REGIONAL INFORMATION

This area is situated in the pristine valleys of the Zuurberg Mountains bordering the Greater Addo Elephant National Park, is regarded as Africa,s most biologically diverse, supporting 5 of the 7 biomes, or eco-regions, in Southern Africa.

This valley bushveld region encompasses habitats ranging from semi-arid Karoo areas, across fynbos-covered slopes which merge with impenetrable thickets and montane forests, extending into rolling grasslands which stretch all the way to the Sunshine Coast of the Eastern Cape.

Blessed with this natural bio diversity the conservancy is able to sustain a wide range and number of animals. The indigenous and plentiful Spekboom (Pork bush) is well adapted to the pressure of sustaining elephant herds who are renowned for their destructive browsing habits. The Spekboom is highly nutritious, has the ability to store much needed water in its succulent leaves, and recovers from elephant abuse astonishingly quickly.


Elephant's Food, Portulacaria afra. Also called: Elephant Bush, Small Leaf Jade, Porkbush, Spekboom.

REGIONAL HISTORY

The Eastern Cape's earliest inhabitants were hunter-gatherers who, for millennia, roamed across vast grasslands. These people, known as the San (Bushmen), left a myriad of rock paintings as their legacy, very probably painted in a trancelike state which formed part of religious rituals. The San were joined by Khoi pastoralists, whose heritage lives on in place names like Kieskamma, Kei and Titian.


The San people were the Eastern Cape's first inhabitants

Approximately 2 000 years ago the Nguni-speaking people entered these hunting grounds, bringing with them a totally new way of life - cattle and crop farming. They eventually became the dominant group, consequently absorbing many of the Khoi and San.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, as waves of colonialists tried to expand their empires, the Xhosa people provided the first determined resistance and the Eastern Cape became the site of the first real colonial wars in Africa. Nine border wars were fought between the Xhosa and the British for the control of the Eastern Cape. With the victory of British colonialism and then of Afrikaner nationalism, the Xhosa came under the control of the Cape and later National Party governments.
Today, the traditions of the early Xhosa, Dutch, British and German people live on in the colourful people of the province.

Eastern Cape became the site of the first real colonial wars in Africa.