Conservation Landscapes Institute
Establishing a Resilient Nature-Based Economy within the Albany Biosphere of the Eastern Cape of South Africa
The Initiative
Given that seven of South Africa’s nine biomes, and a high proportion of the country’s species richness occurs within the Eastern Cape of South Africa, the region has rightly been recognized to be of global biodiversity significance.
Furthermore, over the past 20 years, the Eastern Cape has seen significant, but geographically fragmented, investment into the expansion of State Protected Areas and the establishment of private wildlife reserves and game ranches. However, as these areas are ecologically small and are often isolated, they require a network of corridors to link them so that their true conservation significance can be achieved.
The Conservation Landscapes Institute has thus been registered as a South African Non-Profit Organisation to help facilitate the formation of an identified network of contiguous conservation landscapes between the Addo Elephant National Park and the Great Fish River Nature Reserve (referred to as the Albany Biosphere), while also aiming to ensure socio-economic beneficiation through a nature-based economy. Conservation Landscapes Institute’s objectives will be achieved through a facilitated program of engagement and partnership with the region’s diverse stakeholders.
Benefits of Conservation Landscapes
Ecosystem and Biodiversity conservation
Rural socio-economic development
Securing wildlife populations
Environmental and economic insurance against the effects of global change.
Conservation Landscapes Institute Objectives
- Expanding and consolidating ecologically important conservation areas
- Enhancing ecosystem and biodiversity conservation management and protection
- Enhancing ecological and socio-economic research and monitoring
- Supporting the socio-economic development of rural communities
- Integrating protected areas and diverse rural land use
- Supporting and enhancing a sustainable and diverse wildlife and ecosystem tourism industry
- Supporting and enhancing economic enterprise based on wildlife and renewable natural resources
- Supporting and enhancing ecologically compatible regenerative agriculture
- Enabling the elimination of illegal harvesting of wildlife and habitats
Tanglewood Conservation Area
As a first step to achieving Conservation Landscapes Institute’s objectives and in collaboration with Wilderness Foundation Africa, the Tanglewood Conservation Area (765 hectares) has been acquired within the Bushman’s River valley and is being repurposed as a best practice field research station, ecological restoration experimental site, and landscape planning base. Innovative, catalytic and transformative projects that include habitat restoration, carbon reduction and sequisition, integrated conservation management and the expansion of globally threatened species such as black rhino and African elephant are key projects that are already under project design and implementation.
