The area where baobabs are found is usually very arid and the climate not easy to grow crops in. Many of the harvesters with whom I work have fields around their villages where they do dry-land cropping for food and to supplement income. Dry-land cropping means that there is no irrigated water to the fields and they have to rely […] Continue Reading
One of the wonderful things about my job is that it is so varied, from production, to resource monitoring to community friendships. Our relationship with the harvesters starts with the headman in each village. I have had a relationship with some of the village headmen for over 10 years now. I always love visiting them and we always end […] Continue Reading
One of the villages where some of our harvesters live has a little crèche which is so needed while mothers go out to work. Yet they have so very little in the way of even basic resources for busy, active, growing little children. Recently on one of my monitoring trips, I was able to take some chairs and tables to the little […] Continue Reading
February is a wonderful time to see growing baobab fruit. They emerge from their showy white flowers in December and take six months to grow into our superfruit. In February they are still growing and the fruit are soft and green. The inside of the fruit is wet and pulpy, providing an ideal environment for the seeds to grow and […] Continue Reading
Last week I did my annual baobab fruit monitoring trip where I gather research information on a spcecific population of 40 baobab trees. This year I am looking at how much fruit each tree produces each year and how that varies from season to season and between land use types. Usually I have a field assistant whom I hire from the village, but […] Continue Reading
J Pierneef was a South African landscape artist, generally considered to be one of the best of the old South African masters. According to this website, Pierneef’s painting, The Baobab Tree (painted around1934) holds the record for most expensive South African painting sold at Bonhams in 2008 for R 11.8 million! Apparently the buyer, says a Mail & Guardian archive article from 2008, was an unidentified South African individual. A powerful painting with an […] Continue Reading
This Order was created in 2002, to be awarded to South African citizens for distinguished service. The service awarded is well above and beyond the ordinary call of duty. It is an award for exceptional and distinguished contributions in the following categories. The struggle for democracy Building democracy and human rights Nation-building Peace and security Journalism, literature, arts, culture, sport […] Continue Reading
What is a bioprospecting permit? And why is EcoProducts Bioprospecting permit such a big deal? On the 12 November 2013, EcoProducts was issued with a Bioprospecting permit from the South Africa Department of Environment Affairs. So what, you may ask, is this all about? South Africa has introduced laws that make it illegal to harvest our indigenous resources for commercial […] Continue Reading
What an honor and a delight spending time with Gillian Condy sketching baobab flowers under the boughs of the baobab trees in Limpopo. Gill is South Africa’s foremost botanical artist and works for the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) as a resident botanical artist. Her award-winning works are world famous and include a plate in Highgrove Florilegium, a two volume book on […] Continue Reading
