Welcome to the Garden Route Botanical Garden.
A shared
concern for the
rapidly diminishing flora of the Southern Cape brought together a group
comprising members of several environmental NGO's. They represented organisations such as the
Garden Route Branch of the Botanical Society, the Southern Cape Herbarium and the Wildlife and
Environment Society. They were determined to raise public awareness of the problem of Southern
Cape floral destruction as well as implement remedial action.
The Garden Route Botanical Garden is located in George, the heart of the Garden Route and has become a conservation and environmental education hub for the Southern Cape of South Africa.
The Cape Floral Kingdom is one of the richest, smallest and most threatened floral kingdoms on Earth.
The Garden Route Botanical Garden therefore, has a vital role to play
nationally and globally in
the conservation and study of what is arguably proving to be a rich diversity of plant life in this
area. In addition the garden's position at the heart of the Garden Route, an area of the country named
after its fantastic flora and famous worldwide for the beauty of its natural environment, makes it
ideally suited to this vital role.
As the general population becomes isolated from the natural environment they become increasingly unaware of how their daily lives impact on the environment; how much mankind relies on the health of that very fragile environment to sustain all human and animal life on earth.
Therefore, there is a desperate need to increase public sensitivity to the environment and development problems, and to foster a greater sense of personal environmental responsibility and commitment towards truly sustainable development.
