Siyakwamukela - Welcome - Welkom

_{All photos on this home page were taken by ARZA’s National Team}

Bollow the Monster, Forest Ecology and Children at Risk

In July A Rocha KZN's environmental education team presented a five morning holiday club to 100 children from child-headed households in the Lula Isandla child care network, Mphophomeni, near Howick. Because there isn't a forest near Mphophomeni we created one with nursery trees and our imaginations. We made a puppet and a story to introduce forest ecology and conservation from within the children's own experience. Our programme materials for the club are available for reproduction on our resources page, here

Phila Endalweni-Vuya Endaweni Poised for Take Off in a Challenging Environment

During this International Year of Biodiversity funding constraints have hindered ARZA's ability to share the wonder of creation through our wilderness learning programmes. ARZA is developing business plans to implement wilderness education in municipal conservation areas like Bisley Valley Nature Reserve in KZN or Papegaaiberg in the Western Cape. We are following up three funding grant applications for Phila Endalweni programmes in KZN and Vuya Endaweni programmes in Stellenbosch, while further grant writing is in progress. We are faced with the situation that if funding is not found within the next month, we will have to close down our KZN wilderness learning operation. If you pray, please remember our fund development work, and our hope to make a significant contribution to educating the next generation.

To highlight the local significance of biodiversity for the city of Pietermaritzburg Allen Goddard's photo essay Where the Wild Things Go, was published, in part, last month in The Witness. You can read  the whole essay with Allen's photographs here

Ferncliffe GREEN Challenge

This year's Ferncliffe GREEN Challenge has been sponsored by the MAtthew 25:23 Trust and will be presented by A Rocha KZN, the Ferncliffe Catchment Conservancy and Pietermaritzburg 4th Scouts Division. It takes place on Saturday 23 October. We have 2000 indigenous trees to plant in the Ferncliffe Nature Reserve. Already 300 have been booked. Join us this year as we host one of South Africa's truly carbon neutral events and help us more than quadruple the number of participants who planted last year! Find a booking form here (application/msword, 187.4 kB, info)