K2C Biosphere News

By Vulani Mabunda On the 19 th of July 2019 19x EMS from different host institutions, i.e.   Sefapane, Nourish and Letaba Ranch attended an Environmental Education workshop at Letaba Elephant Hall facilitated by KNP’s Kirsty Reedman and her team. Environmental Education (EE) connects us to the world around us, teaching about both natural built environments, EE raises awareness of issues impacting the environment upon which we depend, as well as actions we can take to improve and sustain it. The specific outcome s from the Workshop was to empower participants to be able to: Design and implement an environmental Education Programme Design and implement a children’s environmental education programme Design and implement an environmental education programme for visitors to a conservation area Through this workshop, EM's acquired a lot of knowledge and experience in terms of Environmental Education:  EM's learned how to integ...

By Naki Mposi Invasive Tick Seed_Coreopsis lanceolate From the 15 to the 16 of July 2019, SANBI’s Biological Invasions Directorate: Mpumalanga Region hosted the Municipal and Stakeholders Workshop on Biological Invasions in Mpumalanga. The purpose of the workshop was to share knowledge and information on invasive species prevention and management from across Mpumalanga including invasive species managers from all levels of governments, organizations and others. The workshop links to the support given to teams clearing alien invasive at the Blyde River Canyon, especially the Blyde Restoration Custodianship team. The workshop was a great learning experience because it helped in understan ding alien invasive species and how to combat the latest threatening alien invasive in our landscape. The theme of the workshop was “Taking Charge of our Natural Capital: An integrated approach to Alien invasive species detection control and management”. The Keynote speaker was Dr. Sebataolo Ra...

by Keneilwe Mmushi The Department of the Environment, Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF) is responsible for protecting, conserving and improving the South African environment and natural resources. As part of their mandate DEFF is required to be proactive and foster innovative thinking and solutions for environmental management. As part of fulfilling its commitments, DEFF has launched a geographically based web-enabled National Screening Tool that aims to provide users the ability to pre-screen their proposed site for environmental impacts before applying for an environmental authorization. DEFF, in partnership with private and public organizations, collated over 100 environmental data sets, such as the South African Protected Areas Database, the Agricultural Land Capability, and Terrestrial biodiversity. These datasets have been overlaid with national parcel and street map data making it possible for users to easily identify a proposed site and establish the...

By Lazaro Sibaya  It has been a very amazing and tough experience participating in the Kruger2Canyon Challenge organised by a partnership between KZN Trail Running, Lowveld Trail Running and the K2C Biosphere. Self-confidence and pride from having just finished my 3 rd Comrades Marathon, were the driving forces to do this trail run, but guess what – wrong assumption. With only 26 days after finishing the Comrades Marathon up run in June, I thought that I am fit enough to conquer a trial run. One thing that never crossed my mind is that I was doing a trail run for the first time, up the mountain with the highest point that is 2 times higher than the comrades’! On the 6 th of July after 20 minutes from the start, I had already fallen 2-3 times, sweating and breathing heavily. “What am I doing here actually? Is the climbing going to become severely worse? What about cramps that my thigh muscles are starting to develop? But I’m a champ ‘moes’, 3x consecutive Comrades ...