Eight of us (our family and my in-laws) went on a road trip to have a picnic lunch at a nature reserve on South Africa's beautiful West Coast. There's a small entrance/conservation fee to the Rocherpan Nature Reserve. It's a coastal reserve teeming with birds and colorful wildflowers. It was established in 1966, and the adjacent section of the Atlantic Ocean was declared a marine reserve in 1988. The protected sand dunes, fynbos (flora), bird life, etc. all contribute to a wild coast experience.
Rocherpan Nature Reserve promotes responsible and sustainable tourism. They utilize low-impact building methods, waterless toilets, and rainwater capture. The eco-cabins and bird hides are also universally accessible.
I was impressed with the steps the nature reserve was taking to ensure responsible tourism. On 22 May is International Biodiversity Day and the theme is sustainable tourism. If you would like to help spread the word for the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the sustainable tourism project, then visit ThunderClap.It. This will allow a once-off message, which you can edit, to be posted to your Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr on that day. It just takes two clicks! I have already joined the campaign with my Twitter account.
I will share photos of the actual picnic next week. We even saw dolphins in the water and I took photos of them playing in the waves!
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The Rocherpan Nature Reserve on YouTube
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| Tina Morley |
All original photographs
by Tina Morley
unless stated otherwise.
