About

About the site

Welcome to verlorenvlei.co.za.  This is a collaborative website, so if you are a resident (permanent or otherwise), please contact us so that we can create a guest account for you – so that you can tell your own stories of the Vlei, share news or even upload photographs.

If you’re planning to visit the area, please feel free to browse the website, and read the blogs of current residents. There’s not too much info just yet, but we are working on it!

Proposed tungsten/molybdenum mine in Moutonshoek Valley
As existing residents probably know, the ecologically-sensitive Verlorenvlei could soon be under threat from a proposed mining operation in the Moutonshoek Valley (the source of the Vlei’s water). Watch this space for news on the latest developments or sign up to be on the mailing list.

**NEWS** The Verlorenvallei Coalition has been formed. Find out more.

About the Verlorenvlei

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“Verlorenvlei is one of the most important estuarine systems in the Western Cape and one of the largest natural wetlands along the west coast of South Africa. It is also one of the few coastal fresh water lakes in the country. The system comprises a coastal lake and reedswamp connected to the sea by a small estuary. Situated amid dramatic topography, the lake is approximately 13.5 km long and 1.4 km wide and occurs in the zone of transition between the karroid and fynbos vegetation types. This results in the region displaying a high species diversity typical of an ecotone area. Rare plants that have been recorded from this area include Ferraria foliosa, F. densepunctulata, Cerycium venoum (presumed extinct) and Cullumia floccosa.

The wetland is regarded as one of the ten most important wetlands for wading birds in the south-western Cape, being a particularly important feeding area for the white pelican Pelecanus onocrotalus and supporting a number of threatened bird species. It supports over one thousand waders of more than eleven different species, mainly migrants from the northern hemisphere and provides further feeding, nesting and resting facilities to over 75 other species. The lake is a type locality for several species, including the whitebacked duck Thalassomis leuconotus. The only indigenous freshwater fish species occurring in the lake are the Cape galaxia Galaxias zebratus and the rare Barus burgi. Certain rare and threatened mammals such as Cape clawless otter Anonyx capensis have been recorded in the area.”

Via www.ngo.grida.no.

The Verlorenvlei was declared a RAMSAR site in 1991.

Articles about the Verlorenvlei:

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