What were we doing in KZN?

Laurence films Doug while Mbali checks a weir in Penny Park

Mbali and Doug look out across the Penny Park wetland
 form the ridge on the north side

Late Friday afternoon and I really just want to go home,  The building is quiet, the sun has set behind the mountain and there are just too many things swirling around in my head.  But on may schedule for the whole week has been a promise to get down a few words about my trip last week to KZN, exploring the next CareTakers film shoot.  On the itinerary were three sites, two for direct visits to look at the potential of the stories that represented, and a third a bridge just too far.   Actually we discovered another wetland that from the outset we knew would be just too far, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, or Greater St Lucia,   The irony being that we have now decided that that is where we will go to get the footage which we need to complete "Making the Case for Biodiversity".   Instead we did a sort of deductive process, and ruled out the site that we did visit for that purpose.   As delightful, instructive and pleasing as it was as a model wetland restoration site, Penny Park just outside of Kokstad didn't quite have the oomph that we needed in profile to match the footage that we'd already captured at COP17 and the Living Beehive at Durban Botanic Gardens (see earlier posts).  We, Laurence and myself, were treated to a great drive around PennyPark by project implementer Doug Woods and the WfWet Provincial Coordinator, Mbali Goge, who showed us the amazing things that can be done to bring back gouged out wetlands from the bring of disaster, using judiciously placed concrete weirs while generating work opportunities in the local community.   I'm not going to get that all written up now,   We did get a bit of footage of Doug and Mbali explaining things, and hopefully next week I can cut that and get it posted to YouTube,   In the mean time I'll try to find a still to plonk in here.    The other two project which are up for attention some time in the future, after we've made the case, are projects within the SANBI Grasslands Programme,  The one closest to receiving film making attention is the Umgano project in which the local Mabandla community, under the leadership of iNkosi Baleni, and the conservation guidance of Dr Bill Bainbridge, are building a model of sustainable land use which combines traditional land use, commercial stockfarming, and commercial timber production along with extensive grasslands conservation.   But that's a story for next week.    I think I just really needed to say that there is some wonderfully positive conservation work going on that is confronting the challenges faced by South Africa as it still struggles to find its liberated feed in a changing world that will have to be governed by a green economy.

iNkosi Baleni and Bill Bainbridge pause for a pic outside the iNkosi's office and meeting room