When walking through renosterveld, your eye may suddenly catch bright white patches shimmering among the green-grey vegetation. These patches look like small islands surrounded by typical renosterveld vegetation – and that is exactly why they are called quartz islands.
Bird lovers and conservation enthusiasts, eager to deepen their birding knowledge and bird with a purpose, converged on our Haarwegskloof Renosterveld Reserve in November, to learn from one of the country’s top conservation biologists.
It’s truly awe-inspiring to see what happens when like-minded people come together around a cause that touches their hearts. When that collective energy fuels efforts to protect our natural world, it carries even more meaning.
The Overberg Renosterveld Trust (ORT) has been named the organisational winner of the 2025 WWF Living Planet Award – one of the highest honours in South African conservation.
What began as curiosity has become a full-blown passion: to seek out, photograph and identify the miniature marvels that make up the hidden life of renosterveld.