Our Work
The Knysna region faces unprecedented fire risks that now exceed those of the devastating 2017 fires, which destroyed hundreds of homes and vast areas of land. This escalating vulnerability stems from a perfect storm of environmental factors: extensive alien plant invasion following the 2017 fires, climate change impacts, deteriorating fire management practices, and inadequate alien vegetation clearing due to funding constraints. These invasive species not only increase fire hazards but also threaten endangered ecosystems like the Garden Route Shale Fynbos and Knysna Sand Fynbos, while depleting critical water resources in an already drought-prone region. However, a unique window of opportunity exists until 2028, as a recently introduced biological control agent for black wattle is temporarily reducing seed production, creating a limited timeframe to significantly reduce alien vegetation and restore native ecosystems before adaptation occurs.
Compounding these environmental challenges, Knysna is grappling with the highest unemployment rate in the Garden Route District. An estimated 25.5% of the population were unemployed in 2021, surpassing the Western Cape average. This number has been climbing steadily since 2016, reflecting the devastating impact of the fire, drought, loadshedding and economic downturns.
Our Approach
We take a multifaceted approach to addressing these interconnected challenges of fire risk, ecological degradation and socio economic vulnerability in the Greater Knysna region:
Comprehensive Alien Vegetation Management
Focused on strategic alien vegetation clearing with minimal ecosystem disturbance and maximising the possibility of native vegetation restoration.
Local Economic Development
Through local training and employment.
Community Engagement and Education
Through public talks and awareness events to transform residents into active conservation partners.
Research and Monitoring
We use an evidence-based approach to create effective fire-corridors, monitoring of cleared sites and research on ecosystem restoration and resilience.
The Problem We Aim
To Address
This heightened risk stems from multiple interconnected factors in Knysna’s uniquely vulnerable position within a fire-driven ecosystem, now severely destabilised by extensive alien forestry, deforestation of native forests, and increasing climate variability. The 2017 fires stimulated the germination of decades of accumulated invasive alien plant seeds, resulting in intensive and widespread sprouting of these invaders.
The catastrophic Knysna fires of 2017 serve as a stark warning of the region’s vulnerability, yet the situation has only deteriorated since this devastating event. Despite the enormous damage inflicted—tens of thousands of hectares of farmlands, plantations and natural habitats destroyed, hundreds of families left destitute, 938 houses burnt and hundreds of millions of Rand in infrastructure damage—Knysna’s fire risk has alarmingly escalated to levels that now surpasses that of 2017.
This problem has been exacerbated by favourable rainfall between 2019 and 2022 coupled with severely inadequate state funding for alien plant clearing resulting in extensive growth of alien vegetation. Increasingly rising temperatures in Southern Africa further heightens vulnerability to fire.
Our Recent Projects
Knysna Fire Corridors Initiative (2025-2028)
Our Knysna Fire Corridors Initiative targets three strategic zones to reduce wildfire risk whilst creating local employment. By mid-2028, our Alien Busters teams we hope to have significantly cleared invasive vegetation along the Knysna River Corridor (establishing a critical 1km firebreak on both sides between Phantom Pass and Rheenendal Road), the Brenton Corridor (protecting Critically Endangered Knysna Sand Fynbos between Brenton, Belvidere and Buffels Bay), and the Town Corridor (from Pledge Nature Reserve to the Hospital Area), creating a vital buffer to protect both town and the nature corridor up into Knysna’s informal location.. The project will expand from two to six skilled teams by 2027, providing sustainable employment while implementing best practices in alien vegetation removal.
All cleared sites will undergo rigorous monitoring to prevent regrowth of invasive species and promote native vegetation recovery, simultaneously reducing fire risk and restoring ecological integrity to these vital landscapes.
Our Past Projects
Eden Resilience has worked as an alien clearing contractor for several Conservancies and Nature Reserves, these include:
Western Head Goukamma Conservancy
Since 2017 Eden Resilience has worked with the Western Heads-Goukamma Conservancy (WHCG) to clear land of aliens. Eden Resilience was contracted by WHGC on a project funded by WWF’s Table Mountain Fund to protect and restore the Critically Endangered Knysna Sand Fynbos in the conservancy. In total 200 ha of land were cleared, enabling restoration of this endangered ecosystem.
Gouritz Biosphere Reserve Cluster
Eden Resilience Initiative was contracted by Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve between 2019 and 2021 to do the initial work of looking at opportunities and a strategy for the establishment of an ecological corridor between Witteberg and Langeberg. The project aimed to establish a 100,000-hectare ecological corridor connecting the Witteberg and Langeberg mountain ranges, ultimately creating a 200,000-hectare unfragmented landscape between two World Heritage Sites in South Africa’s Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve. The initiative addresses habitat fragmentation caused by current farming practices and promotes biodiversity conservation, particularly for species like the Cape leopard and Riverine Rabbit.
Key actions for Eden Resilience Initiative included; forming a multi-stakeholder working group, developing a GIS database to map priority conservation areas, creating and sharing corridor development scenarios with landowners, engaging farmers through local working groups and a social learning process and supporting integrated landscape management and a wildlife-based tourism economy.
Within three years, the project aimed to remove fences, establish shared wildlife management rules, secure conservation agreements, and lay the foundation for a flagship eco-tourism destination. The work focused on collaboration, trust-building, and incentivising conservation-led land use change.