The Garden Route to Addo conservation corridor initiative that aims to link with formal protected areas between the Garden Route, Baviaanskloof and Addo Elephant National Park through the collaboration with conservation-minded landowners.
The Garden Route is one of the premier tourism destinations in Southern Africa; evidenced by the fact that more than 25% of all foreign visitors to South Africa visit the area as part of their visit to the country. The area has been subject to unprecedented growth of the housing and resort sectors. Recent efforts, supported by GEF, Conservation International and the South African government has seen localised protected area expansion programmes in the Garden Route, Baviaanskloof and Addo National Park. This initiative will seek to establish the link between these localised initiatives.
Through a conservancy mechanism (20 000 hectares) the Landmark Foundation has effected a corridor connection between the Garden Route conservation areas in the Tsitsikamma Mountains and the Baviaanskloof. This is a first major step in effecting the long held dream (and often described as an impossible ambition) of connecting the protected areas of the Garden Route and Addo. This major initiative is ambitiously hoping to create, through public-private partnerships, an ecological corridor of (perhaps) 2 million hectares to enable and restore historical, ecological and evolutionary migration of genetic material and species along this corridor. Other conservancies are in various stages of development presently. click here to visit the landmark foundation.
