Cape Leopard Trust

The Cape Leopard Trust Gents Trek 2024 was a transformative four-day wilderness hike for young men from local communities, organised by the Cape Leopard Trust. It aimed to build leadership skills and foster a sense of responsibility for their natural heritage, as participants learned navigation, resilience, and the importance of environmental stewardship by planting endangered Cedar saplings. We are proud to be one of the partners of this extraordinary initiative. #hitecsa #capeleopardtrust

Last month The Royal Commission for AlUla welcomed members of the Cape Leopard Trust (CLT) to AlUla for a fascinating knowledge exchange including site visits, educational outreach with a local school and workshops with the Wildlife and Natural Heritage Research team.   CLT sponsor conservation, research and education focused on protecting Cape leopards and their habitat in South Africa’s Western Cape province and rugged Karoo region. Noticeably smaller than leopards found elsewhere in southern Africa – studies suggest they are a genetically distinct population – the Cape leopard is very similar to the Arabian leopard in terms of size, environment and prey, so their years of experience is highly relevant to our projects.   After a tour of Sharaan and Wadi Nakhlah Nature Reserves with the RCU Conservation Breeding and Reintroduction team to demonstrate who showed how we are preparing for future Arabian leopard release, the group were joined by the PANTHERA field team to see our work on human wildlife conflict mitigation. They met with Community Liaison Officers, took part in a community workshop, as well as an assembly demonstration of predator-proof livestock enclosures.   This is one of the areas in which we are directly supporting CLT’s conservation work. In South Africa, RCU have sponsored a public competition run by CLT to find a robust, affordable, easy-to-use, predator proof design to improve human-leopard coexistence in leopard landscapes. Prototypes of the winning “kraal” enclosure design are being built and placed on farms to test efficacy and usability. If proven to be effective, the design will soon be made freely available to encourage widespread adoption in South Africa and beyond.   RCU are also collaborating with CLT by sponsoring the development of an environmental education application that harnesses VR technology to provide children unparalleled opportunities to experience nature, encounter wildlife up close, like the elusive leopard, and install a deep sense of conservation and environmental stewardship.   We’re excited to see how this sponsorship develops over the coming months and I know our research team are looking forward to the next exchange when they’ll be seeing the Cape Leopard Trust’s work first hand in December. #AlUla #RCU #ArabianLeopard #Reintroduction Saudi Green Initiative Saudi Vision 2030

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗲: 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗧𝗠𝗙 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘓𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺: 𝘓𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴, 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴   Leopards, the apex predator in the Fynbos Biome, face multiple threats to their survival. As a wide-roaming territorial species, the loss and fragmentation of suitable habitat is a major concern. Therefore, protecting connectivity across the landscape is essential for the persistence of leopards and to ensure that they can continue to provide vital ecosystem services. This collaborative project aims to facilitate and strengthen voluntary landscape conservation and capacity building towards effective conservation management within three biodiverse leopard connectivity corridors. Through this project, Cape Leopard Trust and Conservation Outcomes aim to use lessons learnt and successes achieved within these corridors as a roadmap to catalyse and inform similar action in other priority landscape linkages across the Western Cape.    #fynbosforever #tmfinthefield #capefloralkingdom #leopardconservation #conservation #apexpredator #landscapeconservation #biodiversityconservation