Western Cape renosterveld has lost 95% of its original extent — almost all of it gone since 1900

Estimated percentage of original lowland renosterveld extent remaining, Western Cape, 1900–2021

>95%

of original renosterveld converted to cropland since 1900

478 ha

cleared in the Overberg between 2016 and 2020 alone

Note: The 1900 figure reflects the scholarly consensus near-intact baseline. The 1950 figure reflects consensus that large-scale mechanised farming accelerated markedly after this point. Subsequent estimates draw on Landsat West Coast mapping (1999), NLC/Skowno et al. (2014) and Overberg Renosterveld Conservation Trust/World Land Trust (2021). Data points come from different sub-regional studies using different imagery sources — figures are not directly comparable but consistently show severe, irreversible decline.

Western Cape renosterveld covered the fertile shale soils of the Swartland and Overberg in near-intact condition at the turn of the twentieth century, but the ecosystem is now critically endangered. The steepest losses came with the mechanisation of wheat, canola and barley farming after 1950, stripping roughly 70 percentage points of the original extent within a single generation. But clearing has never stopped — more than 478 hectares were destroyed in the Overberg between 2016 and 2020 alone, and scientists warn that the small fragments remaining are still being lost to agricultural conversion every year. Therefore, without urgent and large-scale legal protection, one of the most biodiverse shrublands on Earth faces functional extinction.