An historic conservation corridor has been created linking the Baviaanskloof Mega-Reserve through the Kouga Mountains to the Tsitsikamma.

The 12 000ha Kouga Canyons Conservancy connects five different landowners through 35 different farms, re-creating an ancient migration route used by wildlife before it was cut off by farming 250 years ago.

Significant in itself, the launch of the conservancy is also being celebrated as a giant first step in the long-held dream of linking the Garden Route to the Addo Elephant Park via the Baviaans.

The farmers have each committed themselves to a “wilderness ethic” and to leaving at least 90 per cent of their land unfarmed. One of the members is Rob le Roux, of Baviaans Lodge, which already offers tourism activities ranging from birding and walks to bushman caves to river rafting.

A key element of the embracing corridor is a series of little kloofs – including Doringkloof on Le Roux’s land, Opkomskloof and Joubertskraal – that run north-south through each property.

Game, birds and trees migrate up and down these kloofs and seldom venture across the harsh intervening land, creating separate micro-worlds.

A new enterprise in the conservancy is the Skilderkrans Nature Reserve and Conservation Initiative, which offers a wildlife and wellness sanctuary. The breakthrough that made the conservancy possible was engineered by the Landmark Foundation, a new Eastern Cape conservation NGO formed 11 months ago.

The organisation was formed “to work with strategic partners to develop innovative mechanisms to create viable economic opportunities and local economic development through conservation-friendly land-uses”, according to director Dr Bool Smuts.

Smuts, a doctor employed previously by the Wilderness Foundation, said yesterday that the new conservancy was evidence of how rural landowners generally were “buying into the conservation ethic and seeing how it makes economic sense.

“The goal of the conservancy is to set in place initiatives to effectively restore and conserve the indigenous biodiversity, the aesthetic and wilderness character and cultural heritage of the area.”

Members are committed to working together to explore how existing commercial enterprises, like honey tea farming or fruit orchards, for instance, can be combined with the natural environment in a valuable “conservation economy” package, which also contributes to social upliftment.

Le Roux said the conservancy had ambitious expansion plans and members were keen to engage with any other landowners who were keen to work together with the group.