Chapter 1 DUST BOWL
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.
Chapter 2 GOLDEN THREADS
Natural grasslands don’t just provide the grazing for Africa’s cattle, sheep and goats, which puts food on our tables. They mop excess carbon from the atmosphere which helps regulate the climate at a planetary scale. They also soak up rain and trickle-feed it into streams, rivers and groundwater, which ultimately flows out the taps in far-off cities. Custodians of grasslands — municipalities, state conservation entities, communal and private farmers — are caretakers of these vital natural ‘services’.
Coming April 2025, from the Eastern Cape Highlands and Lesotho.
Chapter 3 OIL SPILL
It’s like an oil spill, only it’s alive. It breathes, it thirsts, it eats, it breeds. It replicates itself over and over and over again. When pine, gum or wattle trees escape the domesticity of a mono crop timber plantation, they can easily run feral. Many have. Through the decades, these species have spilled over grasslands, clogged up wetlands, and collected in thick eddies in streams and along river banks. These insatiable trees drink vast amounts of the country’s already scarce water supply. They supercharge wildfires. They poison the soil around their feet. They cause mass die-offs of the species that lived in their place before they came.
Coming April 2025
Chapter 4 CHICKEN COOP
People who live in informal homes made of plywood or zinc sheets in ‘shanty towns’ call them ikheji yenkukhu, because these shelters are like chicken coops. It goes without saying that there’s an undertone of the indignity of living in a way that many keep their livestock. Not to mention the discomfort or the health hazards. People living in informal structures are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events: floods, urban fires, heat waves, and storms.
Coming winter 2025
Chapter 5 THE ENDLINGS
They are the last of their kind. They’re the end of their line. They are the face of the Sixth Mass Extinction. This portrait gallery is a shrine to the species whose lineages may be snuffed out in our lifetime.
Coming winter 2025