South African eco-organisations to watch — and actively support
Trying to decide which environmental organisation to support in 2020? Here are the ones who are tangibly making a difference - and could use as much support as possible to continue effecting change.
Trying to decide which environmental organisation to support in 2020? Here are the ones who are tangibly making a difference - and could use as much support as possible to continue effecting change.
By Bridget McNulty
There’s a strange disparity in South Africa at the moment. Or should I say, another strange disparity. There appears to be an almost visible line between those who are facing up to the environmental crisis that we are in the middle of, and those who are not willing to sense the enormity of the problem.
As journalists get more and more frank, and scientists get more blunt (11,258 scientists from around the world have called for drastic climate action to “avoid untold suffering”), there are still those who are unable - or unwilling - to accept that now is the time to take action. Not just to watch from the sidelines, but to step up and do something.
Of course, for many of us, taking action sounds like exhausting work. Humanity is in an end-of-life crisis, writes Leonie Joubert - and she should know, she’s uncovering all the latest news about it on a daily basis. The world is en route to ending not with a bang but a yawn. In the face of the truly astounding environmental changes coming our way, it seems easier to ostrich ourselves in the world of entertainment, daily work, and small daily struggles rather than own up to our part in the climate crisis.
But here is an easy and effective way to be better than that. The organisations and teams on this list have devoted themselves to fighting this environmental battle, and all we need to do is support them. I challenge you - as a 2020 resolution that you actually keep - to choose one organisation from this list and actively boost their work. Sign up, volunteer, donate, attend or work with these organisations.
Choose to be on the right side of the South African environmental disparity: the side with knowledge, and influence.
Sign up
350Africa.org
350Africa.org is building a grassroots climate justice movement across the African continent. 350 Africa runs their own campaigns and supports grassroots groups all over the continent, many of whom can be seen on Afrika Vuka.
In South Africa, 350Africa.org recently ran a campaign to put pressure on banks (like Nedbank and the Development Bank of South Africa) to stop funding new polluting coal power plants. Their next campaign demands that no taxpayer money is used to fund fossil fuels, and that instead South Africa invests in a just transition to a 100% renewable energy future.
Project 90 By 2030
Project 90 by 2030 was conceived when the impacts of climate change were first becoming evident in South Africa. George Monbiot’s book Heat calls for a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030 to avoid “catastrophic effects on both humans and ecosystems”. Hence the name: Project 90 by 2030.
One of their primary areas of focus in SA is on a just energy transition. A Just Energy Transition (JET) is a transition towards a sustainable, low carbon and equitable energy system which is better for people and the planet.
At the moment we generate 90% of our electricity from coal - we need to switch to renewable energy as a matter of urgency. But it must be a just transition: with the right legislation and policy in place to protect workers in legacy energy systems where jobs are at risk.
Peace Parks Foundation
Founded by Dr Anton Rupert, President Mandela and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Peace Parks Foundation was created to show that man and nature can coexist in harmony. The Peace Parks Foundation works to re-establish, renew and conserve large ecosystems that transcend man-made boundaries, by creating a regionally integrated and sustainably managed network of Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs).
Courtesy of Peace Parks Foundation
Rewilding Africa is one of their most ambitious projects. By reintroducing wildlife to ecosystems where the species once thrived, biodiversity is once again restored, whilst the potential for securing the future of the protected areas through nature-based tourism is increased exponentially. Working with Mozambique’s National Administration for Conservation Areas, they are currently implementing the largest rewilding projects in southern Africa: to revitalise the depleted ecosystems in the Mozambican components of the Lubombo and Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Areas.
SANBI
SANBI, the South African National Biodiversity Institute, monitors the status of South Africa’s biodiversity. The National Biodiversity Assessment (NBA) is the primary tool for reporting on the state of biodiversity in South Africa, and is used to inform policies, strategies and activities for managing and conserving biodiversity more effectively.
Over 470 individuals representing about 90 organisations collaborated on the NBA over 4 years, and the result is a synthesis report, seven technical reports, datasets, maps,
supplementary materials and popular products. This short film features four young scientists from SANBI who share their role in developing the NBA.
CER: Centre for Environmental Rights
The Centre for Environmental Rights defends the right of communities and civil society organisations to an environment not harmful to health or wellbeing for present and future generations. By advocating and litigating for environmental justice, they seek to advance their vision of a just, equitable, compassionate society. A society which is resilient, celebrates diversity, and respects the inter-dependence between people and the environment.
Two of their recent campaigns involved opposition to a proposed coal mine in a protected environment and strategic water source area, and constitutional litigation brought against government (in relation to the violation of section 24 of the Constitution) due to air pollution in Mpumalanga.
Donate
SANCCOB
SANCCOB is the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds. Their work includes rescue, rehabilitation, chick rearing, oiled wildlife preparedness and response. They also offer education, training, research and employ conservation staff to be penguin and seabird rangers in the Western Cape, in colonies that are under the protection of conservation authorities.
The Chick Bolstering Project is a multi-partner project working to save the endangered African penguin, through hand-rearing abandoned and weak chicks, and rearing chicks from eggs. SANCCOB has successfully released more than 7,000 chicks back into the wild since 2006. Independent research confirms that the survival rates for these hand-reared African penguins are similar to that of naturally-reared birds. There are several fundable components to the project, including costs to rescue and rear chicks during periods of mass abandonment.
Black Mambas
The Black Mamba Anti-Poaching Unit is an all-female ranger unit focused on protecting South African wildlife. Each day, they perform crucial duties that prevent poaching and poachers coming into the reserve. One of these is an intensive snare sweeping, where they search for the snares that poachers set up in the bush for animals to get trapped and eventually die.
Image courtesy of Black Mambas
One of their biggest challenges is that they are driving very old Land Rovers that are largely unreliable given the roads the Mambas have to drive every day. They are currently engaged in a fundraising drive for repairs to the vehicles or even a new vehicle that would help them in their valuable anti-poaching work.
WILDLANDS
WILDLANDS has networks in 60 communities across South Africa, with a focus on improving livelihoods through innovative sustainable programs. Their WILDLANDS programme is structured around three integrated pillars: Wildlife Economy, Ecological Restoration and Sustainable Communities’.
Image courtesy of WILDLANDS
The WILDLANDS Ecological Restoration project works with the Department of Environmental Affairs: Natural Resource Management (NRM). They restore degraded forest (using the trees grown by WILDLANDS Tree-preneurs), grasslands, savanna and fynbos landscapes. This combats land degradation and assists South Africa’s landscape to be better prepared for climate change.
Volunteer
Greenpeace SA
Greenpeace Africa has a focus on South Africa as the largest emitter in all of Africa, amounting to 40% of emissions. They work closely with affected communities to highlight how dirty coal impacts on water access and air quality. Passionate volunteers for Greenpeace lead their own campaigns to ask local businesses to phase out of single-use plastics, and work closely with other environmental groups to keep the environmental movement vibrant.
Luke Rudman, a performance artist from Port Elizabeth, worked with Greenpeace Africa to raise awareness about plastic pollution. He created sculptural headpieces and pieces of ‘worn-art’ paired with surreal make-up and body paints to form a fully realised, conceptual piece of living artwork. This anti-plastic-pollution campaign illustrated that plastic pollution is as much of a socio-economic issue as an environmental one.
Greenpop
Greenpop is an award-winning registered NPO working to restore ecosystems and empower environmental stewards. They do this through reforestation, urban greening, sustainable development and environmental art projects across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Since 2010, Greenpop have planted over 115,000 trees and inspired over 132,000 active citizens across South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania. They believe planting trees can help save the world. But context is key: they plant trees in existing, degraded forest ecosystems across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Photo: Juliette Bisset
Their Arbor Month campaign (in September 2019) resulted in 6813 trees being raised: spurred on and inspired by international research that highlights global tree restoration as our most effective climate change solution to date. You can follow them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. You can also Donate here and sign up to Volunteer here.
Thrive
Thrive is an organisation that strives to unite communities in Hout Bay through environmental awareness projects. They encourage every individual to make a difference that will benefit their community, enhance their lives and provide sustainable solutions to the issues threatening the environment. Thrive believes that together, we can impact the destiny of our nation by working to preserve our unique heritage. Our diversity is what makes us strong.
Sustainable Communities empowers Hout Bay communities through:
growing their own food using unutilised land and open spaces, while composting all organic refuse to enrich their compost and worm farms
fighting alien vegetation and restoring the natural environment to its pristine condition
recycling and upcycling waste and goods
water efficiency
energy intelligence
Cape Town Environmental Education Trust (CTEET)
CTEET is committed to increasing the environmental consciousness of local communities and support conservation initiatives by:
Conducting environmental education programmes for school children to encourage a passion for the natural world and support their knowledge and personal growth.
Running training and development programmes for youth in nature-based career paths.
Facilitating and managing the direction of funds towards conservation activities, largely in the Cape Floristic Region.
Through applying their Crèche to Career model, CTEET aims to expose as many Cape Town residents as possible to the wonders of nature, and create the platforms and structures for youth to pursue a career in the Green Economy.
CTEET strives to galvanise local communities, corporate companies, friends groups, developers and private individuals to take responsibility for the environment and care for Cape Town’s Biodiversity Network through their Nature Care Fund.
Find out how you can support CTEET here.
Attend
Sea Change Project
Sea Change Project is a community of scientists, storytellers, journalists and filmmakers dedicated to raising awareness of the beauty and ecological importance of South Africa’s kelp forest. They use media advocacy to protect the South African marine environment. Inspired by daily contact with The Great African Sea Forest, their goal is to have it declared a UNESCO Natural and Cultural World Heritage Site.
Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck founded the Sea Change Trust in 2012, a South African NPO. They support the call to sustainably increase South Africa’s marine protected areas (MPAs). My Octopus Teacher is a feature documentary that captures the story of Craig Foster’s year with a wild octopus. He followed this individual animal for most of her life – something that has seldom been achieved in the wild, let alone underwater. The film is due for release in 2020.
Well Worn Theatre Company
Well Worn Theatre is an established touring theatre company, creating award-winning work for young South African audiences around ecological themes. For over a decade, the company has been at the coal-face of Theatre for Sustainability.
With elements of hip hop, spoken word, movement and song, Burning Rebellion is an ecological protest poem that gives voice to a profound sense of injustice, a rightful rage, and a fear of what is to
come.
The play is aimed at Grade 11 and 12 learners and premiered at The National
School of The Arts Festival in March 2019, before starting a nationwide school’s tour.
SAFCEI
SAFCEI (Southern African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute) is a multi-faith organisation that supports faith leaders and their communities in Southern Africa. The goal? To increase awareness, understanding and action on eco-justice, sustainable living and climate change.
SAFCEI holds many events - most recently a Seed Swap to claim back practices of sharing diverse seed varieties and discuss some of the injustices within the seed system. The event was part of the Green Action Week campaign to promote sustainable consumption. It was held at the Phillippi Horticultural Area (PHA)’s campaign centre, and brought together farmers and home growers from around Cape Town.
Green Anglicans
Green Anglicans is an association of Anglicans concerned with environmental issues. The Anglican Church of Southern Africa’s Environmental Network (ACSA-EN) aims to support churches and dioceses to fulfil God’s call to be earthkeepers and to care for creation.
Image courtesy Green Anglicans
As part of the Love Cape Town City Fest, Green Anglicans joined A Rocha (Christians in conservation) and African Enterprise to ‘Sweep the City’, a clean up campaign linked with the Christian Festival in Cape Town. Clean ups took place in Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha.
Work with
WESSA
WESSA (the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa) is a South African environmental organisation that supports high impact environmental and conservation projects. They implement effective environmental, sustainable tourism, education and youth development programmes throughout South Africa, and activate a wide range of local initiatives for the environment.
EEESAY (Entrepreneurial and Environmental Empowerment for South African Youth) is a WESSA partnership with Teach A Man To Fish. This intensely practical project provides 6,000 learners from 40 schools in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape with an opportunity to gain practical business skills. The learners set up and run an educational and environmentally sustainable enterprise at their school.
Cullinan & Associates
Cullinan & Associates are environmental and green business attorneys. Their lawyers and professionals not only guide their clients through the environmental law landscape, they play a leading role in shaping it. They specialise in high-impact, precedent-setting cases that protect our constitutional rights, our people and the environment. Highlights include:
Winning the Maccsand case in the Cape High Court, in the Supreme Court of Appeal and in the Constitutional Court to set a precedent that enables municipalities to protect communities from mining in residential and other areas not zoned for mining.
Litigating on behalf of amaMpondo communities along the Wild Coast to prevent a toll road through their ancestral land that will divide their communities and degrade unique ecosystems without their consent.
Natural Justice
Natural Justice: Lawyers for Communities and the Environment is a young and fast-paced NPO specialising in environmental and human rights law in Africa. They offer direct support to communities impacted by the ever-increasing demand for land and resources, conduct comprehensive research on environmental and human rights laws and engage in key national and international processes.
They recently celebrated one of the world’s first industry-wide benefit-sharing agreements, which not only provides a form of restitution to the Khoikhoi and San indigenous peoples of South Africa, but also acknowledges them as traditional knowledge holders to Rooibos.
The Khoikhoi and San indigenous communities will now receive benefits for the use of this knowledge via a benefit-sharing agreement. This sets a precedent for indigenous communities across the globe.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation
The Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBF) is a Green Political Foundation who understand that ecology, democracy and equity are inseparable parts of a whole. The HBF Cape Town office has become a reliable partner for a range of organisations and networks in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. They act as providers of international contacts, observers and analysts in the region. Among the many campaigns that HBF has supported in close cooperation with partners are:
The first industry-wide Benefit Sharing Agreement between the Khoikhoi and San communities and the South African Rooibos industry,
The Silicosis Class Action Settlement for thousands of former mineworkers who contracted pulmonary tuberculosis or silicosis on South Africa’s gold mines, and
The Philippi Horticulture Area Food and Farming Campaign that seeks to protect the Philippi Horticultural Area from developers and sand mining and declare it as the country's first protected agriculture area.
It’s up to you to which environmental initiatives in South Africa to support, and how. What is not optional - for any of us - is to join together in acknowledging and addressing the climate crisis.
Is anyone missing from our list? Pop us an email at hello@treeshake.com to let us know, so that we can continue celebrating South Africa’s top environmental organisations.
PARTS: The 5 working parts of company culture
Every good leader knows the importance of Company Culture, and yet it is difficult to grasp and actively shape. Culture determines a groups capability to respond to change, and to function as more than the sum of its parts. To help get a handle on this seemingly intangible concept let us introduce you to the PARTS of culture.
By Dave Duarte
Culture is the hidden force that shapes our decision-making day to day, what we value, and how we get things done. And yet culture isn’t something that can be set in place, it is emergent and adapts.
The PARTS of Culture provides an memorable framework to work with when aiming to influence culture. It stands for People, Artefacts, Rituals, Tools, and Stories.
A bit of background
When we launched the OgilvyDMA in 2010, Rob Hill and Gavin Levinsohn said our primary objective was to help "geekify" the Ogilvy Cape Town culture. Now, "Changing Culture" sounds all well and good, but when it came to it I had no idea where to start. I turned to sociological theory on culture for clarity, and out of that developed PARTS as a way to make the key concepts memorable and strategically actionable.
Here’s more details on each of these aspects, and how we applied them with remarkable success at Ogilvy.
People: gain the support of a few well connected people, and help them recruit others
Too many companies make the mistake of trying to change the whole company at once. You’re more likely to gain traction incubating culture among a group of influential people who have provide reach and access to the rest of the organisation.
Behaviours spread from person to person (Christakis, 2007). So it's important to work with a small group of people initially to make sure the cultural change is understood and adapted.
The key players in a social network are your Experts, Influencers, Gatekeepers, and Connectors. Each are important in their own ways, and you need to gain their support for any culture change initiative. These people need to have a high frequency of contact with the cultural change process an practice. They are going to be the ones that set the example and distribute the culture to the rest of the organisation. As Derek Sivers famously put it "new followers don't follow the leader, they follow the other followers."
At Ogilvy, the most influential people throughout the agency were invited to our first Ogilvy Digital Marketing Academy, and no expense was spared in ensuring a transformative learning experience that created group buy-in and connection.
Artefacts: make the culture change public and visible
Our physical environment and the objects in it form the stage on which your staff perform. Are you setting them up for great performances, giving them the cues and props they need? Art, Awards, and artefacts of belonging (like lapel pins, t-shirts, certificates) all serve to communicate cultural values.
Open Knowledge Foundation, "OPEN" lapel pin, by Brian Glanz
Amazon, for example, reminds people of their value of frugality through the use of door-desks throughout the company.
Ogilvy encouraged more a more digitally savvy culture by making the latest gadgets available to staff through Ogilvy Labs. There are screens live-streaming social data from clients, there are interactive demos of the latest in sensory technology around the office, and there are framed certificates displayed for people who complete digital training. Other artefacts could include the kinds of awards that are valued, for example, displaying Cannes Lions, or Bookmark Awards.
Rituals: Go from a moment to a movement
The things a company does regularly become a signal of their culture. The rituals can be small or large, everything from how you on-board staff to how you handle daily meetings.
The key thing when you want to introduce a ritual is to do it consistently and repeatedly. It takes time for new behaviours to take root. Your company values aren’t just things that you just write down and forget about, they should be reflected in what behaviours you reward. In who you hire, promote and let go. These create behavioural norms that become embedded in your company culture.
For example, Ogilvy hosts a regular “How-To Friday” session where people who have done something extraordinary share how they did it. This signals the company’s long-term commitment to hands-on innovation.
Tools: give people the resources to create change
How do you equip your people to do their work in a way that reflects company culture? You can't expect change if you don't enable it. Language, skills, technology, equipment, and other resources are major enablers of change.
The most fundamental tool for culture-shaping is language. When you want to shift culture, equip people with new ways to talk about what they do.
A key part of the Ogilvy Digital Marketing Academy's success was, and is, giving people the language to speak about digital. Concepts like Impressions, Reach, Landing Pages, and Programmatic become more useful when we have the words to talk about them.
Story: don't just tell people about the change, show them what others are doing
Stories are the way that people naturally encode and share complex social information. There are two ways a company can bring their story to life: storytelling and storymaking.
Storytelling is about finding examples of good cultural practice and crafting stories around those actions so that it is easier for others to understand what to do, and to emulate the success of the cultural heroes you celebrate.
Storymaking is about kickstarting this process. It’s not just about what you celebrate, but also how you take action. It is about taking decisive action to establish cultural precedence.
At Ogilvy, stories were created by investing more heavily in case-studies involving digital integration, such as Be The Coach (which went on to become the most awarded campaign of the year - winning international plaudits including four Gold Lions at Cannes)
Stories are like software for the mind. They help us understand cause and effect, and can have a transformative effect on what we see as possible and expected.
The results of the first application of our PARTS model can best be summed up by Ogilvy Cape Town's Managing Director, Gavin Levinson
“What’s the best thing that’s happened in the Ogilvy ‘family’ over the past three years? While there are many highlights and accolades within and across all of Ogilvy’s companies, I would undoubtably say that the ODMA has and continues to be our finest hour.”
Treeshake offers story-making workshops and talks on culture change, leading innovation, and values-driven leadership.
#BI4Gov: How a small, but deeply engaged community can have HUGE impact
How a new Twitter account with no followers and no paid media budget got a niche topic trending and reached over 2 million people in less than two weeks.
This case study is about how a new Twitter account with no followers and no paid media budget got a niche topic trending and reached over 2 million people in less than two weeks.
In late 2018, Treeshake helped launch #BI4Gov, a conference focused on how to use behavioural insights to successfully shape and implement policy, in a socially beneficial way. Through a partnership between the Western Cape Government (WCG) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), experts from throughout the world came together to discuss the ins and outs of using BI in Government.
Starting with a brand new account with no followers on Twitter, and just two weeks to launch we knew that we’d be reliant on the voices of others with larger followings.
The first step was to set up the account to look as credible as it was - partner logos, clean design, and 3 high quality posts were set up. We then sent the page around to the team of collaborators and asked them to engage with the posts and follow so we’d have a bit of traction.
The next step was to tap into BI communities on Twitter, and identify thought leaders. We directly engaged around 60 followers ahead of the conference and directly asked them to follow us and help us get the #BI4Gov discussion going. We did this by email and direct message rather than publicly.
We found the BI enthusiasts supportive, warm, and welcoming to a new entrant to the space - this is partly thanks to declaring our agenda upfront, having the backing of the OECD, and introducing ourselves directly to the main thought leaders. This got the conversation rolling, and even with a relatively small following, everything we posted got a response.
The official Twitter account quickly gained around 150 followers. Without any paid advertising budget, we relied solely on consistent, authentic engagement with each member of the community. These followers were all highly skilled BI experts, each of whom had very strong links to the overall online BI community. This allowed for a higher degree of sophistication in the commentary and posts we put out, along with a much higher than average engagement rate.
On the day of the conference, the hashtag was visibly promoted at the conference, attended by around 300 people - many of whom had been contacted by the social media team ahead of time to let them know the importance of sharing their views. The result was that virtually everyone who attended participated in the online discussion, sharing substantive content that attracted public interest and media attention.
But it wasn’t all serious, either. As participants got to know each other, playful Twitter banter emerged in the form of ‘the sock saga’, with various speakers and organisers of the event comparing their funky sock choices. With the perfect mix of serious, insightful and fun, the #BI4Gov community blew us away with their deep engagement and commitment to the conversation.
Most importantly, the conference and public support for the issue has led to the establishment of South Africa’s first Behavioural Insights Unit in Government - #BI4Gov is here to stay.
The main take away from this? A small group of deeply engaged people can make a huge impact. Inspired by Cultural Anthropologist Margaret Mead, this is something we call The Mead Principle:
Dave Duarte, founder of Treeshake, is passionate about community engagement as a driver of value. As social marketer, speaker, facilitator and advisor, his warm and engaging style makes the future easy to engage with. Dave brings over a decade of facilitation experience to his work at Treeshake. He has founded several businesses, and served in leadership positions in media, academia, and non-profits.