By John Parker, Senior Scientist in Community Ecology, Smithsonian Institution; Justin Nowakowski, Senior Scientist in Spatial Ecology and Conservation, Smithsonian Institution. First published in The Conversation on 20 April 2026 Around the world, people plan to plant more than 1 trillion trees this decade in an ambitious effort to slow climate change and reduce biodiversity […]
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From D’Olijvenboom to Boutique Elegance: A Paarl Story Worth Discovering
By Mark van Eyssen, GST Assessor Along the oak-lined Main Road of Paarl, directly opposite the historic Paarl Gymnasium, stands a building that quietly tells a story spanning more than three centuries. At first glance, it is a beautifully restored Cape Dutch property. But step closer and it becomes something more, a living piece of […]
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World Tourism in Geo-Political Chains?
By Selwyn Roup, GST Contributor Location, location, location… and never before has Southern Africa stood astride the Indo-Atlantic straits of East to West and North to South as in the past nine months. The good news is that in 2025 South Africa welcomed 10.5 million tourists, topping pre-Covid numbers. The ebb and flow of power […]
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Energy: A Reader
by GST Staff This solar farm lets cattle roam under moving panels SILICON RANCH HAS BROUGHT something online commercially that you don’t see every day: a utility-scale solar farm where cattle graze under moving panels. The Nashville-based developer has launched its new “CattleTracker” system at the Christiana Solar Ranch in Tennessee. It’s the first commercial […]
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A water solution for drought-prone South Africa: systems to replenish aquifers in five towns
By Surina Esterhuyse, Associate Professor in the Centre for Environmental Management, University of the Free State; Danita Hohne, PhD Candidate in the Centre for Environmental Management, University of the Free State; Fanus Fourie, PhD Candidate in the Institute for Groundwater Studies, University of the Free State. First published in The Conversation on 19 March 2026 […]
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Madagascar’s ancient baobabs store 700 years of climate secrets
By Estelle Razanatsoa, Junior Research Fellow, University of Cape Town;Lindsey Gillson, Associate Professor Plant conservation unit, University of Cape Town; Malika Virah-Sawmy, Visiting Scientist, Humboldt University of Berlin – First published in The Conversation on 19 April 2026 MADAGASCAR IS HOME TO seven species of baobab trees, of which six are found nowhere else on […]
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Let the earth speak to the visitor: GST concept for sustainable tourism
by Niël du Toit, CEO of Go Sustainable Tourism (GST) Using Cape Town – the Fairest Cape – as gateway, travel South Africa by Kontrei (Region). This refers to using Kontrei glasses when looking at South Africa as it shows itself via the brittle outer layer at the Earth’s surface. South Africa’s amazing geographic diversity […]
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Bioregioning Is Our Future
By Richard Heinberg, Resilience Lately I’ve been reading Andrew Schelling’s Tracks Along the Left Coast, a biography of linguist, anthropologist, and anarchist Jaime de Angulo (1887-1950). De Angulo was a character worth knowing about. His affluent Spanish parents gave him a civilized upbringing in fashionable Paris; nevertheless, he had a wild streak. So, before he […]
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Land reform in South Africa: how new landholders could prosper from wildlife and not just farming
By Hayley Clements, Senior Researcher, African Wildlife Economy Institute and Centre for Sustainability Transitions, Stellenbosch University; Alta De Vos, Associate Professor, Centre for Sustainability Transitions, Stellenbosch University; Matthew Child, PhD candidate, University of Pretoria; Siviwe Shwababa, Associate Researcher, Rhodes University. First published on January 7, 2026 by The Conversation South Africa has a thriving wildlife […]
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Making Ends Meet: Part 1 – Agri-Tourism
By Leon Hugo, University of Pretoria & Jean Hugo, Tshwane University of Technology The pressing environmental crisis is well-documented and widely recognized (Hugo, M.L. & Hugo, J.O., 2024). A significant global concern is food security, particularly in the context of a rapidly increasing world population. The advent of geoengineering in agriculture has led to a […]
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