Many of us have felt the call of a deep passion, the strong desire to take on a specific cause close and dear to our hearts. But this burning, this passion that seems to fuel us, often has no outlet or arena in which to manifest. Standing against unseen forces, we often feel helpless, unheard and overwhelmed.
You may know about the projects The Green Net gets involved in. We actively support conservation, removing alien invasive plants and producing our Biodiversity Calendar to promote indigenous vegetation and provide all sorts of useful info about local ecology; we encourage you to recycle and become more environmentally conscious; we have our Eco-brick project and Training Garden; and we campaign against environmental crimes like illegal mining and the breaching of river mouths, to name but a few. But beneath all of this are some driving passions, from the mundane to the more fantastical.
Today, I’d like to share one of our most sacred visions for our magical coast.
In our very recent past, just as the coast was being settled by Europeans and became an important Port, we had wild elephants roaming our coastline. This forest that they called home stretched from the Umdoni forest in Pennington down to Port Edward. It was interlaced with grasslands and ravines and supplied all they required to thrive. Humans with guns happened, and the elephants disappeared.
From what we have learnt through reparation projects all over the world when an ecosystem starts being restored, the original inhabitants will reappear in the land naturally. Like most of Africa, our coastal strip was filled with all types of wildlife, and we believe that, by preserving what we have and establishing green corridors for the animals to roam in, we may be on track towards creating an environment in which the essence of the elephants will feel at home – and, in this way, attract back onto our beaches these mystical, majestic animals.
It is this seemingly unobtainable goal that moves me to take on all these other campaigns. It is about the bigger picture, not just one single thing. It is the whole, and we are part of it.
There is no point in giving up. If all of us keep believing we can’t change anything on our own, nothing will ever change.
Be the champion for your cause, be a voice for the voiceless, stand up for injustice, let that fire within you burn, and look at the sparks you will ignite when you let your voice be heard.
HAVE YOUR SAY
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