NVT Newsletter October 2021
After many years of service to the Trust, some of our long-standing Trustees have decided to hang up their boots, paddles, surfboards and snorkels.
The NVT has been blessed with a powerful team of Trustees for many years and we are extremely grateful to these trustees for all the time, effort and knowledge they have poured into the team and the organisation over the last 21 years. A massive thank you to Guy Hayward, James Allan, James van Hasselt and Graeme Montgomery, who will be stepping down as Trustees after all these years of service.
We have been fortunate to be able to replace them with a new group of eager and talented individuals who include:
Thank you all for committing yourself and your valuable time to the NVT and our purpose to maintain the environmental integrity of Nature’s Valley and surrounds for future generations.
Chris van Melle Kamp and Lindy Rodwell-van Hasselt remain on the Board.
Otter Trail African Run
It is that time of the year again. The Otter African Trail Run is upon us and this week our little village is buzzing with trail runners from around the country, and some of the fastest trail runners in the land. Competitors will be starting at Storms River this year and finishing at De Vasselot Campsite.
The Nature’s Valley Trust has formed an exciting partnership with the race organisers, Magnetic South, and we are thrilled to be a part of the proceedings. As like in previous years, we will be facilitating a shoe monitoring station where we will ensure that each runners shoes are clean of any possible invasive alien plant seeds that could otherwise be deposited along the trails.
We will also have two local runners participating in the event. Our very own Graduate Scientist David Krone and a local runner from Kurland Village by the name of Jason Swemmer will be testing themselves on this gruelling course.
They are running in the name of the Nature’s Valley Trust and if you would like to support them in their efforts, please click here to their Back a Buddy page. Donations of all sizes are most welcome and will help us to continue our mission to protect this piece of coastline. Jason will be running the challenge on Thursday and David will be competing in the race on Saturday. If you see them make sure to wish them luck!
Magnetic South also gifted NVT an entry to put on auction for our supporters. This silent auction was won by a collective bid made by the Evans and Purdon family. Simon Purdon who is a very strong runner will be taking the entry. A huge thank you for those that submitted such generous bids. Proceeds from this auction are going towards NVT’s research and conservation work focused on the Fynbos and coastal areas.
In September, together with Magnetic South we hosted a training day for the individuals from the Covie community that will be working on the race. The focus of the day was safety, marshalling, and mitigating environmental impacts.
We led them on a hike to Salt River as many in the group had never been before. The atmosphere was buzzing with excitement and along the way we educated the group on erosion caused by trail use, how to control invasive species and manage litter.
We also took this time to educate the group on the work NVT is doing with a focus on our shorebird research and fishing line bins. Hereafter, the NSRI generously came and gave a talk about water safety which was met with a lot of interest.
The Lawnwood Snake Sanctuary also brought down some serpents, which are common to the area and spoke on the importance of protecting them and what to do in the case of an encounter. Finally, we sat together, enjoyed a braai and got to know one another better. We look forward to more engagements like this in the future!
Environmental Education and Community Engagement
It has been a busy month with environmental education and community work slowly picking up momentum. Our annual International Coastal Clean-Up Day was hosted on the 18th of September on Central beach, Plettenberg Bay. We had a great turnout attributing to the success of the day, with approximately 13 bags of rubbish being collected through “connecting and collecting”.
*There has also been another major wash-up of nurdles along our coastline. NVT would like to appeal to our supporters to please collect these pesky plastic pellets when you visit the beach. The NVT office is a drop-off facility for nurdles collected in the greater Plettenberg Bay area.*
The NVT team also assisted Visions of Change SA with an afternoon of tree planting at The Crags Primary school in celebration of Arbour month. As well as partnering with Greenpop in our area as part of their Eden Festival of Action, bringing an inspired group of people together with the Save a Fishie team and CapeNature to conduct a microplastic hunt on Nature’s Valley beach.
Developing the capacity of young environmental professionals has always been central to our efforts, earlier this year NVT and The Aquarium Foundation (Two Oceans Aquarium) entered into a collaborative MOU which saw the grade 6 learners of two local schools enrolling in the accredited online marine biology course. The lessons have recently come to an end, and the learners have thoroughly enjoyed them and have each taken something new and fascinating into their future to make meaningful changes. We can’t wait to continue with and grow this partnership.
Thank you all for committing yourself and your valuable time to the NVT and our purpose to maintain the environmental integrity of Nature’s Valley and surrounds for future generations.
Chris van Melle Kamp and Lindy Rodwell-van Hasselt remain on the Board.
Research and Conservation
Our shorebird season has officially started. Nature’s Valley’s first nest for this season had failed about 5 days later when we went to have another look on September 1st. The reason of failure is unknown, with no obvious signs of flooding or predation found in the immediate nesting area.
Since this, we have had no new little eggs on our sands, but all our males are very furiously scraping for their females at the moment. We even have a brand-new couple joining the Nature’s Valley population scrutinizing the dunes very closely for that prime real estate this area is so touted for.
Hopefully, very soon we can brag with you about our new nests and some chicks running around on the dunes. Remember to #ShareTheShores and follow our beach dog regulations.
In this edition of our refreshed Newsletter, we would like to thank Julian Muller for taking up the translation of our newsletters. That’s right, we will now be circulating an Afrikaans version of our Newsletters too. There might be some wrinkles to iron out with regards to the format of our current mailing list so please let us know if you have a language preference so we can move you to your preferred list.
Kind regards,
NVT Team