Page 16 - Landscape SA 99

PROFILE FEATURE

PROFILE ON DEON

VAN EEDEN

Deon van Eeden is the managing director of Vula
Environmental Services, based in the Western Cape. He
holds an MSc Botany in Restoration Ecology, as well as a
National Diploma in Horticulture. In the article below, he
responds to a few questions we posed to him. Deon van Eeden, MD of Vula
Environmental Services

Q: Please give some information on your unconventional problem-solving skills.
horticultural background and why you In the late 1980s I worked with landscape expressing my desire to continue with the
chose this field of work architects before moving back to project and he offered us administrative
contracting, and worked with Hydromulch and payroll assistance in order to get Vula
A: I was a plant collector and gardener and the CSIR on coastal dune management up and running; for this I will always be
from very early on, and horticulture was and road rehabilitation. grateful to him.
therefore a natural direction for me. I
joined the horticulture department of Q: You’ve previously referred to Dave Q: What have been the highlights of your
South African Railways and this provided Kirkby. What role did he play in your career, key projects and SALI Awards?
solid training in a range of skills. In the career and in the formation of Vula
early 1980s, horticultural and landscape Environmental Services? A: When I look back to where we started
training was still one course and this gave in 1996 and I see how some of the staff
me exposure to landscape design as well. A: In 1996, Top Turf was rapidly expanding from those early days have grown with us,
I then became curious about land art operations in the Cape and I took a three- how we started the restoration trajectory
and started studying Fine Arts at UNISA, month contract to see if anything could on an old mine that now supports the
majoring in sculpture and “environmental be done about an old opencast mine on West Coast Fossil Park, I see many small
art”, which is just a fancy way of saying that the west coast. For the next 15 years, the but important steps. Lifelong learning is
I documented alien vegetation control in West Coast Fossil Park became my training entrenched in what we do, and lessons
the Lowveld. ground, my inspiration and the sand in my learned on one project are tweaked and
shoes! applied to the next.
Biomass was always a problem so I buried
it on site under large berms, re-planting Dave Kirkby was curious about the We have contributed to the pool of
and seeding the areas to create park-like research-based environmental restoration knowledge by developing strategies for dry
landscapes. I did low volume herbicide work we were doing, but he did not see it land restoration, making the information
application research on extensive lengths as being aligned to his group’s strategic available and merging restoration and
of railway tracks, working alongside vision, and did not want to renew the ecosystem-based landscaping into the
engineers in the process and developing year-on-year contract. I approached him, main stream.

Big Bay earned Vula the SALI Shield of Excellence Dieprivier conservation area

14 Landscape SA • Issue 99 2021