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About Us
gora wilderness foundation
Rewilding
the lost Cape wilderness
Come and immerse yourself in the unique landscape that is the Gora Wilderness Reserve as you bear witness to a wilderness being reborn.
Unlike the northern wilderness areas of South Africa that survived through the colonial era without losing the quintessential fauna of Africa, much of the Cape had been so severely impacted that the area became almost entirely depleted of the native larger mammals that once thrived here in innumerable herds, flocks, prides and clans. With a local extinction of over 90% of herbivores and predators that inhabited the area, what remained was a Cape wilderness devoid of wildlife.
Join us as we reverse the clock while moving forward into a brave new world of rewilding Gora!
our unique location
Garden Route &
Little Karoo
Along the southernmost tip of Africa lies a land of striking contrast where lush coastal grasslands and forests along the Indian Ocean abruptly ends at a mountainous interface with an arid semi-desert landscape. From the southern shoreline a living Fynbos floral bouquet stretches northward across the coastal forelands towards the forest clad southern slopes of the Outeniqua Mountain, standing as a towering barrier between the verdant country to the south and the dry plains to the north. Here the Cape Floristic Region meets with the Albany-Pondoland-Tongaland Biodiversity Hotspot to form in a mosaic of diversity
North of the Outeniqua Mountains the Fynbos clad slopes fade into the dry plains of the Little Karoo, an area so botanically rich that it serves as the spectacular succulent stage for the globally recognised Succulent Karoo Biodiversity Hotspot.
Despite the arid appearance of the land, it is by no means desolate and in years gone by the expanses teemed with vast herds of plains game and the Acacia lined riverbeds served as the apparent veins for elephant dispersal across the wide valleys between the various mountain chains that characterises the Cape of South Africa.
The unique location of the Gora Wilderness Reserve, at the southernmost tip of Africa where temperate and subtropical climates meet to adorn the land in an equally unique array of floral communities, has allowed various endemic species to come into existence in the region that are only found in the southern and non-savanna regions of South Africa. These include the Cape grysbok, grey rhebok, springbok, bontebok, blesbok, black wildebeest, Cape mountain zebra and Rau quagga, all of which can be found within the Gora Wilderness Reserve.
Apart from the tremendous biodiversity that awaits the adventure seeker in the Gora Wilderness Reserve, visitors to the reserve can observe and experience history in the making as the unique Cape wilderness, once almost lost and forgotten, is being returned to herself. Come and experience the weaving of a living tapestry of a restoring ecosystem on a luxurious safari as individual reserves and core conservation areas are connected and enlarged via corridors. Your rewilding adventure awaits!
Our Ambitious Vision
