Building the next generation of conservationists
The children who grow up here will decide what happens to this coast long after we have stopped arguing about it. So we take them out into it.
Working with Lessons in Conservation, we run educational camps for children from Mbotyi Junior Secondary School. Two camps have run so far.
The camps are hands-on rather than classroom-bound, and they stick to what the children can walk to:
- Biodiversity — how much plant and animal life Pondoland actually holds, and how little of it exists anywhere else.
- How ecosystems work — and what happens when one piece is removed.
- The coast and the ocean — the beaches, the estuaries and the reefs they already know, explained.
Where this goes
Children who understand why a place matters tend to defend it. That is the whole wager. With two camps behind us we want to reach more of the children in this area, so that the next generation of Pondoland’s conservationists are from Pondoland.
