The Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Threatened Amphibian Programme has received $25 000 from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund to support a project to revive Durban’s Critically Endangered Dwarf Burrowing Skink at a key habitat site within the species restricted range.

The Durban Dwarf Burrowing Skink (Scelotes inornatus) – primarily a fossorial limbless species – is one of South Africa’s most threatened reptiles. The aim of the project, which starts on 1 March 2024, is to safeguard the last known stronghold of Durban Dwarf Burrowing Skinks, ensuring the viability of species into the future.

The EWT’s Threatened Amphibian Programme (TAP) is the only NGO programme operating in South Africa to include frogs as a conservation focus. Using threatened frog species as flagships for the conservation of important freshwater and terrestrial habitats, a species and habitat monitoring exercise has been implemented alongside initiating habitat protection strategies at key amphibian areas, improving management of important amphibian habitat, using research to support conservation action, and promoting social change to galvanise behavioural change towards frogs and to recognise the importance of their habitats in South Africa.

More recently the EWT’s approach has broadened to include reptiles. The project to revive Durban’s Dwarf Burrowing Skink follows a similar initiative to protect vital habitat for the Endangered Albany Adder. The project to revive the Skinks will focus on a reptile confined to the Durban area.

Historically, it is thought that the species could be found throughout Durban’s coastline. However, the species is on the brink of extinction due to a series of anthropomorphic challenges. The historical population north of Durban is believed to be extinct, and remaining surviving populations to the south are scattered over several extremely small habitat fragments (ranging from 0.01 – 1.7 km2) and totalling a mere 5 km2. As a result of this limited distribution, the species is referred to as a ‘micro-endemic’.

Between 2015 and 2018, the EWT’s Threatened Amphibian Programme (TAP) carried out a substantial invasive plant-clearing initiative. Approximately 310 hectares of invasive plants within the coastal dune areas of Durban, including the should-be Critically Endangered Sandy Coastal Belt Grassland where the Burrowing Skink resides, have been cleared and maintained. This habitat restoration work has contributed to improving the conditions for the species, but more work is required.