The Western Cape has welcomed a new provincial nature reserve after a landowner spent almost 20 years restoring the property.
Western Cape, South Africa (11 November 2025) – The newly declared Mount David Nature Reserve is over 800 hectares of pristine fynbos and wetlands. The land was formerly known as Diepgat, and biodiversity wasn’t always thriving there, like it is today.
For years, it was used for livestock and grain farming. It was overridden with invasive species. Then, landowner Antony van Hoogstraten bought the property in 2008 and committed to restoring it. It took him nearly 20 years.
Over 17 years, invasive plants were cleared, wetlands and seeps were slowly nursed back to health, and the natural veld took over.
Now the property’s ecology is thriving, and wildlife has moved in.
In 2010, surveys after a wildfire revealed a Critically Endangered Erica species thought to be on the brink of disappearing was growing there. More discoveries followed. In 2020, during a biodiversity survey, conservationists from Bionerds by chance happened upon a breeding population of the elusive Moonlight Mountain Toadlet while exploring the area’s upper slopes. The species hadn’t been seen on nearby reserves and is so poorly known that it was listed as ‘Data Deficient.’ Yet there it was. Leopard, klipspringer, grey rhebok, Blue Cranes, Black Harriers and Verreaux’s Eagles have also been recorded on the property over the years.
That level of ecological health, built through many years of restoration, has opened the door to formal protection.
CapeNature facilitated the legal process under the Protected Areas Act, and on 7 November 2025, Mount David Nature Reserve was officially declared – the van Hoogstraten family chose the name.
The land’s new celebrated status didn’t come overnight. Bionerds put together a full management plan for the property (essentially a blueprint for how it should be protected and cared for), and that plan was officially approved in 2023.
The process took time. The greater purpose it will serve now, as a protected area, is worth it.
“The declaration of Mount David forms part of the Western Cape’s growing network of protected areas, helping to conserve biodiversity, restore degraded landscapes, and strengthen the province’s ecological services that our nature provides. These ecological services are critical to the wellbeing of the province’s people and economy and include basic services from clean water and healthy soils to more complicated aspects of climate regulation and strengthening ecological corridors,” shares Anton Bredell, Western Cape Provincial Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning.
Those ecological services, like clean water and climate regulation, benefit wildlife but also support people, farms, businesses and entire towns. Protecting what remains is becoming more urgent every year.
Conservationists are thrilled to see landowners go the extra mile to restore biodiversity. It brings hope.
“To have a landowner who has expressed such commitment to conservation through his actions, such that the ecosystems are in a near-pristine condition, is perhaps the greatest reward for anyone working with threatened species and habitats,” shares Alouise Lynch, Director of Bionerds.
Sources: Linked above
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