A conservation biologist from South Africa has won a prestigious Whitley Award worth £40,000 to support her quest to save threatened amphibians. Dr Jeanne Tarrant works for the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), where she manages the Threatened Amphibian Programme. The EWT is the only NGO in South Africa to include frogs as a conservation focus. The Whitley Awards, often … [Read more...]
Community in the Gap talking for Nature
The great spiritual getaway - for me - has always been to the burly mountains of the Northern Drakensberg. Every year some inexplicable force lures me towards the Amphitheatre, where I let myself be swept away by its healing magnificence. Here, it seems, I can touch divinity. For here, the ever invasive human footprint has been managed and kept to a minimum. All that, it seems, … [Read more...]
Drakensberg also under threat of fracking
Many people are aware of the recent campaign in the Karoo against a proposed natural gas mining process known as hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking'. However most do not realise that large parts of the Free State, Eastern Cape Highlands and KZN are also under threat. This map confirms that a consortium of Sasol, Statoil and Chesapeake have been granted exploration licenses … [Read more...]
Hydropower conference to remove barriers
"Investment in small hydropower projects in Africa will increase if tariff and non tariff barriers are removed, which will boost investor confidence" says Leonard Kassana, a well-known international hydropower consultant with the Investment Climate Facility for Africa (ICF) at the Ministry of Infrastructure in Rwanda. Following a feasibility study for small hydropower … [Read more...]
Nature, melody and poetry
I am walking with John Roff up the slopes of a krans on the Hilton College Estate, some 600 hectares of wild land that lies between the school and the Umgeni River where giraffes, zebra, buck and blue wildebeest roam. John is the environmental education officer of the school. I have come to the College as writer in residence and John takes me into the wilderness so I can … [Read more...]
