Pristine fynbos in full spectacular floral bloom and a vista of views across False Bay and the Atlantic Ocean is just a fraction of what can be expected when visiting the Cape Point section of the Table Mountain National Park. With a number of day-walks
Fynbos is not easy to define, but it is essentially a term for an evergreen, hard-leafed shrubland vegetation type, or collection of plants, that is primarily associated with nutrient-poor soils and often, though not exclusively, with a winter-rainfall Mediterranean-type climate. It is characterised by four
The Cape Mountain Zebra’s entire population is restricted to the southern mountains of the Western and Eastern Cape Provinces and at the turn of the century the species was at the brink of extinction, reaching a total low population of around ninety animals in the
One of the key values of protected areas is to ensure that the biodiversity of a biome is protected and allowed to function in accordance with natural processes. The Cape Floristic Kingdom is the richest of the world’s six plant kingdoms, proportional to size, and
Lying just off the N2 highway on the outskirts of Swellendam, the scenically beautiful Bontebok National Park comprises of open landscapes of pristine fynbos that are ringed by the distant Langeberg Mountains and the tranquilly flowing Breede River. Bontebok National Park may be the smallest national
Biodiversity in the Cape Floristic Kingdom (CFK) is worth vast amounts to the South African economy. The wild flower industry alone is worth R150 million per annum – 80% of this as foreign exchange. The Cape deciduous fruit industry, that is worth R1 billion per
The biodiversity conservation of the Cape Floral Kingdom was given a major boost on 3 July 2015, when UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee approved the expansion of the Cape Floral Region Protected Areas (CFRPA) World Heritage Site. With the approval of this expansion the CFRPA has
The marriage of conservation and human development has never been a happy one; historically the one has usually been accomplished at the expense of the other one. Conservation has excluded human development and has sometimes compromised it, while human development has often been achieved at
Habitat transformation in the Cape Floristic Kingdom (CFK) has been extreme since the time when Jan van Riebeeck landed in South Africa in 1652. As much as 31% of the CFK has already been completely transformed, with the major threats being agriculture, alien plants, afforestation
Lamberts Bay, along our west coast, is best known for Bird Island and the 10 000 strong population of breeding Cape Gannets. It attracts thousands of visitors each year who come to view and photograph these charismatic seabirds from the carefully designed viewing hide and