Dear Friends of the Environment,
A feast for the eye … join your “guides” Pam Booth and Joan Berning on a visual journey along the Eden to Addo Great Corridor.
Date:- Thursday, 2nd February 17h30 for 18h00
Venue :- Fancourt Conference Centre
Entry:- R50 fundraiser forEdento Addo Corridor Initiative
Joint Event:- WESSA George/Sedgefield Branch and Fancourt
Cash bar available
THE DREAM
The Eden to Addo vision is based on the practical potential within the landscape connecting the Western and Eastern Cape of South Africa, but this vision is guided by a deeper question and dream: What if we could re-establish ancient elephant migration paths across the Cape, what then? What other wildlife will benefit and how will that restore the ecological balance of the region.
OUR VISION
To link three mega-reserves, namely the Garden Route National Park, The Baviaanskloof Mega Reserve and the Addo Elephant National Park by means of natural corridors to protect and restore the integrity of bio-diversity and eco-system functioning.
OUR MISSION
To assist and engage with landowners and all stakeholders to identify and develop a living corridor from Eden to Addo by applying sound land-use practices, encouraging a diversity of environmentally sustainable livelihoods and linking ecological important areas , for the benefit of biodiversity and the extended community.
What is a corridor ?
A Conservation Corridor is an effective pattern of habitats linking existing protected areas to ensure ecological connectivity for species, communities and ecological processes. At it’s simplest a conservation corridor is a strip of land connecting two protected areas. In recent years conservationists have acknowledged that putting a fence around an area and proclaiming a park or reserve is insufficient to protect the patterns and processes that are required for proper ecological functioning at a regional level. Fragmentation of the landscape causes the death of species and therefore a decrease in biodiversity. A key element in conservation biology is reversing the extinction of species.
Protection and restoration of connectivity is not an artificial change to the landscape: rather it is the loss of connectivity and the isolation of natural environments that is the artefact of human land use (Noss 1991).
In most situations the linking habitat already exists, it is a characteristic feature of natural environments, but has not been identified as such or managed appropriately. Linkages in the landscape exist in various forms, landscape linkages, riparian linkages, hedgerows, fencerows and roadside linkages.
The functions of a corridor are as follows
- To enable migration and interbreeding of plants and animals
- Facilitate movement between ecosystems by both large and small animals
- Maintain key ecological processes (seed dispersal, pollination, nutrient cycling, predator-prey interactions, proper functioning of the hydrological cycle) across different types of habitats
- Maintain habitats that aid movement by animals through a degraded environment
- Serve as a fire escape
- Allow for the re-colonization of indigenous plants in degraded patches
- Enhance the long-term survival of larger herbivore and carnivore species by safe-guarding their home ranges
- Ensure the flow of ecosystem services that contribute to the overall ecological sustainability of an area
- Enhance the biodiversity of the landscape in which the corridor occurs
More info @ www.edentoaddo.co.za
We look forward to seeing you there.
Regards,
Christine Ridge-Schnaufer
Honorary Secretary ,
WESSA George/Sedgefield Branch and
FROGH – Friends of the George Heronry
Tel: 044 873 4203
Fax: 086 646 5458
e-mail :
wessageorge@isat.co.za
www.wessa.org.za
