The recent years-long drought may have tipped parts of the Northern Cape towards an irreversible dust bowl, following decades of heavy grazing and mining. Story Ark spent two months travelling across Namaqualand to investigate recent desertification trends: the causes, the consequences to conservation and livelihoods, and who holds the power to make the region’s development decisions. Plant poaching also emerges as a grave new threat to the region’s rare succulent diversity.
28 January 2025
Here come the dunes
As Earth’s average temperature slips beyond 1.5°C of average warming and threatens to lurch the climate outside of its safe zone, a visit to the Richtersveld shows what happens locally when a region crosses a tipping point, threatening conservation and livelihoods.
First published in the Daily Maverick.
29 January 2025
Farmers fight back against reckless mining practices
Farmers are holding the line against a surge in new mining prospectors, but are overwhelmed by the volume, and are challenging the state’s ability to manage the region’s development as the climate emergency escalates.
First published in the Daily Maverick.
20 December 2024
Drought-battered Richtersveld farmers fear destructive creep of mining
Farming remains the most viable livelihood. But as the region’s climate tips towards hotter, drier conditions, Karoo researchers fear this sparsely-populated region will become a sacrifice zone for the rest of the country’s development, and that only a powerful few will benefit.
First published in the Daily Maverick.
15 February 2025
Bleak future for Karoo succulents as desert expands in South Africa
Recent population surveys show continued decline in two desert-adapted succulent tree aloe species, with conservationists fearing for the state of an understudied third species. A years-long drought has accelerated spreading dust-bowl conditions following decades of mining and heavy grazing, with grave consequences for endemic succulents.
First published in Mongabay.
28 January 2025
Poachers target South Africa’s ‘miracle’ plant with near impunity
A year ago, single plants of a rare South African lily were fetching eye-watering prices at auctions in China. Since then, poaching syndicates have tracked the wild population to its place of endemism in a single gorge in the south-west of the country. Northern Cape conservation authorities are ill equipped to protect it.
First published in Mongabay.
28 March 2025
Tending the dead - a photo essay
The maiden’s quiver tree is the Cinderella of three tree aloe sister species that grace the Richtersveld’s gravelly moonscape. Maybe she’s outshone by the towering charisma of the giant and common quiver trees— she’s stocky and stout — and this may be why her population trends haven’t been studied as closely as the other two.
But her future is as uncertain as her siblings’, with the desert’s climate ratcheting up from hellishly hot to unbearable.
20 March 2025
Blowout - a photo essay
A nasty wind rips across Cornell’s Kop one afternoon in the spring of 2024, driving emeritus professor Timm Hoffman and his team to abandon the hilly study site a few clicks west of the |Ai-|Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park that straddles the South Africa-Namibia border along the Orange River.
Coming soon in Mongabay.