Mega Reserve Mega Attitude Shift

What do you do when a nature reserve comes knocking on your door? The Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve is changing lives in Little Karoo dorps

- Marion Whitehead

“You effect the declaration of the 3 000 000-hectare Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve (GCBR) had on him. He stepped out of his front door in Oudtshoorn and said to himself, “Now I am in a nature reserve, how should it look?” and promptly carted off a load of scrap to recycle. Then he planted two indigenous trees on the pavement outside his wife Ilse’s guest house, Attakwas Cottage.

Oudtshoorn is the largest town in our newest mega biosphere reserve that incorporates towns, dorps and intensively farmed areas into transition zones, where the aim is to reduce negative impact on the environment.

Sustainably farmed areas and game farms are part of the buffer zones, while at the core are formally protected reserves, such as CapeNature’s Swartberg and Anysberg nature reserves. The mega reserve is huge, incorporating the entire catchment of the Gouritz River and its tributaries. It stretches from Montagu in the west to Uniondale in the east, and from Prince Albert in the north to the coast between Witsand and east of Mossel Bay.

Katot’s neighbouring school sports field, used as a campsite during the Klein Karoo Kunstefees, came under his scrutiny too, and he and his pal, architect Etto von Bonde, joined forces to plant hardy indigenous trees around it. “We received 100 trees sponsored, by asking people to donate R140, paid directly to a local nursery,” explains Katot on a trip to the cricket ground to water the thriving trees. “These trees are something that one person could do. They are now an asset for the school and for Oudtshoorn. We are the main town in the GCBR and must set an example.”