Pieter van Wyk, the Botanist at |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park has been named one of the Future For Nature Award winners for 2023.
Northern Cape, South Africa (30 March 2023) – Pieter van Wyk, the Botanist at |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park has been announced as one of three worldwide winners of the prestigious Future For Nature (FFN) Award and will soon be accepting his prize in the Netherlands.
Pieter works at the |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park which spans part of South Africa and into Namibia. His focus has been on conserving the incredible succulents that grow in the region. The park is something special, boasting large arid landscapes that surprisingly teem with life.
“The |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park measures 6 045 km2 and spans some of the most spectacular arid and desert mountain scenery in southern Africa. It incorporates the 4 420 km2 |Ai-|Ais Hot Springs Game Park in Namibia and the 1 625 km2 |Ai-|Ais/Richtersveld National Park in South Africa.
It features the world’s second-largest canyon, the Fish River Canyon, which meanders for 161 km between the steep, spectacular cliffs that divide the Nama plateau. In places the canyon floor is more than 550 m below the plateau, exposing rock of up to 2 600 million years old.”
Inspired by the Future For Nature Award winners, Wageningen University ecologists Ignas Heitkönig and Rascha Nuijten founded the Future For Nature Academy (FFN Academy) in 2016. Currently, the FFN Academy is coordinated by Marit Hertlein.
The FFN Academy spreads the inspiration and dedication of FFN Award winners and other conservation heroes to a growing network of students and young graduates across the Netherlands, to fuel this young generation’s passion for nature conservation. They do so by organising varying activities such as guest lectures, excursions and symposia, they create a platform for people to meet, discuss and make plans together for a better future for nature.
Van Wyk won because of his outstanding efforts in the protection of succulent species.
“The area is renowned for housing most of the richest succulent flora of the world. The Orange River is characterised by striking endangered riparian bush. At the Gariep Centre of Plant Endemism, with the transfrontier park at its core, at least 2 700 species of plants, 560 of which are endemic or near-endemic, can be found.
A soft but regular and therefore effective rainfall is mainly responsible for this abundance of plant life. Many of the endemic plants are limited to small areas, mostly on mountains where the rainfall is higher and habitat diversity is greatest. The best-known endemic plants are the stem succulents known as the “halfmens”, Pachypodium namaquanum, and the giant tree aloe, Aloe pillansii.”
South African National Parks and specifically the Arid Region is extremely proud of van Wyk for scooping this prestigious award and cannot wait to see what changes he will implement upon his return to further his very commendable work of protecting the precious species of the Richtersveld.
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