation planners and scientists who attended the workshop came from the New World Mediterranean winegrowing regions of South Africa, Chile, the United States, Mexico and Australia.” Their out-reach inclination continues as they take their place on the world stage.It seems rather ironic, in a country with a wine legacy dating back over three hundred years that coming late to the modern game can be a good thing. But the South Africans are back, forward oriented and in many ways leading. BWI is a monumental undertaking requiring great courage and patience, deserving national and international support. All the more reason for us to acknowledge their progress and respect their efforts in a South Africa they all so clearly love. By doing so we would be encouraging fair labour practices, habitat rejuvenation, better wines and the promise of a new sustainable business model for growing wine. It is high time those who honed their liberal/left bon-a-fides supporting the apartheid era boycott all those years ago, give due credit where it is due and start buying, drinking and championing some of the most exciting wines in the world today. Note: If the reader wishes to comment, the author can be reached at, morrislemire@shaw.ca1 Cheryl McEwan and David Bek, “Placing Ethical Trade in Context: WIETA and the South African wine industry.” Third World Quarterly, Vol.30. No. 4 2009. pp. 724-5.2 www.wwf.org.za, (Visit site for updates, members list and links.)3 http://www.wosa.co.za/4 Fiona McIntosh, Cape Floral Region. Protected Areas. World Heritage Sites of South Africa, Southbound Pocket Guides, 2008.5 David Bek, Cheryl McEwan, and Toy Binns, “The South African Wine Industry: Meeting the Challenges of Structural and Ethical Transformation” The Geography of Wine” Regions, Terroir and Techniques. Percy H. Dougherty, ed. Springer, 2012, p. 150.6 www.wwf.org.za 7 Kevin J. Gaston and John I. Spicer, Biodiversity: An Introduction. 2nd Ed. Blackwell, 2004, Table 4.2.8 Morris A. Lemire, “Terroir: Issues in a Human Built Construct.” http://www.localwineevents.com/resources/articles/view/876/terroir-issues-in-a-human-built-construct9 Personal communication with Ken Forrester, of Ken Forrester Wines, Stellenbosch, South Africa.10 Michael Fridjhon, “South Africa: The Honey Moon Is Over. Wine Business International. Volume II, April 2007. p. 52.11 Michael Fridjhon, p.5012 Leanne Webb, “Green Aims Given Global Perspectives”, Grapegrower & Winemaker.September 2011 – Issue 572, pp. 32-38. Available from, www.winebiz.com.au
