Rietkraal Nature Reserve environmental photography project. The reserve is under joint management between GCBR, WWF and Cape Nature :
The winter rains have proven how effective the erosion control methods employed here have been and the area is blooming. The environmental photography is used to share this best practice, celebrate biodiversity and help advocate conservation.

The Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve is a South African based, non-profit organisation dedicated to ecological restoration and protection. On 9 June 2015, the 3.2-million-hectare area that makes up Gouritz Cluster was officially designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and declared a place of major biodiversity significance for the planet.

Rietkraal Nature Reserve environmental photography South Africa

Environmental photographers document our everyday life, natural environments, and the changes in them. As a contemporary Environmental photographer in Africa I focus on landscape and wildlife photography to create social awareness about the importance of conservation of wilderness areas.

The role of environmental photographers as conservationists has a long history. Ansel Adams is the most famous nature photographer in history – he’s also well known for his environmental conservation efforts. Ansel Adams was commissioned to capture the national parks, and his most famous landscape photographs are from the Yosemite National Park. Photographs leave a valuable record of time and place. They celebrate the beauty of the environment. The photographer has the power to awaken the populace to the value of land as a precious resource.

My aim is to engage viewers with the environment so that they can form a connection with a physical place of conservation importance. All I can hope for is that people be moved by the sheer magnificence of the environment depicted and that these images play some part in highlighting the need to conserve the remaining wilderness areas that exist, not only in my small corner of the Western Cape, but in all of South Africa.

“Images have the power to affect how we feel about the natural world and therefore how we treat it.”
David Attenborough