Preserving our Precious Natural Heritage

Grootbos Nature Reserve is situated on the Agulhas Plain in the heart of the Cape Floral Kingdom, a region of unprecedented biodiversity value, under extreme pressure from factors such as expanding urbanization, agriculture, poaching, uncontrolled fires and invasive alien plants.

Socioeconomic issues are amplifying the effect of these threats. For generations the plight of poor rural communities has been largely ignored. In many of the towns and villages poverty is rife and as much as half of the inhabitants are unemployed. It is imperative that solutions combine the needs of the region’s people with that of the environment.

At Grootbos our conservation initiatives are therefore focused on providing sustainable nature based livelihoods for local people as well as protecting and restoring our unique natural heritage.

To achieve these goals, the non-profit Grootbos Foundation was established during 2004.

Funds generated by the Grootbos ecotourism business, together with donations received from guests and other donors are invested through the foundation into implementing key conservation and development projects. In this way all Grootbos guests are directly supporting biodiversity conservation and social upliftment in the Walker Bay region.

The key projects developed by the foundation to achieve its goals are: Green Futures, Growing the Future, the Youth Development Programme and Future Trees. To visit these innovative projects and meet the inspiring people behind the scenes, join Grootbos on a guided Social Responsibility Tour.

Since 1991, Grootbos has grown from a 123-hectare farm to now include seven farms totaling 2500 hectares of land under conservation. Much of this land had previously been poorly managed as cattle and flower harvesting farms to the detriment of the region’s biodiversity, and provided few livelihood opportunities. Over the years Grootbos staff have cleared all alien vegetation from the property, restored damaged areas and now manage the land according to strict ecological principals. The tourism development and associated non-profit programmes of the Grootbos Foundation now employ in excess of 150 full time staff, some 80% of whom are from local disadvantaged communities.