Commonwealth NGOs related to forestry

SOUTH AFRICA

Wilderness Foundation South Africa

PO Box 12509

Centrahil, Port Elizabeth

Eastern Cape 6006

South Africa

Email:  info@sa.wild.org

Website: www.wildernessfoundation.org.za/

Type:  NGO   

Scope:  national   

Interest in Forestry:  peripheral

Description

Our mission is the protection and sustainability of African wilderness and wild lands through integrated conservation, experiential education and social programmes, the benefits of which support cultural, biodiversity, scientific, socio-economic and spiritual values.”

The Wilderness Foundation's Philosophy

The Wilderness Foundation has a basic belief  that wilderness is the foundation upon which our society exists. We create models for the preservation of biodiversity and wilderness. We focus on working with government, civil society and the private sector, The Wilderness Foundation serves to influence people's perception of wilderness and to maximise the benefits all communities and wildlife gain from its preservation.

Wild areas relate to our people's sense of humanity - and its loss in overcrowded living spaces, to our knowing of the natural web of life - or our desensitisation to it, and to our sense of place in the world beyond degraded townships and urban areas.

Wilderness relates to the loss or sustainability of our water, to the diversity or scarcity of our food, to the ways we are creative and to our sustenance in practical and spiritual life. Wilderness is not a romantic concept. We simply require leadership beyond intellectual, economic or political detail, to nourish environments for our individual and collective selves, and other living things.

In the 21st Century, we are faced with the rapid disappearance of much that is wild and natural. Africa is still custodian to wildlands and cultures, which have a deep concern for nature, but much of it is fractured.

South Africa has to render its wild lands sustainable at a social level as well as an economic level. The Wilderness Foundation recognises that a true experience of wild lands, the impact of wilderness on the human spirit, is the spark that motivates the individual to the higher ideal of conservation.