I live in an urban area. My work has taken me all over South Africa, to the major cities, big towns, small towns and rural parts of the country. Recently, over the past years, through my work,  I have consistently worked in three landscapes across four provinces in three biodiversity hotspots, namely: The Namaqualand Landscape, situated in the Succulent Karoo Hotspot in the Northern Cape Province; the Umzimvubu Landscape, situated in the southern section of the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Hotspot in the Eastern Cape Province, and the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Landscape, in the northern section of the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Hotspot in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces of South Africa.

Because of the unique and diverse biodiversity found in these landscapes, they attract a great number of first time and return visitors from all over the world, making tourism, accommodation, wild life, people  and small enterprises, integral parts of the local Eco-tourism and wild life economies in these areas.

I have  interacted with everyday people who live and work in these areas; community members from villages in an around these areas; small business owners working to make a living; managers and staff that operate and work in  nature and game reserves situated in close proximity to these areas. In this blog, I tell the stories from my experiences during my visits to these three, iconic landscapes of South Africa.