The Mountain Zebra Camdeboo Protected Environment is a collection of private landowners who have come together under a vision of working together with each other and conservation organisations to promote the sustainable management of the area, the ecosystems that drive it and the species that call it home.
It is predominantly situated in the Eastern Cape, but since expansion, now also includes properties within the Western and Northern Cape. The Protected Environment is located between six (6) towns namely; Murraysburg, Graaff-Reinet, Pearston, Somerset East, Cradock and Nieu-Bethesda. It was originally declared in 2016 for the purpose of maintaining the landscape in terms of its scenic, biodiversity and landscape value through collective action by the private landowners and to protect the area from detrimental developments.
The MZCPE is has become a wonderful model that allows for a softer approach to securing conservation priority areas and is greatly enabled by its natural landscape driven by natural rangeland management. It strives to recognize landowner efforts and be guided by the needs of these landowners to identify what is needed and to unlock opportunities to assist. This Protected Environment is constantly evolving and the future potential collaborations that could be unlocked have no bounds.
