OVERBERG RENOSTERVELD CONSERVATION TRUST NEWS
Newsletter 39 | April 2026
by Dr Odette Curtis-Scott
Less than 5% of renosterveld remains today.
Much of what survives exists on privately owned farmland, making partnerships with landowners one of the most important tools we have to protect this globally significant ecosystem.
Over the past few months, we’ve been reminded again of just how important our renosterveld partnerships are. From new conservation easements and expanding ecological networks, to research revealing the hidden challenges facing renosterveld species, our work continues to show that conservation at landscape scale is essential – and urgent.
At the heart of this work are people: landowners who choose to conserve, researchers helping us better understand these landscapes and supporters and donors who make this work possible.
What’s coming up
In our latest newsletter, we share a new conservation easement that protects a large, connected landscape, explore the invisible crisis facing pollinators in renosterveld and reveal new and worrying insights from tracking young Black Harriers.
You’ll also find opportunities to visit our Haarwegskloof Renosterveld Reserve this winter, and join us for one of our Wild & Wise retreats.
Thank you for being part of this journey – and for helping us build a more secure future for renosterveld.
A book for all ages, to bring out the child in you
A new, richly illustrated children’s book is hoping to inspire a lifelong love of nature by telling the story of one of South Africa’s most threatened birds – the Black Harrier, BirdLife South Africa’s Bird of the Year for 2026.
Renewable energy the need for clearer direction
One of the greatest supposed solutions to climate change on a global scale is proving to be one of the greatest conservation challenges facing the Overberg today.
A new renosterveld species discovered at Haarwegskloof
In the heart of the Overberg, within one of the world’s most threatened ecosystems, a renosterveld species has waited for millennia to be officially recognised.


