The GRBG Trust Background

In 1996 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 Trust's original vision was to establish an indigenous botanical garden on the site of the Van Kervel Nature Reserve. However, it was acknowledged that the project had to encompass the broader issues of floral destruction and social conditions and the southern Cape Herbarium and its BEEP (Botanical & Environmental Education Project) are now fully amalgamated into the Trust.

Audrey Moriarty, with great generosity and foresight helped the Trust to buy a large property adjacent to the Botanical Garden. The house is ideal for our purposes, providing offices (already functioning,) lecture room, living accommodation for a future Curator / Horticulturist, and the Herbarium is housed in two large rooms. The large garden running adjacent to the Botanical Garden is ideal for functions and social activities while there is enough room for adequate propagation sheds and storage as well to serve the Botanical garden's needs. We are now a huge step closer to being able to fulfil our aims and objectives. This property is now known as the "Moriarty Environmental Centre". The official opening took place on July 26th 2002.

Why do we need the GRBG Trust?

The answer is that the Cape Floral Kingdom is one of the richest, smallest and most threatened floral kingdoms on Earth, and while the western part of the Cape Floral Kingdom has 3 major gardens, here, further east, there is no botanic garden in the entire Southern Cape let alone the Garden Route.

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 as rich a diversity of plant life in this area as there is further West. 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

Newly elected Trustees for the GRBG

From left:

(front) Liza Campbell, Cingiswa Mtabati, Yvonne Barnard

(back) Robin Clarke,( Chairman), Colin Ralston, David Mcintosh, Peter Ginn, Adre Boshoff (Vice Chairman) and Niels Jacobsen, absent Brian Musto