Volunteers rehabilitating the Sacred Forest
			Removing aliens in the Sacred Forest
			Learning about water
			New PC Centre: Building capacity for learning

Unilever - Business
Global Nature Fund - NGO
Wilderness Foundation - NGO
Wildlands Trust - NGO
Botanic Gardens - CSO

Situated within the St Lucia estuarine system, the largest estuarine system in Africa, Lake St Lucia Africa’s oldest nature reserve. The land area is regarded as critical for the survival of a large number of species and the estuarine system plays a crucial role in maintaining the viability and health of the coastal marine system. The area is classified as a “Wetland of International Importance” under the UN Ramsar Treaty and has World Heritage Status (first natural world heritage area in South Africa). However, the integrity and long term survival of the Lake and surrounding area is far from secure. The Lake itself is surrounded by a mix of commercial agriculture, forestry and impoverished rural communities. Similarly the rural communities have an enormous impact, through poor land use, activities such as illegal harvesting, etc.

Thus, Lake St Lucia was inducted as one of the founder lakes in the Living Lakes network. The Living Lakes initiative is an international partnership, which promotes voluntary international collaboration among organisations that carry out projects benefiting lakes, wildlife and people. The global initiative is co-ordinated by the Global Nature Fund; a European based non-government organisation, and managed by local organisations in each of the partner countries. In South Africa, the local NGO partners are the Wilderness Foundation and the Wildlands Trust. The Wilderness Foundation has focused on lobbying political and local leadership support for the Lake, whilst the Wildlands Trust has focussed on promoting increased awareness of, and support for, the Lake amongst the local rural communities. The key corporate partner is Unilever.

Environment

The project´s primary aim is to protect the Lake (and its environment) through the implementation of projects that demonstrate, to local communities, the importance of sustainable utilization of their natural resources. Environmental projects include community rehabilitation of rare indigenous forest, maintaining local water sources, providing resources to educate children on environmental issues, etc.

Economic

All projects promote the commercial benefits of sustainable activities to the local communities. For example (i) a commercial plant nursery is being developed, propagating rare/indigenous plants from the local community (ii) developing tourism based projects, tourist nature trails administered by local residents, etc.

Social

In addition to the obvious social benefits of the above programmes, our projects focus on uplifting local education standards and social facilities. For example: (i) installing fully equipped computer centres (ii) providing educational material, training teachers in IT and environmental skills (iii) “greening” the local village, through the implementation of an indigenous tree propagation and planting program (iv) development and implementation of a waste recycling program and a sustainable water management program (v) enabling local children to record and preserve their cultural heritage, hence preserving their environment.

To date, we have achieved the following:

- Facilitated a cultural preservation programme, whereby local children are encouraged to record and preserve their traditional cultures (and thereby protect the environment and providing opportunities for income generation through tourism)

- A series of workshops and field trips aimed at improving the community’s teachers understanding of the local environment and their ability to present environmental education to their students.

- The development of a computer laboratory at the high school, and the re-habilitation of the existing computers for the primary school.

- The provision of on-going maintenance services to ensure sustainable usage of this equipment

- Volunteer run workshops and activity days aimed at improving the high school pupil’s life skills and appreciation for the environment.

- The provision of magazines, books and other items as resource material for the schools. This material is being donated by the Unilever staff.

- The development of a “walk-through” aquatic exhibit at the nearby Cape Vidal field centre & Crocodile Park, which provides students and visitors with information on the aquatic value of the Lake.

- The interactive development of environmental awareness resource material, focusing on Lake St Lucia and the World Heritage area. The resource materials were developed through a workshop process involving a range of teachers from the schools, which service the communities neighbouring on the Lake and World Heritage area, and the local KZN Wildlife Conservation Partnerships staff.

- Rehabilitation of parts of the rare indigenous Dukuduku forest.

Globally: A core requirement of the Living Lake project is to ensure shared learnings across the global network. This is done on a regular basis, through the global co-ordination of Global Nature Fund.

Locally: At a local level, we have built the St Lucia programme around the key thrusts of (i) Sustainable Community development and Environmental Awareness Education. Within these two principles, a well-defined model has been developed. It is readily replicable, and it is our intention to duplicate the strategy within the neighboring communities in 2003. This will include:

1. Stakeholder involvement in identifying key issues

2. Obtaining community buy-in for living lakes principles

3. Jointly identifying & developing projects relevant to all stakeholders, which support the above mentioned themes.

As far as we know, the project is unique in South Africa in the depth of involvement from both business and NGO sectors. The business does not just provide funding, but also contributes its own knowledge, human resource and expertise in leveraging the positive impact of the programme as a whole. Over 50 Unilever employees contribute their time and expertise to support the NGO’s work on the lake. The NGO contributes time and resource to developing relevant initiatives with these volunteers. In addition, the business is an active partner in assessing the needs of the lake, and developing appropriate strategies with the NGO partners. This partnership has also galvanized local conservation and civil organizations to add their support to the programme.

The Living Lakes initiative is an international partnership, which promotes voluntary international collaboration among organisations that carry out projects benefiting lakes, wildlife and people. The global initiative is co-ordinated by the Global Nature Fund; a European based non-government organisation, and managed by local organisations in each of the partner countries. In South Africa, the local NGO partners are the Wilderness Foundation and the Wildlands Trust. The Wilderness Foundation has focused on lobbying political and local leadership support for the Lake, whilst the Wildlands Trust has focussed on promoting increased awareness of, and support for, the Lake amongst the local rural communities. The key corporate partner is Unilever, which sees this project as a core component of its larger water initiative. This business provides funding, (volunteer) employees, its relevant knowledge and expertise, and leverages its networks to acquire additional resource for the programme.

In addition, the project involves numerous local partners, from small local businesses (eg: local sign writing companies; transport businesses who courier our materials free of charge; Compaq computers sponsor software for the school), to local community organisations & tertiary groups (eg: botanic gardens, University of Natal).

The following groups have also readily contributed to building the living lakes partnership in South Africa:

1. Globe Flight World-wide Express: Deliver all the donations and necessary supplies to the school, free of charge.

2. Bothma Signs (Durban): Produced & erected the school´s signboards, free of charge.

3. The Win-Win Group (Johannesburg): Conducted free drama training workshops at the school, with an environmental theme.

4. We plan to gain assistance from the local SA Defence Force battalion at St.Lucia, who will help with the construction of a fitness & learning trail through the indigenous forest.