Introducing the South Peninsula Nature Alliance
I live with my family in the southern reaches of the extraordinary, nature-rich Cape Peninsula of South Africa. As a climate and wildlife writer, I’ve spent much of my life and career observing and communicating about nature conservation here and in many other places.
My work has convinced me that despite the best efforts of many professional conservationists, a large and increasing number of species are in real danger of going extinct within our lifetimes: Many more people need to become engaged in saving them, especially within areas that we don’t normally think of as conservation areas.
My work has also made it clear to me that conservationists need to reckon with the Earth-shaking realities of climate breakdown and other human-driven forms of ecological upheaval far more deeply than we normally do, and change the way we operate accordingly. We need an updated and re-focused ethical framework for nature conservation for a planet undergoing massive change and we need to create new types of organizations that engage more people in conservation work if want our children and grandchildren to live alongside the extraordinary array of wild species that still, for now, share the planet with us.
This website documents my efforts to think through conservation’s problems and shortcomings, find solutions, and build a new organisation — the South Peninsula Nature Alliance — that works somewhat differently from existing entities and fills gaps I see in the conservation matrix. The SPNA is a chance to make real the concepts I've been studying and pondering for years, and I’m starting it (literally) in my own backyard, where [dad joke alert] there are no sacred cows, only sacred gladioli.
On this site I'll lay out my ideas, share my discoveries about the extraordinary wild species that live around my home, and document my efforts and those of my collaborators to sustain them. I hope to connect with like-minded individuals and turn people on to the power they have to make change for the better. I’ll post some of my photographs, too.
Check out the other posts below and please subscribe to the SPNA newsletter to follow along from near and far as I bring theory into practice. Just click one of the Subscribe buttons on this site, enter your name and email address, and you’ll be notified as soon as new posts go live. (You’ll can also sign up for my personal newsletter, through which I occasionally share news of fresh articles, books and upcoming events.)
You can send comments, ideas and encouragement – or just say hi – via the contact link above.
See you in the fynbos!
Adam Welz
©Adam Welz / www.adamwelz.com
Follow the SPNA on Instagram at www.instagram.com/komfynbos/
Check out Adam Welz's nature photography at www.instagram.com/adamwelz.wild
None of the writing or photography on this site was produced with or by generative AI. All the typos, grammaticals & inelegant sentences are mine.