In South Africa, the extensive presence of invasive alien plants (IAP) has affected water
resources, ecosystem services, indigenous species and the people who depend on it.
The high levels of unemployment present in the country, together with the IAP situation,
triggered the establishment of Working for Water (WfW), a programme for clearing IAP
to recuperate water yield through labour intensive work and conserve biodiversity: winwin-win
objective strategy. After seventeen years in place, the programme requested
the first national prioritisation model to select target areas for the removal of IAPs.
Despite the programme’s win-win-win objectives being communicated, the
prioritisation model paid little attention to poverty alleviation. In this present study, the
multi-criteria analysis model was complemented with further socio-development
indicators, and then evaluated for a set of 14 scenarios planned to evaluate prioritisation
trade-offs. Four additional scenarios were constructed addressing future WfW area
expansion. Results show that there are clear spatial trade-offs when prioritising clearing
areas based on different scenarios. Although spatial restoration planning can be a great
contributor, thoughtful aims and objectives must be defined before a project is put in
place.