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As most of the province's biodiversity is in private ownership, CapeNature initiated the Biodiversity Stewardship programme in 2003. This programme facilitates conservation on privately owned land by setting up agreements between the landowners and CapeNature.

The landowners undertake to protect and manage their properties or parts thereof according to sound conservation management principles. CapeNature undertakes to support this management by providing advice, management plans and assistance in planning invasive alien species clearing and fire management schedules. It also allows for the private landowner to benefit more from the biodiversity through ecologically sensitive income-generating avenues such as eco-tourism or green labelling of agricultural produce (e.g. Business and Biodiversity Initiatives).

Due to limited resources available to the Stewardship programme, only the top priorities can be targeted for Stewardship. These priorities are identified in CapeNature’s Protected Areas Expansion and Implementation Strategy of 2010 which highlights a subset of the province's Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBAs).

According to this strategy, the aim for 2015 is to secure an additional 79 100 ha in the province through Stewardship agreements between land owners and either CapeNature or other conservation agencies.

CapeNature and landowners work in close cooperation to conserve the phenomenal biodiversity of the Cape Floral Kingdom. Download the attached document to see some of our current Stewardship Sites.

The vision of the Stewardship Program is threefold:

• To ensure that privately owned areas with high biodiversity value receive secure conservation status and are linked to a network of other conservation areas in the landscape.
• To ensure that landowners who commit their property to a stewardship option, will enjoy tangible benefits for their conservation actions.
• To expand biodiversity conservation by encouraging commitment to, and implementation of, good biodiversity management practice, on privately owned land, in such a way that the private landowner becomes an empowered decision maker.

CapeNature's four Stewardship options

The Four Stewardship options that the CapeNature Conservation Stewardship Programme are promoting include:

1. Contract Nature Reserves - Contract Nature Reserves are legally recognized contracts or servitudes on private land to protect biodiversity in the long term.
2. Biodiversity Agreements - Biodiversity Agreements are negotiated legal agreements between the conservation agency and a landowner for conserving biodiversity in the medium term.
3. Protected Environments - Legally recognised contracts resulting in formally Protected Areas. Usually created by groups of landowners in areas buffering Nature Reserves or Parks or sufficiently large to be self-contained ecosystems.
4. Conservation Areas - Conservation Areas are flexible options with no defined period of commitment (includes conservancies).

Stewardship Website Links:

• www.diepoort.net
• www.conservationatwork.co.za

Conservation at Work is the umbrella body for all conservancies and conservation minded landowners of the Western Cape.   Conservation on private land is essential to ensure connectivity of natural areas in our landscape and the conservation of our valuable biodiversity.    

Once known as the Western Cape Conservation Stewardship Association (WCCSA), the association recently underwent a process of rebranding which led to the renaming to Conservation at Work (C@W).   

Conservation at Work encourages the sharing of conservation knowledge between conservancies and partners.  If you have any questions,  ideas or would like to get involved with Conservation at Work, please contact Anne at annedp@ncc-group.co.za or check out their Facebook page or website www.conservationatwork.co.za.

Download any of the documents below: